Lectures Gilles Deleuze

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The Body, the Meat and the Spirit: Becoming Animal

The body is the Figure, or rather the material of the Figure. Above all the
material of the Figure is not to be confused with the material structure in space
which is separate from this. The body is a Figure, not structure. Conversely, the
Figure being a body, is not a face and does not even have a face. It has a head,
because the head is an integral part of the body. It can even be reduced to its
head. As a portraitist, Francis Bacon is a painter of heads and not of faces.
There is a big difference between the two. For the face is a structured spatial
organization which covers the head, while the head is an adjunct of the body,
even though it is its top. It is not that it lacks a spirit, but it is a spirit which is
body, corporeal and vital breath, an animal spirit; it is the animal spirit of man:
a pig-spirit, a buffalo-spirit, a dog-spirit, a bat-spirit... This means that Bacon is
pursuing a very special project as a portraitist: unmaking the face,
rediscovering or pulling up the head beneath the face.

The deformations which bodies undergo are also the animal features of the
head. There is in no way a correspondence between animal forms and forms of
the face. In fact, the face has lost its form in the process of being subjected to
operations of cleaning and brushing which disorganize it and make a head
burgeon in its place. And the marks or features of animality are moreover not
animal forms, but rather spirits which haunt the cleaned parts, which draw out
the head, individualizing and qualifying the head without a face.1 As
procedures used by Bacon, cleaning and features here assume a specific
meaning. What happens is that the man's head is replaced by an animal; but
this is not the animal as form, it is the animal as outline, for example the
trembling outline of a bird which spirals over the cleaned area, while the
simulacra of face portraits, beside it, serve only as 'witness' (as in the 1976
triptych). What happens is that an animal, a real dog for example, is outlined as
the shadow of its master; or conversely the shadow of the man assumes an
autonomous and unspecified animal existence. The shadow escapes from the
body like an animal to which we give shelter. Instead of formal
correspondences, what Bacon's painting constitutes is a zone of the
indiscernible, of the undecidable, between man and animal. Man becomes
animal, but he does not become so without the animal simultaneously
becoming spirit, the spirit of man, the physical spirit of man presented in the
mirror as Eumenides or fate. This is never a combination of forms, it is rather a
common fact: the common fact of man and animal. To the point that Bacon's

most isolated Figure is to begin with a coupled figure, man coupled with his
animal in an underlying act of bullfighting.

This objective zone of the indiscernible was to start with the whole body, but
the body in terms of flesh or meat. Without any doubt the body also has bones,
but bones are only spatial structure. Distinctions have often been made
between flesh and bones, and even between relationships of flesh and bone.
The body only reveals itself when it ceases to be supported by the bones, when
the flesh ceases to cover the bones, when they exist in a mutual relation, but
each independently, the bones as the material structure of the body, the flesh
as the corporeal material of the Figure. Bacon admires Edgar Degas' young
woman, After the Bath (1885-86), whose broken-up spinal column seems to
emerge from the flesh, while the flesh is made the more vulnerable and agile,
more acrobatic.2 In quite a different composition, Bacon painted a similar
spinal column for a Figure contorted upside-down. This pictorial tension
between flesh and bones is something which has to be achieved. Now to be
specific it is meat which brings about this tension in the painting, not least
through the splendor of the colours. Meat is that state of the body where the
flesh and the bones confront one another locally, instead of entering into
composition structurally. Likewise the mouth and the teeth, which are little
bones. In meat, it is as if the flesh drops from the bones, while the bones rise
above the flesh. This is what is specific to bacon, as opposed to Rembrandt or
Soutine. If there is some kind of 'interpretation' of the body in Bacon we find it
in his fondness for painting lying figures whose raised arm or thigh stands in for
a bone, in such a way that the lulled flesh seems to descend or fall from it.
Thus in the central panel of the 1968 triptych, the two sleeping twins flanked
by witnesses to the animal spirits; but also the series of the sleeping man with
his arms up, of the sleeping woman with the vertical leg, and the sleeping or
drugged woman with the raised thighs. Far beyond any apparent sadism, the
bones are like gymnastic apparatus (a skeleton-like frame) whose flesh is the
acrobat. The athleticism of the body is naturally prolonged in this acrobatics of
the flesh. We shall see the importance of falling in Bacon's works. But already
in the crucifixions what interests him is the droop, and the sinking head which
reveals the flesh. And in those of 1962 and 1965, in the context of an armchaircross or a trail of bones, we can literally see the flesh dropping from the bones.
For Bacon as for Franz Kafka, the spinal column becomes nothing but the sword
under the skin which a torturer has slid inside the body of an innocent sleeper.3
It sometimes even happens that there is a bone just added on in a random
spray of paint as an afterthought[...]

But is it possible to say the same thing, exactly the same thing, about meat
and the head, namely that it is the objective zone of indecision of mean and of
animals? Can one say objectively that the head is meat (as much as the meat
is spirit)? Of all the parts of the body, is not the head the one closest to the
bones? look at El Greco, and once more at Chaim Soutine. Now it looks as if
Bacon does not experience the head like that. The bone belongs to the face,
not to the head. For Bacon there is no death's head. The head is deboned
rather than bony. Yet it is not at all soft, but firm. The head is flesh, and the
mask itself is not mortuary, it is a firm block of flesh which separates itself from
the bones; these are the studies of a portrait of William Blake. Bacon's own
head is flesh haunted by a very beautiful gaze without an orbit. And this is how
he honours Rembrandt, for having been able to paint a last self-portrait like
such a block of flesh without orbits.4 Throughout Bacon's oeuvre, the headmeat relation goes through intensive shifts of scale which make it more and
more intimate. At first the meat (flesh on one side, bone on the other) is set on
the edge of the track or the balustrade where the figure-head stands; but it is
also the thick, fleshly rain surrounding the head which unmakes its face
beneath the umbrella. The scream which issues from the Pope's mouth, the pity
which issues from his eyes has meat as its object. Then the meat has a head
whereby it flees and descends from the cross, as in the two earlier crucifixions.
Later on all of Bacon's series of heads will also declare their identification with
meat, and among the finest are those which are painted in the colours of meat,
red and blue. Finally, the meat is itself a head, and the head has become the
de-localized force of meat, as in the Fragment of a crucifixion of 1950,j where
all the meat is screaming, with a dog spirit looking down from the top of the
cross. How we know that Bacon does not like this painting is the simplicity of
the manifest procedure; all he had to do was dig out a mouth in the middle of
the meat. The affinity of the mouth, and of the mouth's interior, with meat still
has to be made plain, and it has to reach that point where it has become
strictly the section of a cut artery, or even of a jacket sleeve which stands in as
an artery, as in the blood-soaked packages of the Sweeney Agonistes triptych.
Then the mouth acquires that power of de-localization which turns all of the
meat into a head without a face. It is no longer a specific organ, but the hole
through which the entire body escapes, and through which the flesh drops
(what is required for this procedure of loose involuntary marks). What Bacon
calls 'the scream' is the immeasurable pity which extends to the meat.

Notes

1.Felix Guattari has analysed these phenomena of facial disorganization: the

'features of faceness' are released and become equally well the features of the

head's animality. See Felix Guattari, L'Inconscient machinique (Paris: Editions

Recherches, 1979) p. 75.

2.David Sylvester, L'art de l'impossible: entretiens avec Francis Bacon trans.

Michel Leiris and Michael Pappiatt (Geneva: editions d'Art Albert Skira, 1976) p.
92-94.

3.Franz Kafka, "Das Schwert" (The Sword) in Max Brod (ed.) The Diaries of Franz
Kafka 1914-23 trans. Martin Greenberg and H Ardent Schacken (New York:
Schoken Books, 1949) p. 109-110

4.David Sylvester, L'art de l'impossible op.cit., p. 114

From Tracy Warr (ed.) The Artist's Body, Translated by Liz Heron, Phaidon Press,
London 2000, p. 197. Originally published as "Le corps, la viande et l'espirit, le
devenir-animal" in Francis Bacon (Paris; Editions de la difference, 1981) p. 1922.
Capitalism: A Very Special Delirium
QUESTION: When you describe capitalism, you say: "There isn't the slightest
operation, the slightest industrial or financial mechanism that does not reveal
the dementia of the capitalist machine and the pathological character of its
rationality (not at all a false rationality, but a true rationality of *this*
pathology, of *this madness*, for the machine does work, be sure of it). There
is no danger of this machine going mad, it has been mad from the beginning
and that's where its rationality comes from. Does this mean that after this
"abnormal" society, or outside of it, there can be a "normal" society?

GILLES DELEUZE: We do not use the terms "normal" or "abnormal". All societies
are rational and irrational at the same time. They are perforce rational in their
mechanisms, their cogs and wheels, their connecting systems, and even by the
place they assign to the irrational. Yet all this presupposes codes or axioms
which are not the products of chance, but which are not intrinsically rational
either. It's like theology: everything about it is rational if you accept sin,
immaculate conception, incarnation. Reason is always a region cut out of the
irrational -- not sheltered from the irrational at all, but a region traversed by the
irrational and defined only by a certain type of relation between irrational

factors. Underneath all reason lies delirium, drift. Everything is rational in

capitalism, except capital or capitalism itself. The stock market is certainly
rational; one can understand it, study it, the capitalists know how to use it, and
yet it is completely delirious, it's mad. It is in this sense that we say: the
rational is always the rationality of an irrational. Something that hasn't been
adequately discussed about Marx's *Capital* is the extent to which he is
fascinated by capitalists mechanisms, precisely because the system is
demented, yet works very well at the same time. So what is rational in a
society? It is -- the interests being defined in the framework of this society -the way people pursue those interests, their realisation. But down below, there
are desires, investments of desire that cannot be confused with the
investments of interest, and on which interests depend in their determination
and distribution: an enormous flux, all kinds of libidinal-unconscious flows that
make up the delirium of this society. The true story is the history of desire. A
capitalist, or today's technocrat, does not desire in the same way as a slave
merchant or official of the ancient Chinese empire would. That people in a
society desire repression, both for others and *for themselves*, that there are
always people who want to bug others and who have the opportunity to do so,
the "right" to do so, it is this that reveals the problem of a deep link between
libidinal desire and the social domain. A "disinterested" love for the oppressive
machine: Nietzsche said some beautiful things about this permanent triumph of
slaves, on how the embittered, the depressed and the weak, impose their
mode of life upon us all.

Q: So what is specific to capitalism in all this?

GD: Are delirium and interest, or rather desire and reason, distributed in a
completely new, particularly "abnormal" way in capitalism? I believe so.
Capital, or money, is at such a level of insanity that psychiatry has but one
clinical equivalent: the terminal stage. It is too complicated to describe here,
but one detail should be mentioned. In other societies, there is exploitation,
there are also scandals and secrets, but that is part of the "code", there are
even explicitly secret codes. With capitalism, it is very different: nothing is
secret, at least in principle and according to the code (this is why capitalism is
"democratic" and can "publicize" itself, even in a juridical sense). And yet
nothing is admissible. Legality itself is inadmissible. By contrast to other
societies, it is a regime born of the public *and* the admissible. A very special
delirium inherent to the regime of money. Take what are called scandals today:
newspapers talk a lot about them, some people pretend to defend themselves,
others go on the attack, yet it would be hard to find anything illegal in terms of
the capitalist regime. The prime minister's tax returns, real estate deals,

pressure groups, and more generally the economical and financial mechanisms
of capital -- in sum, everything is legal, except for little blunders, what is more,
everything is public, yet nothing is admissible. If the left was "reasonable," it
would content itself with vulgarizing economic and financial mechanisms.
There's no need to publicize what is private, just make sure that what is already
public is being admitted publicly. One would find oneself in a state of dementia
without equivalent in the hospitals.

Instead, one talks of "ideology". But ideology has no importance whatsoever:

what matters is not ideology, not even the "economic-ideological" distinction or
opposition, but the *organisation of power*. Because organization of power-that is, the manner in which desire is already in the economic, in which libido
invests the economic -- haunts the economic and nourishes political forms of
repression.

Q: So is ideology a trompe l'oeil?

GD: Not at all. To say "ideology is a trompe l'oeil, " that's still the traditional
thesis. One puts the infrastructure on one side-- the economic, the serious-and on the other, the superstructure, of which ideology is a part, thus rejecting
the phenomena of desire in ideology. It's a perfect way to ignore how desire
works within the infrastructure, how it invests in it, how it takes part in it, how,
in this respect, it organizes power and the repressive system. We do not say:
ideology is a trompe l'oeil (or a concept that refers to certain illusions) We say:
there is no ideology, it is an illusion. That's why it suits orthodox Marxism.

Postscript on the Societies of Control

1. Historical

Foucault located the disciplinary societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries; they reach their height at the outset of the twentieth. They initiate
the organization of vast spaces of enclosure. The individual never ceases
passing from one closed environment to another, each having its own laws:
first the family; then the school ("you are no longer in your family"); then the
barracks ("you are no longer at school"); then the factory; from time to time
the hospital; possibly the prison, the preeminent instance of the enclosed

environment. It's the prison that serves as the analogical model: at the sight of
some laborers, the heroine of Rossellini's Europa '51 could exclaim, "I thought I
was seeing convicts."

Foucault has brilliantly analyzed the ideal project of these environments of

enclosure, particularly visible within the factory: to concentrate; to distribute in
space; to order in time; to compose a productive force within the dimension of
space-time whose effect will be greater than the sum of its component forces.
But what Foucault recognized as well was the transience of this model: it
succeeded that of the societies of sovereignty, the goal and functions of which
were something quite different (to tax rather than to organize production, to
rule on death rather than to administer life); the transition took place over
time, and Napoleon seemed to effect the large-scale conversion from one
society to the other. But in their turn the disciplines underwent a crisis to the
benefit of new forces that were gradually instituted and which accelerated after
World War II: a disciplinary society was what we already no longer were, what
we had ceased to be.

We are in a generalized crisis in relation to all the environments of enclosure-prison, hospital, factory, school, family. The family is an "interior," in crisis like
all other interiors--scholarly, professional, etc. The administrations in charge
never cease announcing supposedly necessary reforms: to reform schools, to
reform industries, hospitals, the armed forces, prisons. But everyone knows
that these institutions are finished, whatever the length of their expiration
periods. It's only a matter of administering their last rites and of keeping
people employed until the installation of the new forces knocking at the door.
These are the societies of control, which are in the process of replacing
disciplinary societies. "Control" is the name Burroughs proposes as a term for
the new monster, one that Foucault recognizes as our immediate future. Paul
Virilio also is continually analyzing the ultrarapid forms of free-floating control
that replaced the old disciplines operating in the time frame of a closed
system. There is no need to invoke the extraordinary pharmaceutical
productions, the molecular engineering, the genetic manipulations, although
these are slated to enter the new process. There is no need to ask which is the
toughest regime, for it's within each of them that liberating and enslaving
forces confront one another. For example, in the crisis of the hospital as
environment of enclosure, neighborhood clinics, hospices, and day care could
at first express new freedom, but they could participate as well in mechanisms
of control that are equal to the harshest of confinements. There is no need to
fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.

2. Logic

The different internments of spaces of enclosure through which the individual

passes are independent variables: each time one us supposed to start from
zero, and although a common language for all these places exists, it is
analogical. One the other hand, the different control mechanisms are
inseparable variations, forming a system of variable geometry the language of
which is numerical (which doesn't necessarily mean binary). Enclosures are
molds, distinct castings, but controls are a modulation, like a self-deforming
cast that will continuously change from one moment to the other, or like a
sieve whose mesh will transmute from point to point.

This is obvious in the matter of salaries: the factory was a body that contained
its internal forces at the level of equilibrium, the highest possible in terms of
production, the lowest possible in terms of wages; but in a society of control,
the corporation has replaced the factory, and the corporation is a spirit, a gas.
Of course the factory was already familiar with the system of bonuses, but the
corporation works more deeply to impose a modulation of each salary, in states
of perpetual metastability that operate through challenges, contests, and
highly comic group sessions. If the most idiotic television game shows are so
successful, it's because they express the corporate situation with great
precision. The factory constituted individuals as a single body to the double
advantage of the boss who surveyed each element within the mass and the
unions who mobilized a mass resistance; but the corporation constantly
presents the brashest rivalry as a healthy form of emulation, an excellent
motivational force that opposes individuals against one another and runs
through each, dividing each within. The modulating principle of "salary
according to merit" has not failed to tempt national education itself. Indeed,
just as the corporation replaces the factory, perpetual training tends to replace
the school, and continuous control to replace the examination. Which is the
surest way of delivering the school over to the corporation.

In the disciplinary societies one was always starting again (from school to the
barracks, from the barracks to the factory), while in the societies of control one
is never finished with anything--the corporation, the educational system, the
armed services being metastable states coexisting in one and the same
modulation, like a universal system of deformation. In The Trial, Kafka, who had
already placed himself at the pivotal point between two types of social

formation, described the most fearsome of judicial forms. The apparent

acquittal of the disciplinary societies (between two incarcerations); and the
limitless postponements of the societies of control (in continuous variation) are
two very different modes of juridicial life, and if our law is hesitant, itself in
crisis, it's because we are leaving one in order to enter the other. The
disciplinary societies have two poles: the signature that designates the
individual, and the number or administrative numeration that indicates his or
her position within a mass. This is because the disciplines never saw any
incompatibility between these two, and because at the same time power
individualizes and masses together, that is, constitutes those over whom it
exercises power into a body and molds the individuality of each member of that
body. (Foucault saw the origin of this double charge in the pastoral power of the
priest--the flock and each of its animals--but civil power moves in turn and by
other means to make itself lay "priest.") In the societies of control, on the other
hand, what is important is no longer either a signature or a number, but a
code: the code is a password, while on the other hand disciplinary societies are
regulated by watchwords (as much from the point of view of integration as
from that of resistance). The numerical language of control is made of codes
that mark access to information, or reject it. We no longer find ourselves
dealing with the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become "dividuals," and
masses, samples, data, markets, or "banks." Perhaps it is money that
expresses the distinction between the two societies best, since discipline
always referred back to minted money that locks gold as numerical standard,
while control relates to floating rates of exchange, modulated according to a
rate established by a set of standard currencies. The old monetary mole is the
animal of the space of enclosure, but the serpent is that of the societies of
control. We have passed from one animal to the other, from the mole to the
serpent, in the system under which we live, but also in our manner of living and
in our relations with others. The disciplinary man was a discontinuous producer
of energy, but the man of control is undulatory, in orbit, in a continuous
network. Everywhere surfing has already replaced the older sports.

Types of machines are easily matched with each type of society--not that
machines are determining, but because they express those social forms
capable of generating them and using them. The old societies of sovereignty
made use of simple machines--levers, pulleys, clocks; but the recent
disciplinary societies equipped themselves with machines involving energy,
with the passive danger of entropy and the active danger of sabotage; the
societies of control operate with machines of a third type, computers, whose
passive danger is jamming and whose active one is piracy or the introduction
of viruses. This technological evolution must be, even more profoundly, a
mutation of capitalism, an already well-known or familiar mutation that can be
summed up as follows: nineteenth-century capitalism is a capitalism of

concentration, for production and for property. It therefore erects a factory as a

space of enclosure, the capitalist being the owner of the means of production
but also, progressively, the owner of other spaces conceived through analogy
(the worker's familial house, the school). As for markets, they are conquered
sometimes by specialization, sometimes by colonization, sometimes by
lowering the costs of production. But in the present situation, capitalism is no
longer involved in production, which it often relegates to the Third World, even
for the complex forms of textiles, metallurgy, or oil production. It's a capitalism
of higher-order production. It no-longer buys raw materials and no longer sells
the finished products: it buys the finished products or assembles parts. What it
wants to sell is services but what it wants to buy is stocks. This is no longer a
capitalism for production but for the product, which is to say, for being sold or
marketed. Thus is essentially dispersive, and the factory has given way to the
corporation. The family, the school, the army, the factory are no longer the
distinct analogical spaces that converge towards an owner--state or private
power--but coded figures--deformable and transformable--of a single
corporation that now has only stockholders. Even art has left the spaces of
enclosure in order to enter into the open circuits of the bank. The conquests of
the market are made by grabbing control and no longer by disciplinary training,
by fixing the exchange rate much more than by lowering costs, by
transformation of the product more than by specialization of production.
Corruption thereby gains a new power. Marketing has become the center or the
"soul" of the corporation. We are taught that corporations have a soul, which is
the most terrifying news in the world. The operation of markets is now the
instrument of social control and forms the impudent breed of our masters.
Control is short-term and of rapid rates of turnover, but also continuous and
without limit, while discipline was of long duration, infinite and discontinuous.
Man is no longer man enclosed, but man in debt. It is true that capitalism has
retained as a constant the extreme poverty of three-quarters of humanity, too
poor for debt, too numerous for confinement: control will not only have to deal
with erosions of frontiers but with the explosions within shanty towns or
ghettos.

3. Program

The conception of a control mechanism, giving the position of any element

within an open environment at any given instant (whether animal in a reserve
or human in a corporation, as with an electronic collar), is not necessarily one
of science fiction. F lix Guattari has imagined a city where one would be able to
leave one's apartment, one's street, one's neighborhood, thanks to one's
(dividual) electronic card that raises a given barrier; but the card could just as

easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours; what counts is not
the barrier but the computer that tracks each person's position--licit or illicit-and effects a universal modulation.

The socio-technological study of the mechanisms of control, grasped at their

inception, would have to be categorical and to describe what is already in the
process of substitution for the disciplinary sites of enclosure, whose crisis is
everywhere proclaimed. It may be that older methods, borrowed from the
former societies of sovereignty, will return to the fore, but with the necessary
modifications. What counts is that we are at the beginning of something. In the
prison system: the attempt to find penalties of "substitution," at least for petty
crimes, and the use of electronic collars that force the convicted person to stay
at home during certain hours. For the school system: continuous forms of
control, and the effect on the school of perpetual training, the corresponding
abandonment of all university research, the introduction of the "corporation" at
all levels of schooling. For the hospital system: the new medicine "without
doctor or patient" that singles out potential sick people and subjects at risk,
which in no way attests to individuation--as they say--but substitutes for the
individual or numerical body the code of a "dividual" material to be controlled.
In the corporate system: new ways of handling money, profits, and humans
that no longer pass through the old factory form. These are very small
examples, but ones that will allow for better understanding of what is meant by
the crisis of the institutions, which is to say, the progressive and dispersed
installation of a new system of domination. One of the most important
questions will concern the ineptitude of the unions: tied to the whole of their
history of struggle against the disciplines or within the spaces of enclosure, will
they be able to adapt themselves or will they give way to new forms of
resistance against the societies of control? Can we already grasp the rough
outlines of the coming forms, capable of threatening the joys of marketing?
Many young people strangely boast of being "motivated"; they re-request
apprenticeships and permanent training. It's up to them to discover what
they're being made to serve, just as their elders discovered, not without
difficulty, the telos of the disciplines. The coils of a serpent are even more
complex that the burrows of a molehill.

Theory of Multiplicities in Bergson

... I wanted to propose to you an investigation [recherche] into the history of a
word, a still very partial, very localized history. That word is multiplicity. There
is a very current use of multiplicity: for example, I say: a multiplicity of
numbers, a multiplicity of acts, a multiplicity of states of consciousness, a

multiplicity of shocks [branlements]. Here multiplicity is employed as a

barely nominalized adjective. And it's true that Bergson often expressed
himself thus. But at other times, the word multiplicity is employed in the
strong sense, as a true substantive, thus, from the second chapter of Time and
Free Will onward, the number is a multiplicity, which does not mean the same
thing at all as a multiplicity of numbers.

Why do we feel that this use of multiplicity, as a substantive, is at once unusual

and important? (The concept of multiplicity, Time and Free Will 224-26) It's
because, so long as we employ the adjective multiple, we only think a
predicate that we necessarily place in a relation of opposition and
complementarity with the predicate ONE: the one and the multiple, the thing is
one or multiple, and it's even one and multiple. On the contrary, when we
employ the substantive multiplicity, we already indicate thereby that we have
surpassed [dpass] the opposition of predicates one/multiple, that we are
already set up on a completely different terrain, and on this terrain we are
necessarily led to distinguish types of multiplicity. In other words, the very
notion of multiplicity taken as a substantive implies a displacement of all of
thought: for the dialectical opposition of the one and the multiple, we
substitute the typological difference between multiplicities. And this is exactly
what Bergson does: throughout all his work he continually denounces the
dialectic as an abstract thought, as a false movement that goes from one
opposite to the other, from the one to the multiple and from the same to the
one, but which thus always lets the essence of the thing escape, that is the
how many, the poson [Greek term for how much]. That's why in chapter
three of Creative Evolution he will reject the question: is lan vital one or
multiple? For lan vital is like duration, it's neither one nor multiple, it's a type
of multiplicity. Even further: the predicates one and multiple depend upon the
notion of multiplicity, and only agree precisely with the other type of
multiplicity, that is to say with the multiplicity that is distinguished from that of
duration or lan vital: Abstract unity and abstract multiplicity are
determinations of space or categories of the understanding (Creative
Evolution 280-81).

Therefore there are two types of multiplicity: one is called multiplicity of

juxtaposition, numerical multiplicity, distinct multiplicity, actual multiplicity,
material multiplicity, and for predicates it has, we will see, the following: the
one and the multiple at once. The other: multiplicity of penetration, qualitative
multiplicity, confused multiplicity, virtual multiplicity, organized multiplicity,
and it rejects the predicate of the one as well as that of the same. Obviously it's
easy to recognize behind this distinction between two multiplicities the

distinction between space and duration; but what's important is the fact that,
in the second chapter of Time and Free Will, the space/duration theme is only
introduced as a function of the prior and more profound theme of the two
multiplicities: there are two quite different kinds of multiplicity, the numerical
multiplicity that implies space as one of its conditions, and the qualitative
multiplicity that implies duration as one of its conditions. Note: Numerical
multiplicities have two dimensions: space and time; the others: duration and
pre-spatial extension.

Now Bergson begins with a study of numerical multiplicities. And his study, I
believe, includes a very original principle: not that there was a multiplicity of
numbers, but each number is a multiplicity, even unity [unit] is a multiplicity.
And from this three theses flow [dcoule], theses that I will only summarize:
1. The reduction of number to exclusively cardinal notions: the number as
collection of units [units], and the ordinal definition of the number of a
collection is purely extrinsic or nominal, counting having no other goal than
finding the name of the number that was already thought.
2. Space as condition of number, even if only an ideal space, the time that
arises in the ordinal series arising only secondarily, and as spatialized time,
that is to say as space of succession.
3. The divisibility of the unit; for a number is a unity only by virtue of the
cardinal colligation, that is to say the simple act of the intelligence that
considers the collection as a whole; but not only does the colligation bear on a
plurality of units, each of these units is one only by virtue of the simple act that
grasps it, and on the contrary is multiple in itself by virtue of its subdivisions
upon which the colligation bears. It's in this sense that every number is a
distinct multiplicity. And two essential consequences arise from this: at once
that the one and the multiple belong to numerical multiplicities, and also the
discontinuous and the continuous. The one or discontinuous qualifies the
indivisible act by which one conceives one number, then another, the multiple
or continuous qualifying on the contrary the (infinitely divisible) matter
colligated by this act.

There we are, how numerical multiplicities are defined, and in a certain way
these are the ones that engender space: Time and Free Will, page 91-92.
But there is something quite odd. Time and Free Will appears in 1889. In 1891
Husserl's Philosophie der Arithmetik appears. There Husserl also proposes a
theory of number: he there explicitly affirms the exclusively cardinal character

of number, the colligation as synthesis of number and the divisible character of

the unit. If he differs from Bergson, it's only on the relation of the colligation to
space, Husserl thinking that the colligation is independent of spatial intuition;
but even this difference is seriously mitigated if one considers the notion of
ideal space in Bergson, space being in no way a property of things but a
scheme of action, that is to say an original and irreducible intellectual synthesis
(cf. Matter & Memory 210-11). So there is an astonishing parallelism.
Furthermore, Husserl in turn considers number as a type of multiplicity.

Furthermore, Husserl opposes this type of multiplicity that is number to another

type: when I enter a room and see that there are lots of people, when I look
at the sky and see lots of stars, or lots of trees in the forest, or a line of
columns in a temple. There, actually, there is no numerical multiplicity: it's in
its very looming up [surgissement] that a sensorial aggregate presents a mark
that makes it recognizable as a multiplicity, and as a multiplicity of a totally
different type than the numerical multiplicity, without any explicit colligation:
this is an implied multiplicity, a qualitative multiplicity. Husserl speaks of
quasi-qualitative characteristics, or of an organized multiplicity, or of figural
factors.

It's a property of the Whole, which, as it's too easy to say, is in no way
independent of its elements, but which has complex relations with its elements
that are completely different than those a numerical collection has with its
elements. And Husserl doesn't fail to cite the example of melody. It's quite
evident that Husserl here agrees with the work of his contemporary Ehrenfels
who, in 1890, spoke of Gestalt qualities, distinct from the qualities proper to
the elements, of another order than those qualities, and above all and explicitly
the work of Stumpf who, in 1885, invoked the notion of Verschmelzung to
designate a sort of passive (non-intellectual) synthesis, the apprehension of
qualities of an order superior to that of the elements.

Thus there we have what the non-numerical multiplicity is. Now this seems
quite far from Bergson. And yet it's not so: the strokes of the clock, in chapter
two of Time and Free Will, can enter into a numerical multiplicity, but when I
am distracted, what happens? They are based in a non-numerical qualitative
multiplicity. Multiplicity of fusion, of interpenetration. It's true that in Bergson it
involves a fusion, but there's nothing of the kind in Husserl or Stumpf, who
observe that the more clearly the elements, the notes of a melody are
perceived, the more forcefully the quality of the set [ensemble] affirms itself.

On Kant
Synthesis and Time

We are returning to Kant. May this be an occasion for you to skim, read or reread The Critique of Pure Reason. There is no doubt that a tremendous event in
philosophy happens with this idea of critique. In going into it, ourselves, or in
going back into it, I had stopped reading it a very long time ago and I read it
again for you, it must be said that it is a completely stifling philosophy. It's an
excessive atmosphere, but if one holds up, and the important thing above all is
not to understand, the important thing is to take on the rhythm of a given man,
a given writer, a given philosopher, if one holds up, all this northern fog which
lands on top of us starts to dissipate, and underneath there is an amazing
architecture. When I said to you that a great philosopher is nevertheless
someone who invents concepts, in Kant's case, in this fog, there functions a
sort of thinking machine, a sort of creation of concepts that is absolutely
frightening. We can try to say that all of the creations and novelties that
Kantianism will bring to philosophy turn on a certain problem of time and an
entirely new conception of time, a conception of which we can say that its
elaboration by Kant will be decisive for all that happened afterwards, which is
to say we will try to determine a sort of modern consciousness of time in
opposition to a classical or ancient consciousness of time. Why it is that it was
Kant who created the philosophical concepts of this new consciousness of time,
making his philosophical expression possible, does not concern us or in any
case does not interest me, but what I would like to say is that it is indeed this
sort of consciousness of time which takes on a philosophical status in Kant, and
which is completely new. I will proceed by numbered points because I'm always
working with the idea that to each point corresponds a type of concept, and
once again, I will be happy if you grant me at the end of these lessons that
philosophers are precisely this, that they are no less creative than painters or
musicians, simply that they create in a determinable domain that is the
creation of concepts. Firstly, what does Kant understand by the a priori which
he opposes to the a posteriori? These are common terms. In some cases new
words must be invented, and this happens with Kant when he creates the
notion of the transcendental, which is a very strange notion, transcendental
subject... no doubt you will tell me that the word existed before, but it was
rarely used and it marked no difference from the ordinary word transcendent,
whereas Kant gives it a very special sense: the transcendental subject, he
almost created a word... in the case of the a priori and the a posteriori he
borrows a word, but he completely renews its sense. A priori, in the first place,
means: independent of experience, that which does not depend on experience.

In opposition to a posteriori which means: given or givable in experience. What

things are a priori? Note that I don't ask myself: does the a priori exist, which is
to say, are there things independent of experience? The question of existence
is secondary, we must first know what a thing is in order to be able to say and
reply to the question of existence: does it exist or not? I'm saying that if it
exists, what is something that would be independent of experience? Thus not
givable in experience. Nothing complicated so far, Kant takes this up very
quickly, the a priori in this sense is the universal and the necessary. Everything
that is necessary and universal is said to be a priori. Why? It certainly fulfills
the first condition of the a priori: not given in experience, because, by
definition, experience only gives me the particular and the contingent. With
expressions of universality and necessity it is always so necessarily, as also
with certain uses of the future tense, or expressions of the type "each time":
each time I bring water to 100 degrees it will boil. Philosophers have said this
for a very long time: there is something in this which is not given in experience.
What is it? It's the expressions: "always", "necessarily", or even the future
tense. What experience has given me is, strictly speaking, that each time I
have effectively brought water to 100 degrees, it has boiled, but in the formula
"water necessarily boils at 100 degrees", the necessarily is not an object of
experience. Similarly if I say "all objects of experience" - do I have the right to
say this? We don't even know if "all objects of experience" is not nonsensical.
Supposing that it is not nonsensical, "all objects of experience" are not given in
experience, for the simple reason that experience is ???? Thus you can always
make a summation, a sum of the objects you have experienced, but this sum is
indefinite.
Thus the universal and the necessary by definition are not givable in an
experience since an experience is always particular and contingent. So that
gives us a second determination of the a priori. The a priori was first of all what
is independent of experience, in the second place it is what is universal and
necessary.
Third point: how can this universal and necessary be defined? There is already
something extremely delicate here. To say that something is independent of
experience doesn't prevent this something perhaps being applied to experience
and only to it. The question of application is entirely different. When I say
"water will always come to a boil at 100 degrees", I don't know where this idea
of "always" comes from, since it is not given to me in experience, I don't know
where this idea of necessity comes from, since it is not given to me in
experience, this doesn't prevent the fact that "always" is applied to water,
boiling, 100 degrees, all things which are given in experience. Let's suppose
then that the a priori is itself independent of experience but applies to objects
given in experience. In other words the universal and the necessary are said of
objects of experience; perhaps they are said of other things as well, but they
are said of objects of experience. What is universal and necessary? What would

these universals and necessaries be which can be said of objects of

experience? Here is introduced a notion which is famous in philosophy, that of
the category. A certain number of philosophers have even made or proposed
what are called tables of categories. There is a famous table of categories in
Aristotle. With Kant, who did not escape a strong influence from Aristotle, there
will be another table of categories. What is a category? A category is not just
anything in philosophy, it's as rigorous as a scientific notion in another domain.
What is called a category is a universal predicate, or universal attribute if you
want. Which is to say a predicate which is attributed to, or predicated of, or
said of any object. This notion of "any object" is bizarre. I say "the rose is red".
What is that? "The rose is red" is not complicated, it's a relation between two
concepts, the rose and red, and if I say "what is universal or necessary in that?"
I can reply: nothing. Not all objects are roses, not all roses are red. Not all reds
are the colour of roses. I would say that there is an experience of the red rose
and that this experience is particular, contingent, a posteriori like all
experience.
Compare this judgement: "the rose is red" to this other judgement: "the object
has a cause" or even "the rose has a cause".
I see a difference straight away, which is that the concept of rose defines what
will be called a class in so far as it is an a posteriori concept, the concept of
rose defines a class or set. Red is a property of a subset of this set, the subset
formed by red roses. I can define a set according to what it excludes and in
relation to what it excludes: all that is not a rose. The set of roses is carved out
of a broader set which is that formed by flowers, and the set of roses can be
distinguished from the rest, which is to say all the flowers which are not roses.
When I say "all objects have a cause", am I not in another domain completely?
Evidently I am, I am completely in a different domain because to have a cause
is a universal predicate which is applied to all objects of possible experience, to
the point that I don't even need to - or I believe that - but that makes no
difference because "I believe" will become an act that we will have to analyse I believe that if an unknown object emerged in experience before my eyes, this
object would not be an object if it didn't have a cause. To have a cause or to be
caused is a predicate of a wholly other type than the predicate "red". Why?
Because the predicate "to be caused" - to the point where we can wonder, after
reflection, is that really a predicate or is it something else? - the predicate "to
be caused" is predicable of any object of possible experience, to the point
where it is not going to define a set or a subset within experience because it is
strictly coextensive with the totality of possible experience.
Moreover, we must go back. When I said that the totality of possible experience
has perhaps no sense, now we have the response: the totality of possible
experience makes no sense in itself, but it is precisely to the extent that there
are predicates which are attributed to all possible objects, which are thus more

than predicates, and this is what Kant will call conditions, they are the
conditions of possible experience, it is thus via the notion of conditions of
experience that the idea of a whole of possible experience will take on a sense.
There is a whole of possible experience because there are predicates or
pseudo-predicates which are attributed to all possible objects and these
predicates are precisely what are called categories. I'll cite some examples of
categories according to Kant: unity, plurality, totality (with Kant they come in
threes).
Reality, negation, limitation.
Substance, cause, reciprocity.
I'll stop there. In what sense are these categories and not predicates of the
type red, green, etc...? They are categories or conditions of possible experience
for the simple reason that any object is only an object to the extent that it is
conceived as one, but also as multiple, having the unit parts of a multiplicity,
and in this forming a totality, any object whatever has a reality. On the other
hand, it excludes what it is not: negation, and by virtue of this it has limits:
limitation. Any object whatever is substance, any object whatever has a cause
and is itself cause of other things.
That's enough to be able to say that my notion of object is made in such a
manner that if I encountered a something which did not allow the categories be
attributed to it, I would say that it is not an object.
So there we have as a last determination of the a priori, they are the conditions
of possible experience, which is to say universal predicates as opposed to
empirical predicates or a posteriori predicates.
I could define the categories in the simplest way as being the predicates of any
object whatever. Thus you can yourselves make your list of categories
according to your mood, according to your character... what would be good
would be to see if everybody came up with the same list of categories. In any
case you do not have the right to cheat with the word. To make your list of
categories is for you to ask yourselves what is for me predicable of any object
whatever. I have already given a certain list of them, with nine categories. In
fact, for Kant, there are twelve of them, but I left three aside for later; you see:
unity, plurality, totality, affirmation, negation and limitation, substance, cause,
reciprocity or community.
To finish with this first point, I am saying that the categories, qua predicates of
any object whatever, are a priori, and they are conditions of possible
experience; understand that it is through them that the notion of possible
experience takes on a sense.

To the question: does the whole of possible experience mean something? No

meaning [sens] at all if we remain in an a posteriori approach, because in an a
posteriori approach I am led to make an addition: the roses, the flowers other
than roses, the plants which are not flowers, the animals, etc.... I could go to
infinity like that and nothing tells me that I have a whole of possible
experience. On the contrary, experience is fundamentally fragmented, it is
opposed to a totalisation. If Kant launches this very very new notion of a
totality of possible experience it is because he is in a position to define, to say:
yes, there is a level where the whole of possible experience takes on a sense, it
is precisely because there are universal predicates which are attributed to all
things, which is to say are attributed to any object whatever. Thus it is a priori
that the notion of the totality of possible experience will be founded.
Is there anything else besides the categories that can be a priori, which is to
say, universal and necessary? The reply is yes, and this other thing is space
and time. Because every object is in space and in time, or at least in time. But
you will say to me straight away, very well then, why not make a category of
them, why not add space and time as two categories? Because space and time
are also, it seems, predicates. Obviously, Kant has the most serious reasons to
not want to and he will go to great pains to distinguish the categories on the
one hand, and on the other hand space and time. There will thus be two sorts
of a priori elements: the categories and space and time. Why doesn't he want
space and time to be among the categories? I will give a reason very quickly
which will become clear afterwards: it is that the categories qua predicates of
possible experience are concepts, whereas Kant fundamentally holds that,
these are a priori representations, a priori representations or concepts, while
space and time are presentations. There you also have something very new in
philosophy, it will be Kant's work to distinguish presentation and
representation. So there will be two sorts of elements in the a priori.
My second point is Kant's importance at another level, which is the notion of
phenomenon, and that also is very important. There Kant operates a kind of
essential transformation of a word which was frequently employed previously in
philosophy. Previously philosophers spoke of phenomenon to distinguish what?
Very broadly we can say that phenomenon was something like appearance. An
appearance. The sensible, the a posteriori, what was given in experience had
the status of phenomenon or appearance, and the sensible appearance was
opposed to the intelligible essence. The intelligible essence was also the thing
such as it is in itself, it was the thing in itself, the thing itself or the thing as
thought; the thing as thought, as phenomenon, is a Greek word which precisely
designates the appearance or something we don't know yet, the thing as
thought in Greek was the noumenon, which means the "thought". I can thus
say that the whole of classical philosophy from Plato onwards seemed to
develop itself within the frame of a duality between sensible appearances and
intelligible essences. You can see clearly that this already implies a certain

status of the subject. If I say that there are appearances and that there are
essences, which are basically like the sensible and the intelligible, this implies a
certain position of the knowing subject, namely: the very notion of appearance
refers to a fundamental defect in the subject. A fundamental defect, namely:
appearance is in the end the thing such as it appears to me by virtue of my
subjective constitution which deforms it. The famous example of appearance:
the stick in water appears broken to me. It's what is called the rich domain of
sensory illusions. So much so that in order to reach the thing in itself the
subject must in fact overcome this sort of constitutive infirmity which makes it
live amongst appearances. It's Plato's theme: leave appearances to find
essences.
With Kant it's like a bolt of lightning, afterwards we can always play clever, and
even must play clever, with Kant a radically new understanding of the notion of
phenomenon emerges. Namely that the phenomenon will no longer at all be
appearance. The difference is fundamental, this idea alone was enough for
philosophy to enter into a new element, which is to say I think that if there is a
founder of phenomenology it is Kant. There is phenomenology from the
moment that the phenomenon is no longer defined as appearance but as
apparition. The difference is enormous because when I say the word apparition
I am no longer saying appearance at all, I am no longer at all opposing it to
essence. The apparition is what appears in so far as it appears. Full stop. I don't
ask myself if there is something behind, I don't ask myself if it is false or not
false. The apparition is not at all captured in the oppositional couple, in the
binary distinction where we find appearance, distinct from essence.
Phenomenology claims to be a rigorous science of the apparition as such,
which is to say asks itself the question: what can we say about the fact of
appearing? It's the opposite of a discipline of appearances. What does an
apparition refer to? The appearance is something that refers to essence in a
relation of disjunction, in a disjunctive relation, which is to say either it's
appearance or it's essence. The apparition is very different, it's something that
refers to the conditions of what appears. The conceptual landscape has literally
changed completely, the problem is absolutely no longer the same, the
problem has become phenomenological. For the disjunctive couple
appearance/essence, Kant will substitute the conjunctive couple, what
appears/conditions of apparition. Everything is new in this.
To make things a little more modern, I would just as well say: to the disjunctive
couple appearance/essence, Kant is the first who substitutes the conjunctive
couple apparition/sense, sense of the apparition, signification of the apparition.
There is no longer the essence behind the appearance, there is the sense or
non-sense of what appears. Grant me at least that even if what I say remains
just a matter of words, it's a radically new atmosphere of thought, to the point
where I can say that in this respect we are all Kantians.

It's obvious that thought, at that time, was changing elements. People had for a
long time thought in terms which didn't come from Christianity but which fit in
very well with Christianity, in the appearance/essence distinction, and towards
the end of the eighteenth century, prepared no doubt by all sorts of
movements, a radical change takes place: for the whole appearance/essence
duality which in a sense implies a degraded sensible world, which even implies
if need be original sin, is substituted a radically new type of thought: something
appears, tell me what it signifies or, and this amounts to the same thing, tell
me what its condition is.
When Freud comes up and says that there are certain phenomena which
appear in the field of consciousness, what do these phenomena refer to, Freud
is Kantian. How so? In a way that is at the same time very general but also very
rigorous, namely that, like all those of his era and since Kant we spontaneously
think in terms of the relation apparition/conditions of the apparition, or
apparition/sense of what appears, and no longer in the terms of
essence/appearance.
If you don't see the enormity of the reversal, admire the fact that the subject,
in my second couple, the subject is not at all in the same situation. In the
disjunctive couple appearance/essence, the subject is immediately condemned
to grasp appearances by virtue of a fragility which is consubstantial with it, and
the subject requires a whole method, it needs to make a whole effort to get out
of appearances and reach the essence. In the other case, what makes the
subject take on an entirely different value? It's when I say that every apparition
refers to the conditions of the appearing of the apparition, in this very
statement I am saying that these conditions belong to the being to whom the
apparition appears, in other words the subject is constitutive - and understand
this well, otherwise it's a radical misinterpretation - the subject is constitutive
not of the apparition, it is not constitutive of what appears, but it is constitutive
of the conditions under what appears to it appears to it.
I mean that the substitution of the conjunctive couple phenomena-conditions,
or apparitions-conditions ensures a promotion of the subject in so far as the
subject constitutes the very conditions of the apparition, instead of constituting
and being responsible for the limitations of appearance, or the illusions of
appearance. There is indeed a subject, Kant will say, which is subordinated to
appearances and which falls into sensory illusions; it will be called the empirical
subject, but there is another subject which is evidently neither you nor me,
which above all is not reducible to any empirical subject, which will be from
that point on named the transcendental subject for it is the unity of all the
conditions under which something appears, appears to whom? Appears to each
empirical subject. It's already beautiful as a system of ideas. I hope you can
feel its extent, it's a tremendous machine.

To finish this second point, I'll make two corrections: Kant is at the turning-point
of something, so it's more complicated than I'm making it out to be because he
keeps something of the old essence-appearance difference, and effectively he
will say all the time: do not confuse the phenomenon with the thing in itself,
the thing in itself is the pure noumenon, which is to say it is what can only be
thought, while the phenomenon is what is given in sensible experience. So he
maintains the disjunctive duality phenomenon/thing in itself, noumenon. It's
the duality of the couple appearance/essence. But he gets out of it and he is
already in another type of thought for a very simple reason for he says that the
thing in itself, it is so by nature or the noumenon - the thing in itself can be
thought, it is thus noumenon, but it cannot be known. So if it can be
determined, it is a completely different point of view than that of knowledge; so
we don't bother with it or at least we will bother about it in very special
conditions.
What counts from the point of view of knowledge and of all possible knowledge
is the other couple, apparition-conditions of appearing, conditions of the fact of
appearing.
Once again if I sum up this reversal it's the one which consists in substituting
for appearance-essence, apparition-conditions or apparition-sense of the
apparition.
If you ask me what these conditions of appearing are, fortunately we have got
somewhere because our first point gave the answer, the conditions of
appearing, which is to say the conditions of the phenomenon, in so far as the
phenomenon is what appears, we will not look for an essence behind the
phenomenon, we will seek the conditions of its apparition, and in fact the
conditions of its apparition are, the categories on one hand and on the other
space and time.
Everything which appears appears under the conditions of space and time, and
under the conditions of the categories. By this fact space and time on the one
hand and on the other the categories are the forms of all possible experience
and they belong not to things as they are in themselves, but as forms of all
phenomena, as forms of all apparition, space and time on the one hand, the
categories on the other hand are the dimensions of the transcendental subject.
Time is already completely involved here. Are there any questions?

Richard: How is the difference between the transcendental subject and the
empirical subject distributed? How is it very different from the domain of being?

Gilles: Obviously he needs another notion. We start from the idea: phenomenon
equals apparition. The phenomenon is not the appearance behind which there
would be an essence, it's what appears in so far as it appears. I can add that it
appears to someone, all experience is given to someone. All experience is
related to a subject, a subject which can be determined in space and time. It's
here and now that I put my little saucepan on to boil and light the fire. I would
say that all apparition appears to an empirical subject or to an empirical self.
But all apparition refers not to an essence behind it but to conditions which
condition its very appearing. The conditions of the apparition - these are thus
forms since apparitions appear in these forms, or under these forms - the
conditions of the apparition are space and time and the categories. In other
words space and time are the forms of representation of what appears.
Given this if the apparition presupposes conditions which are not like objective
essences behind it, but are like the conditions of its apparition to a given
empirical self, we already have no more choice: the formal conditions of all
apparition must be determined as the dimensions of a subject which conditions
the appearing of the apparition to an empirical self, this subject cannot itself be
an empirical self, it will be a universal and necessary self. It's for this subject
that Kant feels the need to forge or to extend a word which only had a very
restrained theological use till then, thus the need to invent the notion of the
transcendental, the transcendental subject being the instance which the
conditions of all apparition are related to, while the apparition itself appears to
empirical subjects. That doesn't tell you yet very well what the transcendental
subject is, you'll have to wait because it will be so involved with the problem of
time.
We just need for one little thing to suddenly become concrete, we mustn't
demand continuous concreteness. There is the concrete and the opposite of the
concrete, the true opposite of the concrete is not the abstract, it's the discrete.
Discretion is the moment of thought. My aim is to arrive at a fabulous
conception of time.

Comptesse: inaudible comment

Gilles: The synthetic a priori was my third point. We have to begin somewhere.
If I had begun there I would have needed a completely different organisation.
Quite simply it seems to me that in all I have said I have not needed to assume
synthetic judgements. Third point: what is a synthesis for Kant?
It is common to distinguish two types of judgements. Judgements which are
called analytic and judgements which are called synthetic. By definition, a

judgement is called analytic if it expresses a predicate which is already

contained in the subject, i.e. there will be an analytic relationship between two
concepts when one of these concepts is contained in the other. An example of
an analytic judgement: A is A, it's the principle of identity. When I say "A is A" I
don't go outside of concept A. I predicate A of itself, I attribute A to itself, I'm in
no danger of making a mistake. "Blue is blue", you will say to me that that
doesn't go very far, it's obvious... because when I say "Bodies are extended"
what is that? We want to reply that it's an analytic judgement. Why? Because I
couldn't have thought the concept "body" - we're not saying "thing" - without
having already included the concept of extension, thus when I say "Bodies are
extended" I am formulating an analytic judgement. I think Kant would say
something very malicious like: OK all bodies are extended is an analytic
judgement, but on the other hand "all phenomena appear in space or in
extension" is a synthetic judgement because if it is true that the concept
"extended" is in the concept "body", on the other hand the concept "extended"
is not in the concept "phenomenon" nor the concept "body" in the concept
"phenomenon". Well, let's suppose that "all bodies are extended" is an analytic
judgement. At least we can be sure of one thing which is that an analytic
judgement is perhaps useless but it's true. "A is A" is true, no one has ever
denied "A is A". In Hegelian-style dialectical contradiction no one says "A is not
A", they say "A is not non-A", but just that a thing includes in its being this nonbeing that it is not. So they take seriously the formula "A is not non-A" in saying
that the being of the thing is inseparable from the negation of the negation (is
not...not), but they don't deny at all the principle of identity.
In experience we have synthetic judgements, it's even in this way that we know
things. When I say "Oh look, the rose is red", it's an encounter. "Red", at first
glance is not contained in the concept of rose, the proof is that there are roses
which aren't red. You will say that this is stupid because isn't "red" contained in
the concept of this rose here? It gets complicated because is there a concept of
this rose here, is there a concept of the singular? We'll leave that aside. We will
say very broadly that, apparently, "the rose is red" is a synthetic judgement.
You can see how this sorts itself out. All analytic judgements are a priori, it's
independently of any experience that I can say that a thing is what it is. "A is A"
is an a priori judgement. Still at first glance, the synthetic judgement seems by
nature to be the combination of two heterogeneous concepts, the rose and the
red, it establishes a link or a synthesis between two heterogeneous concepts
and is by virtue of this a posteriori. The form of this judgement is "A is B". In a
certain way, I'll just say very quickly, classical philosophy before Kant, just as I
was saying a moment ago, is caught in the dualist couple, in the disjunctive
duality essence/appearance, classical philosophy was caught, at least in
appearance, in a certain duality: either a judgement is a priori and it is analytic,
or it is synthetic and it is empirical or a posteriori.

It became very complicated to know in what conditions an empirical judgement

could be true. There is a famous and very prodigious attempt, Leibniz' attempt,
before Kant. In order to found the notion of truth, he is led to try and show that
all judgements are analytic, we just don't know it, we believe in the existence
of synthetic judgements because we never take the analysis far enough, which
is to say to infinity, it's because of this that we believe that there are synthetic
judgements. But if we could take the analysis far enough, when we truthfully
affirm one concept of another, the affirmed concept is always interior and
contained in the one we affirm it of, to the point that - this gives Leibniz'
famous theses - Caesar crossed the Rubicon, this proposition which seems
eminently to be a synthetic proposition, implies the link between two
representations: Caesar crosses the Rubicon on such and such a date, at such a
point in space, here-and-now, which seems to be the very signature of the a
posteriori, Leibniz says that if in the concept of Caesar there was the concept
"crossing the Rubicon"... is it any accident that it's the same man who is one of
the creators of differential calculus, which is to say a mathematical form of
infinite analysis? Evidently not, it's not an accident. What does he mean when
he manages to treat "crossing the Rubicon" as a predicate which is contained in
the concept Caesar exactly as "extended" is contained in the concept body?
Obviously he too will have to engage in a quite astonishing sort of gymnastics
of concept-creation, because afterwards he will have to save freedom, he holds
to this for his own reasons, so how can Caesar be free when from the beginning
of time "he crossed the Rubicon here and now" is included in his concept? And
what does such a proposition of Leibniz's imply, namely: there are only analytic
judgements? That necessarily implies that space and time, the here-and-now
be reducible and reduced to the order of concepts. Spatio-temporal position will
be treated as a predicate, which is to say as an attributable concept.
Why does Kant hold so fiercely to the heterogeneity of space and time on the
one hand, and on the other hand the categories, i.e. a priori concepts. Precisely
because he needs there to be something which is irreducible to the order of the
concept.
Classical philosophy is a long discussion between the respective proportion of a
posteriori synthetic judgements and a priori analytic judgements. The
possibility of reducing one to the other, or else the impossibility of reducing...

Richard: How is it that we don't manage to derive the principle of identity from
experience? In the example "A is A".

Gilles: Because it's a pure empty form, A is A. A is not at all given as a

generality, it's pure thought, it's generic thought. Moreover, as soon as there is

an identity in experience, it's a temporal identity, which is to say that it's not a
necessary identity. So "A is A" is said to be a priori precisely because it is
strictly without content, it will be a rule for all possible content.
So now Kant comes along and everything happens as if he discovered a new
type, a third type of judgement, and he will have to invent the concept to
designate this third type of judgement, namely synthetic a priori judgement. In
doing so he effects an amazing forced takeover [coup de force]. For a classical
thinker, still very broadly, analytic a priori judgement, that meant something,
synthetic a priori judgement, that meant something, but synthetic a priori
judgement - that's truly a monster. So a philosopher cannot but create
monsters as new concepts. It's a prodigious monster. What on earth can it
mean? Here I will use some examples which aren't even in Kant, in order to be
more faithful, to try and be clearer than he is, because he has other things to
do.
The triangle is white. If I blithely ask you what that is you will reply it's a
synthetic a posteriori judgement. I'll reply: very good, you've passed the
course. If I say "we call triangle a figure formed by three straight lines
enclosing a space", three straight lines enclosing a space, what is that? I can
say that it is an analytic judgement. Why? Because I'm not saying anything but
"A is A". The concept of triangle is precisely three straight lines enclosing a
space. This was broadly the distribution in the world of classical philosophy, the
terminological coordinates of classical philosophy. Kant comes along and says:
if I say that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right-angles elementary geometrical proposition - what is that? Is it an a priori analytic
judgement or an a posteriori synthetic judgement? Stunned silence! And yet
this was something everybody had known for a long time, but nobody had used
this case to explode the insufficiency of certain philosophical categories, the a
priori analytic judgement and the a posteriori synthetic judgement. Here he is
in the process of finding something which really appeals to the taste of
philosophy qua philosophy, namely the simplest thing in the world which bursts
a conceptual frame. In effect this story is very curious: the three angles of the
triangle are equal to two right angles. It is the very example of what is called a
geometrical necessity. It's universal and necessary, and yet is it analytic?
As for Leibniz, he would have laughed at Kant's observation, this is why
philosophy is so good. Leibniz's simple reply is: yes of course the concept of the
triangle, if you take the analysis far enough, it's obvious that its angles being
equal to two right angles is contained in the concept. But again, under what
condition can Leibniz say that? Because he has also invented a mathematical
discipline which he has determined as already being a topology, and which
allows a sort of reduction of spatial determinations to conceptual ones. But
under what condition?

Kant began by noting the impossibility according to him of reducing spatiotemporal determinations to conceptual ones. In other words, there is an order
of space and time which is irreducible to the order of the concept. So Kant: I
say that [the equation of] the three angles of the triangle is so little contained
in the concept that to demonstrate it you have to extend a side of the triangle,
raise a parallel on the opposite side... already Leibniz would say that he doesn't
agree, and he would be right because if he accepts something here he would
be screwed, but we'll let it go, we'll go along with this attempt of Kant's. So
here is my concept: three straight lines enclosing a space. To demonstrate the
equality of three angles to two right-angles, I take for example the base of the
triangle and I extend it; at point C I raise the parallel to AB and I show that the
three angles of the triangle are equal to two right-angles. Kant tells us we
mustn't get carried away, the side didn't grow all by itself, the triangle is not a
flower, it doesn't raise a parallel to one of its sides all alone, parallel to a side of
the triangle isn't part of the concept of the triangle thus it's a synthetic
judgement. But it's a very curious type of synthetic judgement, not at all of the
"the rose is red" type, since it's a universal and necessary synthetic judgement.
How are you going to explain such a judgement?
I'll take another example. "The straight line is black". Everyone understands, no
problem: synthetic a posteriori judgement; I encounter it in experience, which
is to say I come across a straight line which has been drawn in black. I take
Euclid's definition: "The straight line is the line which is ex aequo in all its
points", it doesn't matter if you use another definition. In any case, I would say
that it's an analytic judgement, it's already contained in the concept of the
straight line, it's even the statement of the concept of straight line. And then
comes the monster, I say: "the straight line is the shortest path between two
points." Is it analytic, can I say that the shortest path is contained in the
concept "straight line"?
Once again, Leibniz would say: yes. Kant says no. Why? For several reasons. I'll
give a vulgar reason and a scholarly reason. The vulgar reason: if one looks
very closely at "the shortest", is it a predicate or an attribute? It's a question of
diagnostics. Is it something else? When I say "the straight line is the shortest
path", it's bizarre, is "the shortest" an attribute? If you managed to
demonstrate that it's an attribute, it would be via a very complex route. It
wouldn't be an attribute because "the shortest"... I'll try putting it another way:
if you want to find the straight line, take the shortest, what does that mean?
The shortest appears to be a predicate, but it's not a predicate. In fact, it's a
rule of construction. It's the rule according to which I produce in experience a
line as a straight line. You will say to me; we still have to know what "the
shortest" is... the shortest is not a predicate that I attribute to the straight line,
it's a rule of construction for constructing straight lines in experience in order
to determine a line as straight. We find this example in one of his disciples,
Salomon Mamon, a great, great philosopher. So the shortest is the rule of

construction of the line as straight, it's the means of producing in experience a

line as a straight line. What does that mean?
It's obvious that a concept does not give the rule of construction for its object.
In other words, the rule of construction is outside the concept. Once again
Leibniz would say "not at all"; if he admitted that his whole system is screwed.
At first glance the rules of construction are something very different from
concepts because the rule of construction is the rule according to which one
produces in experience an object which conforms to the concept. It's thus
obligatory that it's not in the concept, by definition. You say: "the circle is where
points are situated at an equal distance from a common point named centre",
that is the concept of circle, that doesn't give you any means of producing a
circle. We are already at the heart of the problem of time. When you say that a
straight line is a line ex aequo in all its points, you have no means of producing
a straight line in experience, you still need a rule to produce a line that is ex
aequo in all its points, you still need a rule of construction to produce a figure
such that it presents points situated at an equal distance from a common point
named centre. And when you have said that the triangle is three straight lines
enclosing a space, you have no means of producing a triangle in experience.
The rule of construction of a triangle will be something else completely which
will go via the circle, by the way. To produce a triangle you have to go via the
circle. It's bizarre.
What does Kant mean when he says it's a judgement of a synthetic kind? In
effect you will define the rule of construction of a triangle by saying that if you
give me a segment of a straight line - it assumes the straight line, that goes
without saying, and the means of producing the straight line -, if you give me a
segment of straight line, if the two end-points are taken as the centre, whether
of the same radius or varying radii, if the two circles cross, if you link the two
ends of the straight line to the point where the circles cross, if the circles are of
equal radius, this triangle will be called equilateral. (correction: if the radius is
equal to the circle). There, I have a rule of construction.
You see that there is something amazing in the a priori synthetic judgement,
it's that instead of operating a synthesis between two heterogeneous concepts,
it operates a synthesis between the concept, between a conceptual
determination, the triangle or the circle, and a group of spatio-temporal
determinations. In effect, a rule of construction is a spatio-temporal
determination. Why is it a synthesis? We have seen it, the rule of construction
fundamentally relates heterogeneous concepts. Where does this power of
necessarily relating heterogeneous concepts come from, since the only way we
thought that heterogeneous concepts could be linked was through the
contingency of experience: ah yes, this rose is red. But when I say that the
straight line is the shortest path, I claim to be saying something necessary, in
this sense a priori, it's geometrical necessity; it doesn't depend on experience.

It is said of experience, I can check on any straight line that it is in fact the
shortest path, but I don't need to. I know it from the first time, I know it at the
same time that I understand the judgement. I know that it is necessarily and
universally valid for all straight lines.
... namely what underlies the necessary relation between the concepts is a
group of spatio-temporal determinations by which one of the concepts is put
into a necessary relation with the other.
At this point my scholarly reason comes in. When I say "the straight line is the
shortest path between two points", at first glance I don't see how that gives me
the means to construct a straight line, but in fact, those who were here other
years will remember that I had tried to show something quite obvious in
geometry. Namely that "the straight line is the shortest path between two
points" is not a Euclidean-style proposition, it's an Archimedean-style
proposition because it implies a fundamental comparison between two
heterogeneous concepts, that of the straight line and that of the curve. In
effect, "the straight line is the shortest path between two points" only has a
meaning in the very precise situation of the arc of a circle and the chord. In
other words, it implies the method "the straight line is the shortest path
between two points", it's what would be called an already pre-differential
proposition referring to a pre-differential calculus which is the famous calculus
of Archimedes, the calculus of exhaustion by which one stretches a broken line
towards a curved line, to infinity, it implies the passage to the limit. That is why
the straight line is the shortest path between two points even though the curve
is not stated explicitly, the concept of the curve is not named. This judgement
is devoid of sense if we don't see that it effects a synthesis between two
concepts, the straight line and the curve, that it's uniquely in the comparison
between the straight line and the curve in the very precise Archimedean
situation that this judgement is expressed, with the passage to the limit and
exhaustion, and that Kant's response on this level is: you can clearly see that
it's not an analytic judgement because two heterogeneous concepts are... just
as in the example of triangles, once again in order to demonstrate the equality
of three angles to two right-angles, you have to erect a parallel, but the parallel
is a concept exterior to the triangle. What welds these heterogeneous concepts
together in the synthetic a priori judgement? Solely an operation which consists
this: being a determination of space and time.
It's the determination of space and time, for example in the figure of the
circle's arc and the chord, in the elevation of the parallel to one side of the
triangle, it's this spatio-temporal determination which will make possible the
necessary link between these concepts which are nevertheless not contained in
each other, i.e. you will have at that moment a synthetic a priori judgement.

What are Kant's reasons for telling us that space and time are not reducible to
categories, that is, that there are two sorts of a priori forms: space and time on
the one hand, the categories on the other hand, or if you like space and time
are irreducible to the order of concepts. He gives lots of reasons, but he invites
us to engage in at least one thought-experiment, as it's the simplest it's the
one I'll give you. He says, you see two hands, it's the paradox of nonsuperimposable symmetrical objects. You see two hands, not only do you see
two hands but you think two hands. Let's suppose that, in reality, there are
never two hands, there are always little differences, prints, traits, from the
point of view of thought that is of no interest, you can always say that there are
no two things alike. But you can still think, you can still represent to yourself
two absolutely identical hands. Note that if I make Leibniz speak from off-stage,
he would say: not at all, you believe you think it, but you can't think it, you've
just stopped the concept. But we will accept this sort of dare of Kant's.
So you can think two hands which are strictly identical in their concept. And
however far you go in the concept, in the characteristics of the concept and
you can even think that such a line is on each. And yet... Leibniz would say: OK
maybe, but if you do that you will see that there remains only one hand. Kant
says that there is something irreducible in them. Kant says that he can think
two strictly identical hands and that there are nevertheless two of them. They
are strictly identical in their concept, each characteristic of the one has its
identical correlate in the other. And yet there are two of them. And why are
there two? One is the right hand, the other is the left. Or else one is before and
the other is after or behind. How can that be thought, in the two strictly
identical hands, that one is on the right and the other on the left? You know
that however well they can be thought as identical in each of their
characteristics, they are not superimposable. They are absolutely symmetrical
in their smallest details and yet they are not superimposable. Kant will say that
that's what finitude is.
That's what the irreducibility of space and time is. The right, the left. Here-now.
Before, after. You can conceive of two objects whose concept is strictly the
same, there are still two objects, for this very reason that the one is here and
the other there. One is on the right, the other on the left, one is before, the
other is after. There is a spatio-temporal order irreducible to the conceptual
order.
But Kant doesn't invoke that reason. He also gives this famous example: two
like trihedrons, opposed at their vertex, you cannot make them coincide. Why
is it that you can't make them coincide? Because superimposing two figures or
making them coincide implies a rotation, a rotation in a dimension that is
supplementary to the figure's number of dimensions. When you have two
triangles opposed at the vertex, you can make them coincide, which is to say
put one on the other by making one of the triangles undergo a rotation in the

third dimension. You have in that case a supplementary dimension to the

dimensions of the figure. When you come to volumes, i.e. three-dimensional
figures, like the two hands or the two trihedrons opposed at the vertex, you can
easily make the two hands superimpose on each other if you have a fourth
dimension of space. You would effect the rotation in the fourth dimension.
Finitude is the fact that space irreducibly has three dimensions and not n
dimensions, or that time has one dimension. We could always be told that there
are theories or spaces with n dimensions, or else that time has several
dimensions. I think that there's little interest in such a thing because the idea
of a space with n dimensions already implies a system of problems and
concepts which have nothing to do with Kant's system of concepts and
problems.
Why are space and time irreducible to the order of the concept?
It's because spatio-temporal determinations don't allow themselves to be
reduced to conceptual determinations, to the extent that however far you take
the identity of two concepts, the corresponding thing or things will always be
able to be distinguished not only by contingent a posteriori characters, but by
their situation in space and time. By their position in space and time. Spatiotemporal position is not a conceptual property.
In which case we are assured of the following principle that the a priori
synthesis happens less between two concepts, it doesn't happen between two
concepts because in the first place, because it happens between the general
concept on the one hand, and the spatio-temporal determination on the other
hand. The true a priori synthesis is not between concepts like the empirical
synthesis, the true a priori synthesis goes from the concept to the spatiotemporal determination, and vice-versa. That is why there can be a priori
syntheses between two concepts, because space and time have woven a
network of determinations which can make two concepts, however different
they are, from the moment that there are rules of production, form necessary
relations with each other. Thus space and time will acquire a constitutive power
[pouvoir] which will be the constitutive power of all possible experience.
To better mark the difference between the order of the concept and the spatiotemporal order, I'll return to terms that I used just before. Space and time are
the forms of appearing, or the forms of presentation of what appears. In effect,
we can understand this because space and time are indeed a form of
appearing, but they contain no specific unity. What appears is always diverse,
an apparition is always an apparition of diversity: the red rose, a smell, a colour
etc. So what appears is, by nature, diverse. Space and time are forms of
perception, but you can see that space and time themselves have a diversity,
namely the diversity of "heres" in space, any point in space being a possible

"here", and the diversity of moments for time, any point in time being a
possible moment.
We have thus to distinguish the diversity of what appears in space and in time
and the diversity of space and time themselves. The first diversity will be said
to be empirical diversity, the second diversity, the diversity of space itself or of
time itself will be a priori diversity. Diversity of space. Diversity of time. The a
priori diversity of space and of time constitute the forms of presentation. By
contrast, empirical diversity belongs to what appears. The categories or
concepts, which we have just seen are of another order than space-time
determination, have a unity, it's even the function of the concept to unify a
diversity. To the extent that you can in fact sense that the concept will have to
bear, in a certain way, on space and time. Space and time as the forms of
appearing of what appears are what Kant calls Forms of Intuition. Intuition is
precisely the presentation, intuition is the immediate. Phenomena are
immediately in space and in time, which is to say immediately appearing in
space and in time. Space and time are the forms of immediacy. The concept is
always what we call a mediation. The concept refers to the concept and it
effects a unification. It is in this sense that it is not simply a form of
presentation of what appears, it will be a form of the representation of what
appears. The prefix re- indicates here the activity of the concept in opposition
to the immediate or passive character of space and time which are given or
which are the form of what is given.
Space and time are, Kant says, the form of our receptivity, while the concept is
the form of our spontaneity or our activity.
What incredibly new thing does Kant bring to the history of time? Once it is said
that determinations of space and time are irreducible to conceptual
determinations, there would be no possible knowledge unless nevertheless and
despite everything we were able to establish a correspondence between spatiotemporal determinations and conceptual determinations, and that's the sort of
miracle of knowledge. And Kant constructed his whole system of new concepts
to get to that point.
He's an austere philosopher, a severe philosopher, he uses all sorts of
complicated words but they're never just for effect, he's not a lyrical type. I
refer you to his secretaries who wrote things about his life, he has a very calm
life, very ordered? Thomas de Quincey has translated and somewhat arranged,
embellished the accounts of Kant's secretaries, in "The Last Days of Immanuel
Kant". It's a splendid text.
There is an formula, a first formula about time which seems to me to be one of
the most beautiful things said about time, it's Hamlet who says it. The formula
suits is so well: "the time is out of joint". It's beautiful! It's a very beautiful

formula if we understand it. What is the joint? The joint is, literally, the hinge
[pivot]. The hinge is what the door pivots around. But the door? we have to
imagine a revolving door, and the revolving door is the universal door. The door
of the world is a revolving door. The door of the world swings and passes
through privileged moments which are well known: they're what we call
cardinal points. North, South, East, West. The joint is what makes the door
swing in such a way that it passes and re-passes through the privileged coordinates named cardinal points. Cardinal comes from cardo; cardo is precisely
the hinge, the hinge around which the sphere of celestial bodies turns, and
which makes them pass time and again through the so-called cardinal points,
and we note their return: ah, there's the star again, it's time to move my
sheep!
"The time is out of joint", time is no longer coiled up in such a way that it is
subordinated to the measure of something other than itself, such as, for
example, astronomical movement. Time has ceased to be the number of
nature, time has ceased to be the number of periodical movement. Everything
happens as if, having been coiled up so as to measure the passage of celestial
bodies, time unrolls itself like a sort of serpent, it shakes off all subordination to
a movement or a nature, it becomes time in itself for itself, it becomes pure
and empty time. It measures nothing anymore. Time has taken on its own
excessiveness. It is out of its joints, which is to say its subordination to nature;
it's now nature which will be subordinated to it. I can say, going quickly, that
the whole of ancient philosophy maintained a subordination of time to nature,
even in its most complex forms; that classical philosophy, however complicated
its conceptions of time were, never put into question this very very general
principle. The famous definition: "time is the number of movement".
With Kant there is an indescribable novelty. It's the first time that time is
liberated, stretches itself, ceases to be a cosmological or psychological time,
whether it's the world or the soul makes no difference, to become a formal
time, a pure deployed form, and this will be a phenomenon of extreme
importance for modern thought. This is the first great Kantian reversal in the
theory of time.
So I take Hamlet's formula literally to apply it to Kant: "the time is out of joint".
It's with Kant, from the point of view of the concept of time, that we can
effectively say that time is out of joint, which is to say has ceased to be
subordinated to the measure of movement, and on the contrary movement will
be completely subordinated to it. And time will be this sort of form which is also
pure, and this kind of act by which the world empties itself, becomes a desert.
This is why one of Kant's best disciples - it won't be a philosopher, we never
find those who understand philosophers among philosophers - is Hlderlin, and
Hlderlin who, drawing on Kant against the Kantians, understood by developing

a theory of time which is precisely the pure and empty form in which Oedipus
wanders.
Next time I would like to see what the formula "the time is out of joint" means,
applied to Kant. It really means something quite literal.
The second formula that I want to develop truly belongs only to Kant and it is
part of his last, most obscure texts. Kant, at the end of his life, compiles a book
which will appear after his death. He begins a sketch of something which will
be called the Opus Postumum. And the Opus Postumum is very strange
because it's a mix of everything. There are laundry lists, there are little
impressions of everyday life, and then there is a wonderful page. In these texts
near the end the idea that time is like the form of auto-affection appears more
and more. It's the form under which the subject affects itself. If anything is
mysterious, that is. It would be clear for space, but he also says it of time. See
how he divides things up: space is the form under which something exterior
affects me and time is the form under which I affect myself. It's even more
mysterious than "the time is out of joint".
They're Kant's three oracles: firstly disguised as Hamlet, time is out of joint,
secondly disguised as himself he says time is the form of auto-affection, the
form under which I affect myself. But why does he say that? He couldn't do
otherwise. If you followed the first point, time is out of joint, it no longer
measures a movement, it is no longer subordinated to nature. Already, on the
most basic level it's very new. What is new with someone must already be
grasped on the most basic level. Before him, what did they say, very broadly.
With Leibniz no problem, time is the order of possible successions, space is the
order of possible coexistences. Kant wants nothing of this and can no longer
accept it. The whole way in which he has posed the problem means that he
cannot: it's obvious that to define time by the order of possible successions
implies, at first glance, a subordination of time to a content which measures it,
a content to which it is subordinated. It must be the case that time is
subordinated to succession. So once he has conceived of formal time, the pure
form of time detached from a movement to measure, once he has straightened
time, once he has let it go like a spring, he can no longer define it by an order
of succession. It's all the more significant given that to define time as
succession means nothing but - of course succession is temporal, but it's only a
mode of time, as coexistence or simultaneity by which we claim to define
space, is another mode of time, it's not space. It's a very bad distribution.
Space cannot be defined by the order of coexistence since coexistence is an
idea which can only be understood in relation to time, it means at the same
time. Time cannot be defined by succession because succession is only a mode
of time, coexistence is itself another mode of time. You can see that he
arranged things to make the simple distribution: space-coexistence, and timesuccession. Time, he tells us, has three modes: duration or permanence,

coexistence and succession. But time cannot be defined by any of the three
because you cannot define a thing through its modes. Moreover space cannot
be defined as the order of coexistence since coexistence is a mode of time. He
is very very good on this point.
He will say - and I want you to admire the simplicity - you will define space as
simply the form - and above all not the order since order still refers to a
measure of something to measure in time - as the pure form, of what? Space is
the form of exteriority. That doesn't mean that it comes from outside, but it
means that everything which appears in space appears as exterior to whoever
grasps it, and exterior from one thing to another. It is not exteriority which ????
space, it's space which constitutes the form of exteriority or which constitutes
exteriority as form, as pure form. As he has just defined space as the form of
exteriority, it must be the case that time is the form of interiority. It's the form
under which we affect ourselves, it's the form of auto-affection. Time is the
affection of self by self.
I ask you to consider that this second point follows from the first.
So, the first paradox is what does it mean that time is out of joint; the second is
what does it mean that time is the form of interiority.

Why wouldn't there also be a synthesised or electronic way of handling

philosophy?

Last time I tried to determine a certain number of very precise Kantian notions:
a priori, synthesis, etc... but very much as a function of what seemed the
essential thing to me, namely a radical reversal in the position of the problem
of time in relation to philosophy. It's a critical reversal, like a critical point.
I proposed last time that we take as three arbitrary formulae, but it's very
dangerous, but never mind there are three key formulae that aren't Kant's but
under which, it seems to me, the three great novelties or the three great
reversals that Kant operates on the notion of time group themselves.
So if we can manage to eliminate everything that is facile in this evocation of
literary formulae in relation to a conceptual study of philosophy, the first
formula to which Kant would give a powerful content is that of Hamlet: the time

is out of joint. The second formula is anonymous, and would be something like
this: till now the task we have given ourselves was to represent space, the
moment has come to think time. Third famous formula, given by an author who
had nothing to do with Kant: "I is an other". I believe that if we separate these
expressions from their contexts, they suit Kant admirably, if you take them as
abstract declarations. Maybe that will allow me to understand in itself the
formula "I is an other", as well as to understand in itself the formula "the time
is out of joint".
I have asked Gilles Chtelet to bring a contribution to the commentary of this
first formula. So I'm taking us back to the level of the first formula "the time is
out of joint", how is it that Kant's philosophy posits a time which is in the
process of getting out of joint. The joint was this sort of pivot around which
time turned, in other words, in a certain tradition of antiquity, time is
fundamentally subordinated to something which happens in it, and this
something can be determined as being change, the subordination of time to
change, time will thus measure the changing of what changes, or else, which
amounts to the same thing on another level, it will be subordinated to
movement, the subordination of time to movement, I say that that amounts to
the same thing on another level because movement qua local movement is the
purest form of change, which is to say the perfect form of change; that goes
back to things in Aristotle and which cover the whole of Greek philosophy. Or
else, which again amounts to the same thing on another level, subordination of
time to the course of the world, and it's in this sense that the classical
definition of the Greeks appears: time is the number of movement. What does
that imply?
That implies a subordination of time to change, to movement, to the course of
the world. That implies that time is as if bent, it becomes circular. It is a time,
independent or not of questions of the eternal return which are posed in a
completely different manner, time is cyclical. And indeed, to the extent that it
is the number of movement, it will measure the movement of the planets - see
all of Plato's prose writings on the eight movements of the eight planets - and
the great circle that will measure the time it takes for the eight planets to come
back to the same respective position, the eight circles of the world, you would
have thus a great circle of circles whose point would be assigned by the
planet's return to the same respective position, you would have the world's
year. But this time become circular is but one with time subordinated to
change, to movement, and to the course of the world, and it's the great idea
which runs through all of ancient philosophy: time as the image of eternity. The
circle of time, in so far as it measures planetary movement, and the return of
the same, it's precisely this time become circular. In the Timaeus there were
some very beautiful pages on the arc of the Demiurge which makes circles, this
bending activity.

However, this time as an image of eternity, the cyclical figure of time

subordinated to movement and whose secret will be the periodic return of
planets to the same position relative to each other, is indeed a time which is
the image of eternity. I would say that all of the time of antiquity is marked by a
modal character, and in effect the word appears all the time: time is a mode
and not a being. No more than number is a being, it's a mode in relation to
what it quantifies, in the same way time is a mode in relation to what it
measures.
Obviously, it's not a matter of just taking Kant like that, it doesn't happen only
in his head, there's a very long scientific evolution which find its philosophical
expression there, but it had already found, no doubt with Newton, a scientific
expression. Everything happens as if time "deployed itself" [se dployait], but
we must take "deployed itself" in its strict sense, which is to say unrolled itself,
which is to say lost its cyclical form. What does that mean that time becomes a
pure straight line. It's exactly as if you were holding a coiled spring and you let
it go.
Time becomes a pure straight line. It reminds me of Borges, the true labyrinth
is the straight line. When time becomes a straight line, what does that mean
and what change does that imply?
Still speaking musically, I would say that with Kant time acquires a tonal
character, it ceases to be modal. We can find no other images to indicate the
violence of such an operation in relation to the thought that, truly, the circle
snaps, like a spring that uncoils itself, which becomes a pure straight line. You
can see that the cyclical line, when time is cyclical, is a line which limits [borne]
the world and just saying that time becomes a straight line means that it no
longer limits the world, it will traverse it. In the first case, cyclical time is a time
which limits and which thus carries out - which has always been the supreme
act for the Greeks - carries out the act of limitation. When time becomes a
straight line, it no longer limits the world, it traverses it, it is no longer a limit in
the sense of limitation, it is limit in the sense: it's at the extremity [bout], it
never ceases to be at the extremity, it's the sense of a passage to the limit.
The same word "limit" radically changes in sense, it's no longer the operation
which limits something, it's on the contrary the term towards which something
tends, and at the same time the tendency and that towards which it tends,
that's time. How can we explain that. It's precisely a matter of assigning the
importance of this time become straight line. It's not a simplification, it
changes everything in the very atmosphere of time and in the operation of
time.
The simplest way is to refer ourselves to a poet who claims to be inspired by
Kant. That's Hlderlin. For the moment our problem is solely to say what is the
importance of the change when time ceases to be circular, ceases to be a circle

in order to become a straight line. We must keep in mind both that Hlderlin
claims to be inspired by Kant and that he has many things to say on what
happens when time becomes a straight line.
Hlderlin poses the problem at the level of Greek tragedy, and in particular he
opposes Greek tragedy such as it appeared in Aeschylus and Greek tragedy
such as it appeared in Sophocles, and above all in Oedipus and in Antigone. You
will see straight away that the schema that Hlderlin develops, and that other
commentators of Sophocles took up afterwards, concerns the very heart of our
problem. It amounts to telling us that there is a certain sense of the tragic for
the Greeks which is the tragic element of cyclical time. We find it very easily in
Aeschylus. What is the tragic cycle of time? The tragic cycle of time is, broadly,
like three unequal arcs of a circle; there is the moment of limitation; limitation
is nothing other than justice, it's the lot assigned to each. And then there is the
transgression of the limitation, the act which transgresses.
The moment of the limit is the great Agamemnon, it's the beauty of royal
limitation. Then there is the transgression of the limit, which is to say the
excessive act [l'acte de la dmesure]: it's Clytemnestra assassinating
Agamemnon. Then there is the long atonement, and the tragic cycle of time is
the cycle of limitation, of transgression and of atonement. The atonement is
Orestes who will avenge Agamemnon. There will be the re-establishment of the
equilibrium of the limit which for a moment was overstepped. Notice that this
tragic time is modeled on astronomical time since in astronomical time you
have the sphere of fixed points which is precisely the sphere of perfect
limitation, you have the planets and the movements of the planets which, in a
certain way, break through the limit, then you have the atonement, which is to
say the re-establishment of justice since the planets find themselves in the
same position again.
And in this formula of the famous tragic destiny, as they say, it's settled from
the beginning, and when the tragedy begins it's already done: as Aeschylus'
text itself says, at the moment when Agamemnon goes into his palace and is
about to be assassinated by Clytemnestra, it's already done. But at the
moment when Clytemnestra assassinates him, an act of excess and injustice,
of violation of the limit, the atonement is already there. It's this sort of cyclical
destiny. Time is a curve.
Whereas in some splendid pages, Hlderlin says: what is the novelty of
Sophocles? In what respect does Sophocles found in the end the modern sense
of the tragic? He is the first to un-curve [dcourber] time. It's the time of
Oedipus. He says that before Sophocles, in the Greek sense of the tragic, it's
man who eludes the limit. You can see, in the limitation-limit, man transgresses
the limit and in so doing eludes the limit; but with Oedipus one can no longer
say that it has the atmosphere of someone who transgresses the limit, who

eludes the limit. In the case of Oedipus, it's the limit which is elusive. Where is
it? It's the limit which becomes passage to the limit. Splendid expression of
Hlderlin's: in Oedipus, the beginning and the end no longer rhyme. And the
rhyme is precisely the arc of the time bending in such a way that beginning and
end rhyme with each other. There was atonement for the injustice. In Oedipus
time has become a straight line which will be the line on which Oedipus
wanders. The long wandering of Oedipus. There will no longer be any
atonement, even if only in the form of a brutal death. Oedipus is in perpetual
suspension, he will travel his straight line of time. In other words, he is
traversed by a straight line which drags him along. Towards what? Nothing.
Heidegger will be able to say later that it's towards death. Heidegger for his
part will draw from the straight line the idea, which is not wholly un-Kantian,
the idea of a sort of being-towards-death.
We can see well indeed that in the case of Oedipus, in Sophocles' tragedy, the
beginning and the end do not rhyme, and moreover there is a zero-instant.
Hlderlin adds that this un-curved time, such that the beginning and the end
no longer rhyme together, and it's precisely because there is a caesura in this
time, thus a pure present, that there will be - and it's this caesura that will
distribute it - a before and an after, and it's this before and this after which do
not rhyme. For the schema of cyclical time is substituted a time as straight line,
marked by a caesura, a caesura which distributes a non-symmetrical before
and after. It's very important for us for time as a straight line contains the
possibility of distributing a non-symmetrical before and after, of producing a
non-symmetrical before and after using a caesura. We can call this caesura the
pure present. Hlderlin's analysis is admirable however because he tries to
show that this form of time, the caesura which distributes a before and an
after, thus the linear form of this time marked by a pure present according to
which a past and a future are produced in time, well this time is that of the
modern consciousness in opposition to the consciousness of antiquity.
Since I borrowed the formula from Hamlet, what strikes me, independently of
dates, is the extent to which the whole schema that Hlderlin constructs for us
to understand what he considers to be the novelty of Oedipus, the extent to
which that applies to Hamlet. For those who remember Hamlet, it's curious the
extent to which it's a linear time where something is always elusive, it is no
longer Hamlet who eludes the limit, it's the limit which eludes Hamlet, as if it
was spinning the straight line. And there is a caesura. For Oedipus, Hlderlin
assigns the moment of the caesura to the intervention of Tiresias, the
intervention of the seer. It will constitute the pure instant, the pure present
from which a past and a future will be produced on the straight line, which is to
say a before and an after which no longer rhyme together. And in Hamlet there
is a moment which seems extraordinary to me: Hamlet hesitates a great deal in
his task of avenging his father: the limit is literally elusive. When he hesitates a
great deal to avenge his father it's the same story as Oedipus. For a long time

it's as if it's the time before, but we can't yet say "before" since the before and
after are only distributed by the caesura which is to say the moment of the
pure present; and then his step-father, who wants to get rid of him, sends him
on a sea trip. Well the sea trip is so fundamental that Hamlet returns from it
saying: "there is something dangerous in me", which he would never have said
before, as if the sea trip had made him capable of something which he was not
capable of before. The sea trip has played the function of the caesura and has
distributed on the straight line of time a before and an after which are noncoincident, non-symmetrical.
We will see all that in this quite beautiful, obscure but beautiful text of
Hlderlin's: "At the extreme limit of the rift nothing in fact remains any more
except the conditions of time or of space [here Hlderlin is speaking like a
Kantian]. At this limit man forgets himself because he is wholly inside the
moment. God forgets because he is nothing but time. And there is infidelity on
both sides, etc." The categorical turning-away [dtournement], what is it? It's
that in so far as time is cyclical, there is a sort of God-man relationship which is
one with destiny in Greek tragedy. When time becomes a straight line, there is
also something which separates. In Hlderlin's very beautiful commentary it's
the double deviation in the same course of linear time which will separate man
and God, God turns away from man who turns away from God. Which is why
Oedipus is said by Sophocles to be "atheos", which does not mean atheist, but
he who is separated from God. So much so that God is no longer the master of
time, the one who curves time, and man is longer himself ???? encircled in a
sort of harmony with God, in this sort of relationship with God, man is no longer
anything but the caesura which prevents the before and after from rhyming
together, which distributes a before and an after which do not rhyme together.
I would simply like you to begin to feel the importance of this time which
becomes a straight line. It doesn't mean simplification of the figure of time at
all, on the contrary I would like you to feel an intense complication of the figure
of time. Time is no longer subordinated to something which happens in it, on
the contrary it's everything else which is subordinated to time. God himself is
no longer anything but empty time. Man is no longer anything but a caesura in
time. In The Critique of Pure Reason, there is a very famous passage, also very
very beautiful, which is called "Anticipations of Perception". I would just like to
show that, at a completely different level, Kant tells us a story which is the
same one that Hlderlin told afterwards. But it's not in relation to Greek
tragedy. Oddly enough it happens to be in relation to scientific physics. So
there are twelve extraordinary pages entitled "Anticipations of Perception".
Kant tells us that space and time are what are called extensive magnitudes.
What does extensive magnitude mean? It's not complicated, in Latin an
extensive magnitude is one which accepts the formula "partes extra partes",
the exteriority of parts, which is to say an extensive magnitude is one whose
parts are apprehended successively so that, all quantity being at the same

time multiplicity and unity - when you say, for example, this is twenty metres
long, it's the unity of a multiplicity - extensible magnitude or extensive
magnitude will be defined in the following way: the multiplicity refers to a
gathering of parts into a whole. That's an extensive quantity. But time is like
that: a minute, another minute, and then you say that's it, that an hour has
passed. You can see the succession of parts in their apprehension, the
gathering into a whole: an hour.
Space and time are extensive quantities, no difficulty there. Kant adds: but
there you have it, the real in space and time - you recall that the real in space
and time is what appears in space and time, it's the phenomenon since with
Kant the phenomenon is no longer an appearance, it's the fact of appearing the real in so far as it appears in space and time, no doubt it also has an
extensive quantity, there is the space of the table. There's no more to go over
on this point; it's precisely what Kant calls a synthesis. But the real in space
and in time doesn't only have an extensive quantity, it also has an intensive
quantity. What is an intensive quantity? It's what fills space and time to such or
such a degree.
We can see straight away the difference between extensive quantity and
intensive quantity since the same extensive space can be filled to varying
degrees. An example: the same space can be filled by a more or less intense
red, the same room can be filled with a more or less intense heat, the same
volume can be filled with a more or less dense matter. Kant will even
distinguish the two questions fundamentally: can emptiness in space and time
be conceived, and another question, namely that space and time can be filled
without there being any void in them, can be filled varying degrees.
So what is the intensive quantity of the real in so far as it fills space and time?
Moreover, there is not just a real which fills space and time, there is a real of
space and time, it's intensive quantity. In opposition to what we have just said
about extensive quantity, the two fundamental characteristics of intensive
quantity according to Kant - and this will be very important for all subsequent
theories of intensity - first characteristic: the apprehension of an intensive
quantity is instantaneous, which is to say that its unity no longer comes from
the sum of its successive parts, the unity of a given intensive quantity is
apprehended in an instant. Which amounts to saying that when I say "it's 30
degrees", the 30-degree heat is not the sum of three times ten degrees, it's at
the level of extensive quantities that thirty is 10+10+10, but thirty degrees is
not three 10-degree heats. In other words, the rules of addition and subtraction
are not valid for intensive quantities. The apprehension of the unity of an
intensive quantity happens in an instant. Second characteristic: the multiplicity
contained in an intensive quantity is no longer referred to a succession of parts
exterior to each other, but refers to a variable proximity to degree zero. I can
say that each time there is something which fills space and time, I would say or

rather Kant would say that he has before him an empirical intuition. Intuition,
you will recall, is the faculty of receiving what is given, but the given is given in
space and time, so intuition is not at all a magical faculty, it's the faculty of
receptivity. I receive something which is given, and in this sense I have an
empirical intuition. But to the extent that what is given has an intensive
quantity, which is to say a degree, I grasp it in a relation to its production
starting from zero, or its extinction... or the real which fills space and time from
the point of view of its intensive quantity is grasped as produced starting from
degree zero or as extinguishing itself, i.e., rejoining degree zero.
At that point the question is not at all one of knowing if there is an empty space
and time, the question is of knowing that in any case there is an empty
consciousness of space and time. And there is an empty consciousness of
space and of time as consciousness determined by and as a function of degree
zero as the principle of production of all reality in space and time - production
starting from zero or the principle of extinction.
I don't want to make associations that are too forced, but at the physical level
of intensity in Kant, you can do what Hlderlin ?????, namely the straight line of
time marked by a caesura which is intuition = 0; what he will call the empty
formal intuition, from which the real which fills space and time will be
produced, and it's this intuition = 0, this empty intuition which constitutes the
caesura. It's according to this caesura, this degree zero implied by all intensive
quantity, which is naturally correlated with time as empty form, as pure line. So
on time as a pure line the caesura of degree zero is marked, which will mean
that before and after will no longer rhyme together. Again the question is not: is
there an empty time and space, the question is whether there is an empty
consciousness of time, by virtue of the nature of time itself. In other words God
has become time, at the same time that man became caesura. It's hard, we
understand nothing, but it's beautiful. That's all I wanted to say on time that's
out of joint.
Intensive quantity effects a synthesis between the degree zero that it implies,
from which it is produced, and time as pure line or empty form. Intensive
quantity as degree of the real which fills a space and a time effects the
synthesis between a degree zero from which this real is produced or in which it
extinguishes itself, and on the other hand time as empty form or pure line. So
much so that there will be a complementarity between the function of the
caesura which intensive consciousness plays in time and the empty linear form
that time takes on. Hence, as Hlderlin will say: man (the consciousness of
time) is no more than a caesura, God is no more than empty time. It's the
double turning-away [dtournement]. Kant didn't go as far as that, for a simple
reason that I will explain: in effect Kant subtracted God and the soul from
knowledge. He gave them a function in the field of knowledge, but God and the
soul were not known as such since we only know phenomena, we only know

what appears. But he didn't suppress either God or the soul since he was to
give them a quite different function, a moral, practical function. But from the
point of view of knowledge, Gods passes into empty time just as the soul
passes into the caesura.
Is that any better? True lived experience [le vcu] is an absolutely abstract
thing. The abstract is lived experience. I would almost say that once you have
reached lived experience, you reach the most fully living core of the abstract.
In other words, lived experience represents nothing. And you can live nothing
but the abstract and nobody has ever lived anything else but the abstract. I
don't live representation in my heart, I live a temporal line which is completely
abstract. What is more abstract than a rhythm?
For the Stoics, they are at once so new in relation to antiquity, and at the same
time they have nothing to do with it, they employ "limit" in a wholly different
sense. The limit for them is no longer the limit assumed by philosophers of the
Platonic type, neither is it the other limit... Kant's ?Anticipations of Perception?
means something very simple, which is that you can't say anything about
perception, a priori, if there is a colour that is called red and another that is
called green, that's to do with the given, you cannot say it independently of
experience, it's given in experience. There are two things that you can say a
priori, which are: whatever there is that is given in space and time, what is
given in space and time is an extensive quantity, but also has a degree, which
is to say an intensive quantity. That is an a priori judgement. Which is to say
nothing would come and fill space and time as extensive quantities if what
comes to fill them did not also have a degree. So I anticipate perception since
in this I have a determination, it's the only a priori thing I can say. So there is
anticipation. With Epicurus it's not at all in this sense. The Epicurean definition
of time will not even be the novelty of a Stoic form of time, it's typically modal
time. Here I would very much like Gilles Chtelet to come in and say, from his
rather mathematical point of view, precisely how this conception of time as
straight line is fundamental.

Gilles Chtelet (summarised because the taped recording is inaudible): With

Plato there is a time which is created, which is to say there is a transcendence
somewhere which is above time and which has, in correlation with this, a
higher dimension. This time of Plato's measures periods, it's a set of periods
and it assures the repetition of identities in the stars, the calendar. The
fundamental thing to retain is that time is a number. This time above the
market measures order. Time in Plato describes order, chaos has no time for
example. Time is a sort of calendar that expresses the order of the world: it's a
system of coordinates of order, it is in the world, it's a worldly being.

In Aristotle everything is set out through movement and time is in movement,

it is interior to mass. Time is attached to the body. Time will be purely
astrological, but we owe to Aristotle the notion of an eternal, infinite and
uniform time. But with Plato and Aristotle we have a cyclical representation.
In Plotinus there is an abstract operator which is called the One, which is
without any qualification and something degrades once we leave the One.
Certainly time measures degradation in relation to eternity. Plotinus says that
time is the irreparable addition of being to itself. Time is a fall, i.e. a
degradation, and Plotinus speaks of aspiring towards God. The mathematical
figure which would go with what Plotinus says is called a projective straight
line, time is a straight line, but a straight line which has been curved. It's not a
circle either. It's a circle minus one point (the One). Time in Plotinus would be a
sort of projective time, there is already the idea of irreversibility. In Plotinus
time flows from the One and the One is transcendent to time. Time is not
exactly a cosmic being, it's the soul which appreciates time in so far... Time is
already an equivalent of eternity, it has neither beginning nor end and the
point outside the circle is not in time, the One is above, we never begin. It's
rather paradoxical. In Kant time becomes a condition of possibility of
phenomena. The succession of phenomena implies time, so it is time which is
transcendent. Time is what is called a multiplicity, it's clearly said, it is unidimensional and above all it is ordered. In the end he says that it tends towards
a straight line. But what is a straight line?... Time as a parameter gives the
trajectory... The real straight line is a function, time becomes the condition of a
function; it's not the image of representation, it's the function itself. There is
the possibility of having a function of time. In what sense is Kant completely
modern? Because temporality is defining a topology... a straight one... But
Kant's essential idea is that his abstract space is pure parameter.
There are two things in Kant: firstly a technological revolution in the sense that
it is clearly affirmed that time is a real straight line, but there is also a notion of
function.

Gilles Deleuze: You're saying something very important, namely that with Kant
time ceases to be a number or measure and becomes parameter. I would like
you to explain the difference between a number or measure and a parameter?

G. Chtelet: The parameter is not a result. A number, for the Greeks, is simply
a measure, here the measure of time is possible because... In mathematics
parameter has no definition, it's simply a notion. Time become parameter is no
longer a result, it becomes an initial given. A parameter is what is given, what
varies.

Deleuze: I think that it amounts to exactly the same thing: to say that time
ceases to be a number or that time ceases to measure something and thus is
subordinated to what it measures, and that time becomes a parameter, time is
related to a problem of constitution. When I said that time un-curves itself,
becomes a straight line... There is something equivalent in this modern
conception of time where it is at the same time that an empty form of
parametric time appears and a complementarity with something which makes
a function, whether it is the caesura in the tragedy, or else the cut in
mathematical instrumentation. I am just a bit bothered by the key role that
Gilles Chtelet gives to Plotinus. In antiquity it is much more complicated than
has been said till now. There were in fact two directions and the two directions
had at least something in common: in the two directions time only has a modal
character and never a ???? character. However the two directions are time as
number of movement, thus subordinated to the physical cosmos, subordinated
to physis, and then Plotinus breaks away there, but he is not the first to break
away, and he makes a conception of time which is subordinated not to physis
but to the soul. I wouldn't completely agree with Gilles Chtelet on the
importance of this point, of Plotinus, and on the one hand the two attempts:
time subordinated to the soul, time subordinated to physis maintain or at least
have in common the affirmation of a purely and uniquely modal character of
time, thus time as the image of eternity, a secondary and derived character of
time, and the two have a point of convergence in the Antique theory of the soul
of the world. I would not make of Plotinus a...

Comptesse: [inaudible comment]

Gilles: Transcendent in relation to Kant. Once again there are two notions. The
Kantian notion is transcendental, time is transcendental, but the whole Kantian
notion of the transcendental is created in order to refute the classical notion of
the transcendent. The transcendental is above all not transcendent.
I would like to move very quickly to the second point. I'm going very quickly. I
would say that the second formula that I would like to apply to Kant is... but
thinking time is really the most difficult thing - it's the phase of philosophy as
critical philosophy, as modern philosophy defined by Kant under the form of a
critical philosophy. In classical philosophy, what is the other of thought. The
other of thought is above all space. It's space. Space is conceived as limitation.
It was conceived as an obstacle and a resistance, it is also limitation. Why?
Because it happens that my thought is referred to a thinking substance that is
itself unextended, thought is the attribute of a thinking substance that is itself

unextended, but this thinking substance is finite in body. It is finite in body: it's
the famous problem which will poison classical philosophy, namely the union of
the soul as thinking substance and the body as extended substance. And the
fact that the soul is finite in body, even though the soul is in itself unextended
(you can see that it's an inextricable problem: how is it that something
unextended can be finite in something extended, it will produce all sorts of
paradoxes), this in fact introduces a fundamental limitation of thought since it
will be the source of all the errors, of all the illusions which not only create an
obstacle to thought, but limit thought. Third characteristic: if space is the other
of thought, I'm saying that it's an other of, literally, alterity. Extended
substance is other than thinking substance even though it is uni-substantially
opposed, hence the well-known position of Descartes in which there were three
substances: thinking substance, extended substance and the union of thinking
substance and extended substance. With the Kantian transformation the aspect
of everything changes. Why? We remember time become straight line, and I
can no longer say that what is important is space as obstacle or resistance to
thought, or as limitation of thought. Here it's time which ceases to be
subordinated to space, it takes on an independence at the same time that it
acquires this form that we have seen, this pure form, and it's not time which
takes the place of space, it is not an obstacle to thought, it is the limit which
works thought from the inside. For the notion of external limitation is
substituted the notion of internal limit. Time is the limit which works thought
over, which traverses thought through and through, it is the inherent limit, a
limit interior to thought, whereas in classical philosophy it's space which is
determined as the exterior limitation of thought.
So everything happens as if the "enemy" of thought was within. It does not
receive it from outside. There we have a sort of fundamental change. To think
time means to substitute for the classical schema of an exterior limitation of
thought by the extended, the very very strange idea of an interior limit to
thought which works it from the inside, which doesn't at all come from outside,
which doesn't at all come from the opacity of a substance. As if there was in
thought something impossible to think. As if thought was worked over from the
inside by something that it cannot think. From this point the problem, in Kant,
will no longer be that of the union of the soul and the body, which is to say the
union of two substances one of which is extended and the other unextended.
The problem will no longer be the union of two distinct substances, it will be
the coexistence and the synthesis of two forms (they're completely different,
two forms and two substances) of one and the same subject. Instead of the
union of two substances, the synthesis of two forms of the same subject, which
implies that the subject is not substance.
What are these two forms which will have to unite - I can no longer even say in
the same subject since substance will not be inherent in the subject - they are
two forms for the same subject. Now this subject will be traversed by this line

of time; the subject is as if traversed by two forms and is himself nothing other
than the synthesis, namely the most mysterious point, the synthesis of these
two forms. What are these two forms? They're on the one hand the form of
thought, and on the other hand the form of the internal limit of thought. What
does that mean in concrete terms? The form of thought is in the first place the
act of "I think", the "I think" as act or as determination. To say "I think" is to
determine something. What? We will see later.
The form of equal thought, in the most universal sense "I think" which is to say
that it's thought in so far as it is related to a subject; but I don't have the right
to say that it's a substance. Second determination of the form of thought: as
Kant says, "I think" is the slightest [la plus pauvre] of representations, it's the
slightest of thoughts which accompanies all thoughts. Self = self, it's the "I" of
"I think". The "I think" is the universal form of determination, but in a sense I
determine nothing and in "I think" the determination is at its emptiest.
Concretely acts of thought are concepts. We have seen that a priori acts of
thought are particular concepts called categories. So the form of thought is the
"I think" and the categories taken together, the "I think" together with what it is
that "I think", namely the categories or the predicates of any given object.
These are what the forms of thought are. Kant will also use the term ?forms of
spontaneity?, when "I think" is the act of determination and that implies an
activity which is the activity of thought. Kant will reserve the word ?
spontaneity? to qualify the form of thought in these two cases. But what else is
there besides these two forms of thought? We have seen the form of receptivity
or the form of intuition. In the form of intuition we also have two things, just as
a moment ago we saw that the form of thought is the self, the "I" of "I think"
and it's also the concept as act of thought, the a priori concepts, which is to say
the categories, the forms of receptivity are space and time.
There are two forms twice. Last time I said that space is the form of exteriority,
time is the form of interiority, this doesn't prevent these two forms from having
in common the fact of being two forms of intuition or two forms of receptivity.
The form of receptivity is double: form of exteriority = space, form of interiority
= time, but the two together are the form of receptivity. On the other hand
there is the form of spontaneity which is the "I think" and the categories. You
can see, and this is very important, how it unfolds: you have a first great
duality: form of intuition and form of spontaneity, form of receptivity and form
of spontaneity, and each one of these two great forms has two aspects. The
form of receptivity has two aspects: exteriority-space, interiority-time, the form
of spontaneity has two aspects: the self of the "I think", the I = I, and the
concepts that I think, the a priori concepts.
Kant's problem is howthe same subject, or self, can have two forms which are
irreducible to each other (irreducibility of space and time on the one hand, and

of the concept on the other hand), how = the same subject can have two
forms, principally the form of time and the form of thought, and that according
to the form of time, it is receptive, it is accepted, and according to the form of
thought it is spontaneous, it is determining, it effects determinations. It is no
longer at all a matter of knowing how the soul is united to the body, the answer
to the union of the soul and the body will evidently follow from the problem
reworked in this way, namely the synthesis of the two irreducible forms of the
same subject, or for a subject. Which amounts to saying that for the same
subject there is the form of spontaneity of thinking and the form of receptivity
of time.
It is by virtue of this that time is already the author of thought. And the Kantian
synthesis is obvious: the synthesis is something which separates or rends and
this sort of Kantian self is rent by these two forms which traverse it and which
are completely irreducible to each other. So where does the harmony come
from, how can this limping subject function, he who can think nothing without
what he thinks having a correlate in space and time, who finds nothing in space
and time without it having a correlate in thought, and yet space and time and
thought are two absolutely heterogeneous forms. It's literally a subject who is
fundamentally split, it is traversed by a sort of line which is precisely the line of
time. So much so that I would say, as a third point, that in classical philosophy
the other of thought was the other of alterity; with Kant something absolutely
new begins: the other within thought. It's an other of alienation. Of course Kant
does not use this word, but the post-Kantians will produce a fundamental
theory of alienation which will be revealed in its most perfect state in Hegel.
The difference between the other of alterity, which is really an exterior other
which creates an obstacle for thought, it is the other of alienation which is this
interior limit.
What is this alienation? The alienation of the subject in Kant is precisely this
fact that it is as if torn by the duality of the two forms, each of which belongs to
it as much as the other, form of receptivity and form of spontaneity. Suddenly
we are on the verge of understanding what Rimbaud's formula "I is an other"
could mean. "I is an other" is in the first place a formula of Rimbaud's, it's in
the letters. It's the most classical context possible, it is purely Aristotelian for
the two times Rimbaud comments on the expression "I is an other", he issues
this formula with an extremely classical philosophy as its philosophical support.
It is obvious that Rimbaud had a teacher who gave him a course on Aristotle.
It's letter II in the Pliade edition, 1971: "I is an other. Too bad for the wood
which finds itself a violin." Letter to Paul Dominique: "For I is an other. If the
tiger awakens... I witness the hatching of my thought, I watch it, I study it."
Aristotle tells us that there is matter and then there is form which informs
[informe] matter. Matter is the copper, the bugle is the copper which has been

poured into this form. Nothing could be more classical, and Rimbaud
assimilates himself to a matter and says: thought forms me. In the other
example, the wood becomes violin, it is given the form of the violin and it
receives its capacities.
Rimbaud draws from this the formula "I is an other" which obviously exceeds
the context. His business is to find the poem, the appropriate poetic act. It's
Kant who will do the philosophical work which corresponds to the formula "I is
an other".
We must at all costs, for Kant makes reference to this, without even saying it,
we must start from the cogito in Descartes. Obviously I would like to spare you
a lesson on Descartes, but everything comes from this formula: "I think
therefore I am", I am a thing that thinks. That is the Cartesian development
exactly, but it is summarised as "I think therefore I am". But the complete
formula is "I think therefore I am", it being understood that in order to think it is
necessary to be, what am I? I am a thing that thinks. You can see the
progression: I think, I am, I am a thing which thinks. I think = determination. ?I
am? is the position of something indeterminate; I am a thing which thinks, the
thing qua determined. Follow me, there are three terms: a determination, I
think; a thing to determine, namely an existence or a being; thirdly the
determined, namely the thinkable thing.
The determination determines something to be determined. You will tell me
that if that's all there is, that doesn't go very far. I have indeed three things
then: I think, I am, I am a thing that thinks. The "I think" determines the "I am"
as a thing that thinks. At first glance that seems to be impeccable. And now
Kant comes along and says: not at all, he has forgotten a term, it's not at all
complicated enough. And Kant will correct, he says, OK, I think = determination
- and here we are fully in the future of German philosophy - in order to think it
is necessary to be, OK, so the determination implies something indeterminate
which is to be determined by the determination. I need this complicated
formula for a very simple thing. You can see, I think therefore I am, it's quite
simple, I think is a determination, the determination implies something
indeterminate which is precisely to be determined by the determination. So, I
think, I am, that works. At that point he makes a cut, a caesura: he says: I think
therefore I am, very well, but you cannot conclude from this "I am a thing that
thinks". Kant saw a flaw there in what the other believed to be a sort of
continuity that nobody could refuse him.
Why does it go from "I think" to "I am"? Once again, OK, the determination
implies something indeterminate to be determined by the determination. But,
Kant says, that doesn't yet tell us the form, under what form the indeterminate
(which is to say the I think) is determinable by the determination.

... The determination, the indeterminate existence, the existence determined

by the determination, and Descartes thought he had a continuum of thought.
The determination was the "I think", the indeterminate existence was the "I
am", the determination determined the indeterminate: I am a thing which
thinks. Kant says: I think = determination, I am = indeterminate existence
implied by the I think; in order for there to be a determination there must
indeed be something to be determined. But now, we still must be told under
what form the indeterminate, the to-be-determined, what must be determined,
we still must be told under what form the indeterminate existence is
determinable by the determination. Descartes has only forgotten one thing,
namely to define the form of the determinable. So there were not three terms,
the determination, the indeterminate and the determined, there were four
terms: the determination, the indeterminate, the determinable form and the
determined.
If you understand that you have understood everything because you have
Kant's reply. Under what form is the indeterminate existence such as it is
implied by the I think, under what form is it determined?
The "I think" is a determination, which is to say a spontaneous act. It implies an
"I think", but a completely indeterminate "I think". Descartes told us: well yes
it's completely indeterminate, but what difference does that make? Since the
determination "I think" is enough to determine its determinate, "I am a thing
that thinks"... What he has forgotten is that "I think" is a determination which
implies something indeterminate, but also that does not tell us under what
form the "I am" is determinable by the determination "I think".
Kant's reply: the form under which the "I am" is determinable is obviously the
form of time. It will be the form of time; and you will come across this paradox
that Kant will himself define in an admirable formula: the paradox of inner
sense, the paradox of interior sense, namely the active determination "I think"
determines my existence, the active determination "I think" actively
determines my existence, but it can only determine my existence under the
form of the determinable, which is to say under the form of a passive being in
space and in time. So "I" is indeed an act, but an act that I can only represent
to myself in so far as I am a passive being. I is an other. Thus I is
transcendental.
In other words, the active determination of the "I think" can only determine my
existence under the form of existence of a passive being in space and in time.
Which amounts to saying that it's the same subject which has taken on two
forms, the form of time and the form of thought, and the form of thought can
only determine the existence of the subject as the existence of a passive being.

Kant was very interested in a bizarre author called Swedenborg, and

Swedenborg had a certain conception not only of spirits, in the spiritualist
sense, but he had a conception of space and time as a function of spiritualism.
To answer your question: it seems to me that you aren't posing the problem in
Kantian terms. When you say, for example: "I'm thinking of someone", and then
this someone comes into the room. You are using "thinking" in an extremely
general sense, that is, any activity of any given faculty referable to a so-called
thinking subject, whatever the mode of thought. When you say that I am
thinking of someone that means that I am imagining someone, or I remember
someone, and then by chance, by coincidence, this someone comes into the
room. "Thinking" can very well be used in vague and general terms. At the
point we are at in our analysis, Kant has substituted a restricted use, in which
to think does not mean to imagine or to remember, or to conceive, but in which
thinking means solely to produce concepts. To feel means solely: to receive a
sensible diversity, to apprehend a sensible diversity. To imagine means: either
to produce images, or else to produce the concept's corresponding spatiotemporal determinations.
So grant me that, at the level that we are on, whatever these restricted
definitions and their value are, to think, to imagine, to feel, are not treated by
Kant as modes of a same type of thought which could be substituted for one
another, but as specific faculties. So that when you say "I remember someone",
and this someone comes in, there is no activity of thought, there is an act of
imagination, there is suddenly the sensible diversity which gives me this
someone. That's what Kant would say.
Kant says, in a text of the Critique of Pure Reason: "if cinnabar was sometimes
red, sometimes red and sometimes black, sometimes heavy and sometimes
light... I would never have the opportunity to associate - i.e. my imagination
would never have the occasion to associate - the heavy cinnabar with the
colour red..." If nature was not subject to concrete rules, there would be no
associations of ideas. In other words, when I have an association of ideas, this
implies that things, and no longer ideas, that things are themselves subject to
rules analogous to the rules which are associated in us. Which is to say if Pierre
did not come to Vincennes, or had not come to Vincennes, I would never have
had the opportunity to associate the idea of Vincennes and the idea of Pierre.

I will try to clarify this story of faculties, but you can well see that you can't
invoke the example that you just gave as transforming the problem of the
thought-imaginary relationship, because in fact it would be a matter of one of
the forms of thought. When I think "of Pierre" and then Pierre is there, in fact I
haven't thought anything since I haven't formed any concept at all. I imagined
or remembered.
There's something very, very curious in Kant. When Kant writes his three great
critiques, the Critique of Pure Reason is in 1781, Kant is 57 years old, the
Critique of Practical Reason is in 1788, and finally the last very great work by
Kant is the Critique of Judgement in 1799, he is 76 years old. I was saying to
myself that there aren't that many precocious philosophers. If he had died at
the age of 50 he would be a sort of secondary philosopher, a good disciple of
Leibniz, a good run-of-the-mill philosopher. There is only one case, the
extraordinary case of Hume. With him, he has his whole system, all his
concepts, at the age of 22-25, after which he only repeats, improves.
Today, I would like to speak about this extraordinary book that is the Critique of
Judgement; if I say that it is an extraordinary book it's because it is a book
which founds a discipline, even if the word existed before. There is a particular
discipline which will be radically founded by the Critique of Judgement, namely
the foundation of all possible aesthetics. Aesthetics came into existence as
something different from the history of art with the Critique of Judgement. It's
really a very difficult book, don't try to understand each line of it, follow the
rhythm. I would like to develop a bit the difference between the Cartesian "I
think", such as it appears in Descartes, and the "I think" such as it appears in
Kant. We must schematise at the level of a certain labor of thought. Already
with Descartes, something appears which, it is said, will be of very great
importance in the evolution of philosophy, namely: substance, that certain
substances are therein determined as subjects. We can say very schematically
that these formulae have been helpful. Not all substances, but a type of
substance called thinking substance (?). Thinking substance is determined as
subject. It's the discovery which will mark all philosophy said to be modern,
from the 17th century onwards, it is the discovery of subjectivity. Why the
discovery of subjectivity, why would subjectivity have to be discovered? It's the
discovery of a subjectivity which is not the subjectivity of the empirical self,
namely you and me. From the point of view of the labor of the concept, if I say:
the Cartesian cogito is the assignation of substance as subject: "I think", the
Kantian I think is very different. Everything happens as if a further step was
taken, namely that the form of subjectivity breaks away from substance. The
subject is no longer determinable as a substance. Subjectivity liberates itself
from substantiality. Philosophers do not contradict each other, it's like with
scholars, there is a whole labor of the concept. I will try to express Descartes' "I
think" very concretely. Descartes' point of departure is a famous operation
called doubt. He says, in some very beautiful texts, "perhaps this table on

which I rap does not exist", and "perhaps my hand which raps on this table
does not exist"; everyone knows very well that this is a manner of speaking.
There is necessarily a discrepancy between the style and the content. It's not a
matter of saying the table doesn't exist. Descartes' problem is something else
entirely, it's the ground [fondement] of certainty, which is to say a certainty
which would be exempted from all possible doubt. If I say "the table exists", its
existence is of no matter to me, I am wondering whether it is a certainty which
contains in itself its own ground. No. Certainly the table exists, it's understood,
but this certainty does not contain in itself its own ground. Are there certainties
which contain their own ground in themselves? At this point I move up a level:
we say that we are sure that two and two make four; Dostoyevsky's heroes say:
"I don't want two and two to make four". Can one not want two and two to
make four? And when he says: I am certain that two and two make four, is that
also a certainty which has its own ground in itself? Why would two and two
make four? In this case one can demonstrate that two and two make four,
which is complicated. On the other hand Descartes thinks that it is the
operation of doubt which will give us a certainty which contains in itself its own
ground. Namely that there is one thing which I cannot doubt, I can doubt the
existence of the table, I can doubt the proposition "two and two make four", I
cannot doubt one thing, which is that in so far as I doubt, I think. In other
words, the operation of doubt, in so far as doubting is thinking, will provide me
with a certainty which contains in itself its own ground: I think! "I think" - it's a
funny sort of formula. In certain texts Descartes goes so far as to say that it is a
new mode of definition. It's a definition of man. Why is it a definition of man?
Before Descartes philosophy proceeded by definitions, scholasticism,
definitions were given above all through generic and specific differences. Man
is a rational animal. Animal is the genus, rational is the specific difference.
Descartes says that when a definition of this type is given we are always
referred to something else that we are supposed to know. In order to
understand that man is a rational animal, we are supposed to know what an
animal is, we must know what rational is. He will substitute a definition of
another form entirely: I think. It's very curious, this "I think", because there is
no need to know what thinking is. It is given in the act of thinking. There is a
kind of implication, which is not at all an explicit relation between concepts, it's
an act which is one with the act of thinking.
With doubt, when I doubt, there is one thing which I cannot doubt, which is that
as a self who doubts, I think. Self, what is the self? Is it my body, is it not my
body? I have no idea since I can doubt my body. The only thing I cannot doubt
is that since I doubt, I think. You can see that it is absolutely not a matter of an
operation in which doubt would come to bear on ?????, but of an operation
which consists in requiring a certainty which contains in itself its own ground as
certainty. "I think" is thus an act through which I determine my certainty. The "I
think" is a determination. It's an active determination. Not only can I not doubt

my thought, but I cannot think without it, which is to say that the same implicit
relation which goes from doubting to thinking, goes from thinking to being. In
the same way that doubting is thinking, in order to think one must be. You can
see the progression of the Cartesian formulae: I doubt, I think, I am. I doubt, I
think, I am, I think is the determination, I am is the indeterminate existence, I
am what? Well, the determination will determine the indeterminate existence.
That the determination determines the indeterminate means: I am a thing that
thinks. I am a thinking thing.
Thus it is that what I am is determined by the determination "I think", is
determined as the existence of a thinking thing. Descartes is told that that's all
very well, but what proves to us that it is not the body which thinks in us? A
materialist of the time says this to him. And Descartes replies - as soon as
anyone makes an objection to him, he is very rude - he says: you haven't
understood anything, I never claimed that it is not the body which thinks in us,
he says exactly this: what I am claiming is that the knowledge which I have of
my thought cannot depend on things which are not yet known. In other words,
it is not a matter of knowing if it is the body or not the body which thinks in us,
it is a matter of observing that, within the perspective of the Cartesian method,
the consciousness which I have of my thought cannot depend on things which
are not yet known, namely the body since doubt [also bears on this?]. Thus this
procedure, from a logical point of view, but a new type of logic since it is no
longer a logic that operates through genera or differences, it's a logic of
implications since Descartes is in the process of... in opposition to classical
logic which was a logic of explicit relations between concepts. He launches a
new type of logic which is a logic of implicit relations, a logic of implication.
So, he has determined with the "I think", which is a determination, he has
determined the existence of what thinks, and the existence of what thinks is
determined as the existence of the thinking thing. He thus goes from the
determination to the indeterminate, from the determination "I think" to the
indeterminate "I am" and to the determined: I am a thing that thinks. He
threads along his logic of implications: I doubt, I think, I am, I am a thing that
thinks. He has thus discovered the zone where substance was subject.
And Kant appears.
What Descartes affirms is that the soul and the body are really distinct. It's
more than an ontological separation. But what is it that he calls a real
distinction, in conformity with the whole tradition? Again, words here are as
defined as in science. A real distinction is not the distinction between two
things, it's the distinction, a mode of distinction, between two things, it's the
distinction, a mode of distinction, between two ideas and representations : two
things are said to be really distinct when I can form the idea of one of them,
which is to say when I can represent to myself the idea of one of them without

introducing anything about the other. Representations thus form the criteria for
real distinction. Two things being completely distinct is a proposition which,
ultimately, has no meaning. We will get to the level of substance, Comptesse,
you who know Descartes as well as I, after the fifth meditation. In the second
meditation, there is absolutely no way of knowing if it is the body which thinks
in me. Descartes says it categorically. The soul and the body, thought and
extension are really distinguished - which is not the same thing as really
distinct - as two ontologically separate, or separable, substances. He is not able
to say this before the end of the meditations. In the second meditation, when
he discovers the "cogito", the "I think", he absolutely cannot say it yet, and it's
for this reason that among the novelties of Descartes' text, there is something
which he very much insists on, and this is the true novelty of the meditations,
even if you don't like Descartes very much, namely that it is the first book
which introduces time into philosophical discourse.
There is something tremendous in this. What he says in the second meditation,
then what he says in the fifth, there is a temporality which has unfolded which
meant that he could not say in the second what he will say in the fifth.
This is not true of all philosophies; if I take Aristotle or Plato, there is a
succession in the reading, but this succession corresponds to a chronological
order and that's all. In Descartes there is the establishment of a temporal order
which is constitutive of the metaphysical dimension.
Broadly speaking, during the whole of the middle ages, there was a theory of
forms of distinction, each author will create his own forms of distinction, but
broadly there were three major types of distinction: real distinction, modal
distinction and the distinction of reason. And if you relate these three types of
distinction to things themselves, you produce an absurdity, if you give them an
ontological bearing, they don't have an ontological bearing yet, they only have
a representative bearing, namely: there is a real distinction between A and B
when I can think A without thinking B, and B without thinking A. You can see
that it is a matter of a criterion of thought, a criterion of representation. For
example: two things are really distinct, and not truly distinguished, two things
are really distinct when you can form the representation of one without
introducing anything of the other, and reciprocally. This lighter is on this book,
are they really distinct? Yes, I can represent the lighter to myself without
introducing anything of the representation of the book, they are really distinct.
It's possible that they are also truly distinguished, it would be enough for me to
put the lighter in my pocket. Between the front and back of a piece of paper,
there is a real distinction, I can represent to myself one side of the paper
without having the least representation of the other. In things, front and back
are not separate, but in my representation front and back correspond to two
representations. I would say that there is a real distinction between the front

and back of the paper. So there can be a real distinction between two things
which are not truly distinguished.
Second type of distinction: modal distinction. There is a modal distinction when
I can think A, I can represent A to myself without B, but I can't represent to
myself B alone. For example: extension and the figure. Let's suppose, broadly,
that I can represent to myself extension without figure, I cannot represent to
myself a figure without extension. I would say that between extension and
figure there is a modal distinction. In relation to this, we must not transport it to
the level of ontology too quickly, it does not mean at all that there is an
extension without figure in things, perhaps there isn't. You can see it's the
same gesture, it's the criteria of representation.
Third distinction: the distinction of reason. When I represent to myself as two,
two things which are one in the representation. In other words, the distinction
of reason is abstraction. When I distinguish the front and back of the piece of
paper, I do not make an abstraction since they are given as two in my
representation, since there are two representations, but when you speak of a
length without breadth, however small this length, there you make an
abstraction. When you can have no possible representation of a length which
would have no breadth, however small. Thus between length and breadth there
is a distinction of reason.
The way people talk about abstraction is amazing, they have absolutely no idea
what it is. Philosophy has a kind of technique and a terminology like
mathematics. Generally the word abstract is used for things in which there is
no abstraction. The problem of abstraction is how can I make two things out of
what only exists as one in my representation. It's not difficult to make a thing
into two when I have two representations, but when I say the back of the piece
of paper, I am not abstracting at all since the back is given to me in a
representation which itself exists. When I say a length without thickness, there I
am abstracting because I am separating two things which are necessarily given
in each other in my representation.
There is indeed a philosopher who started the theory of distinctions. And then
the theologians of the middle ages were not guys concerned with God, that's
like saying that the painters of the Renaissance were guys who thought about
God, no, they thought about colours, they thought about lines, and they draw
out the most bizarre things from Christ's body. What we call theologians are
people who are in the process of inventing a logic, a physics, a dynamics, and
one of the great things in the theology of the middle ages is the theory of
distinctions... ok... up to this point it's completely independent of the question
of knowing if things are truly distinguished or confused in themselves, so that
in the whole story of the cogito, I doubt, I think, I am, I am a thing that thinks,
Descartes can only conclude: the representation that I have of my thought, and

the representation that I have of an extended body, are such that I can
represent my thought to myself without representing anything to myself of
extension; I can represent to myself an extension without representing
anything to myself of my thought. This is enough for Descartes to say that
thought and extension are really distinct. He cannot add yet that it is not the
body which thinks in me...

[interruption of the tape]

So he will have to, in order to draw from the real distinction between
representation-substance the ontological separation between substances, he
will have to go through a whole analysis of the concept of God in which he
says: if the real distinction between representation and substance was such
that there was no corresponding true separation in things, an ontological
separation in things, then God would be deceitful, God would be lying to us
since the world would be double, God would be duplicitous, God would be full
of duplicity since he would have made two non-conforming worlds: the world of
representations and the world of things. You can see what that implies,
philosophically, if God is deceitful... it would imply an entirely new way of
posing of the problem of evil. But if I had the power to establish real
distinctions between representations without there being a corresponding true
separation between things, the world would be double: there would be the
world of my representations and the world of things, so God would be always
misleading me since he would inspire true ideas in me and these true ideas
would correspond to nothing in things.
To reply to Comptesse, I'm just saying that it's true that it's a story of
ontological separation, but not so quickly, it will become a matter of ontological
separation when Descartes is able to conclude: since I can represent thinking
substance as really distinct from extended substance, then thinking substance
and extended substance are two substances ontologically, and from that point
on it is not the body which thinks in me. But before having gone through [the
fifth meditation?], he absolutely cannot say this, he can only say: I conceive
thinking substance as really distinct from extended substance, they are really
distinct, since, once again, to be really distinct is the same thing as to be
conceived as really distinct, two things whose representations are caused
without one implying anything of the other are really distinct, he cannot yet
affirm that it is not extension which thinks in me, that it is not the body which
thinks in me.
The one thing that seems interesting to me is this idea of implicit relations, but
Descartes does not call it that, and from this the promotion of an order of time

in the writing of philosophy... You are going to tell me that you understand
everything.
What does Kant do here? Kant wants to go further. It's inevitable, he wants to
go further in relation to a previous philosopher, only this further has no preexistence, he must create it. One of Kant's most beautiful texts is: "What does
it mean: to orient oneself in thinking?" In this very beautiful text he develops a
whole geographical conception of thought; he even has a new orientation, we
must go further, Descartes did not go far enough: since he determined certain
substances as subject, we must go further and break the link between the
subject and substance. The subject is not substance. OK. What does that
mean? He takes it up again and I will try to mark the stages: he says: "I think",
fine. Which is to say that it is an active determination, and it's in this sense that
Kant will name the "I think" as the form of spontaneity. It seems strange when
he says that "I think" is the form of spontaneity, but everything is clear if you
stick closely to the terminology; it means precisely: "I think" is a determination
- he takes that from Descartes - and the "I think" accompanies each production
of concepts. I cannot think a concept without thereby including the "I think". In
other words, the "I" of the "I think" is the subject of all concepts, or, as he will
say, it's the unity of the synthesis. Thus on this point, he changes the
vocabulary, but he remains in agreement with Descartes. Why does he change
vocabulary? It was to be expected, if he changes vocabulary while remaining in
agreement with Descartes, it's because he will need this vocabulary for the
moment when he will not agree, that's the first point.
Second point: in order to think one must be, in other words, there is a relation
of implication between the determination "I think" and the position of an
indeterminate existence "I am". Kant says it all the time: the "I think" implies often the words vary - a feeling of existence (here we can clearly see the
lineage, between Descartes and Kant there was Rousseau). Sometimes he says
a consciousness of an indeterminate existence; the "I think" implies a pure
consciousness of an indeterminate existence. Agreement with Descartes up to
this point. From this point on Descartes has no more problems, and it's when a
philosopher has no more problems that the next philosopher is about to arrive.
Descartes has no more problems because he has a determination, and he has
posited an indeterminate existence hence something to be determined, and he
will say that the determination determines the indeterminate. The
determination: I think, the indeterminate: I am, the determination determines
the indeterminate: I am a thing that thinks.
Here Kant says no; it's the birth of German philosophy. I'm thinking of Leibniz.
There are objections which are like reproaches. Beneath objections there are
always theoretical reproaches. Leibniz already said of Descartes: he is too
quick. It's like a judgement of taste. Kant takes on something of this, it's too
quickly said. Kant: "I think" is a determination, agreed, determination implies

the positing of an indeterminate existence "I am", agreed, but this doesn't tell
me under what form this indeterminate existence is determinable, and this
Descartes doesn't care about because he hasn't seen the problem. I think, I
am, agreed. But what am I? Descartes replied: "I am a thing that thinks" since
he applied the determination to the indeterminate. Now what I'm saying is
becoming very clear: Descartes carried out an operation whereby he directly
applied the determination to the existence to be determined. He directly
applied the "I think" to the "I am" in order to get "I am a thing that thinks."
Kant says OK, I think, I am. But what am I, what is it that I am? A thing that
thinks? But by what right can he say that? Descartes would have become
angry... Kant says to him: but you're stuck, you have posited an indeterminate
existence and you claim to determine it with the determination "I think". You
have no right to do that. You have a determination, you have posited an
indeterminate existence, you can turn it around as much as you like, you will
not make any headway. You are stuck there. Why? Because to draw from this
the conclusion "I am a thing that thinks", it assumes - and you have no right to
assume it - it assumes that the indeterminate existence is determinable as a
substance or a thing. Res cogitans, in Latin, the thinking thing.
Kant says, in accordance with all that has come before, which is to say what I
tried to say the last time - the extraordinary change in the notion of
phenomenon, the phenomenon no longer designating the appearance but the
apparition, what appears in space and time - Kant can now say to us that the
form under which an existence is determined within the conditions of our
knowledge (what happens with angels, we have no idea), well, the form under
which an existence is determinable under the conditions of our knowledge is
the form of time. Thus the "I think" is the form of spontaneity or the most
universal form of determination, but time is the most universal form of the
determinable. Descartes' fatal conclusion was to confuse the indeterminate and
the determinable, but the determination can only bear on the indeterminate as
the mediation of the form of the determinable. In other words, I think, I am, the
determination must determine the indeterminate existence "I am", but the
indeterminate existence "I am" is only itself determinable under the form of
time. It is only under the form of time, as the form of the determinable, that the
form of thought will determine the indeterminate existence "I am".
This is how my existence can be determined only as time. But if time is the
form of the determinable, under which my indeterminate existence can be
determined by the "I think", what form do I receive from the determinable? The
form that I receive from the determinable is that of a phenomenon in time,
since time is the form of apparition of phenomena. I appear and I appear to
myself in time. But what is it to appear and to appear to oneself, to appear in
time?

They are the coordinates of a receptive, which is to say passive, being. Namely
a being which has a cause, which does not act without also undergoing effects.
Ok, we're at the end, and it's here that Kant will name the paradox of inner
sense, the paradox of intimate sense: the "I think" is an active determination,
it's the same form of the active determination, but the existence which it
implies, the "I am", the indeterminate existence that the active determination
of the "I think" implies, is only determinable in time, which is to say as the
existence of a passive subject which undergoes all its modifications following
the order and the course of time. In other words, I cannot - there is one
sentence which is splendid, it's the Kantian version of what I was saying last
time, namely that I is an other. This is what Kant says in the Critique of Pure
Reason: "I cannot determine my existence as that of a spontaneous being, I
only represent the spontaneity of my act of thinking". It's exactly "I is an other".
I cannot determine my existence as that of an I, but I only represent the I to
myself. The spontaneity of my act of thinking. The fact that I represent to
myself the spontaneity of my act of thinking means that I represent the active
determination of the "I think" to myself as the determination which determines
my existence, but which can only determine it as the existence of a being
which is not active, but a being on time [tre sur le temps]. This is the line of
time which separates the "I think" from the "I am". It's the pure and empty line
of time which traverses, which effects this sort of crack in the I, between an "I
think" as determination and an "I am" as determinable in time.
Time has become the limit of thought and thought never ceases to have to deal
with its own limit. Thought is limited from the inside. There is no longer an
extended substance which limits thinking substance from the outside, and
which resists thinking substance, but the form of thought is traversed through
and through, as if cracked like a plate, it is cracked by the line of time. It makes
time the interior limit of thought itself, which is to say the unthinkable in
thought.
From Kant onward, philosophy will give itself the task of thinking what is not
thinkable, instead of giving itself the task of thinking what is exterior to
thought. The true limit traverses and works thought from within.
We rediscover what I tried to say the last time, namely: we find a sort of
tension between two forms: the active form of spontaneity, or if you prefer, the
"I think" as form of active determination, or form of the concept since "I think"
is the formal unity of all concepts, so on the one hand the active form of
determination, on the other the intuitive or receptive form of the determinable,
time. The two are absolutely heterogeneous to each other, and yet there is a
fundamental correlation: the one works in the other. Thought shelters in itself
what resists thought.

In what sense is Heidegger Kantian? There are famous phrases such as: "we
are not yet thinking"; when he talks about time in relation to thought, it's in this
way that he is Kantian. The direct line from Kant to Heidegger is truly the
problem of time and its relation to thought. The big problem that Kant
discovers is the nature of the relation between the form of determination, or
activity, or spontaneity, and on the other hand the form of receptivity, or form
of the determinable, time. If I shift slightly, I would no longer say the form of
determination and the form of determinable, but: two types of determination
which are heterogeneous. You will ask me by what right I can make this shift;
passing from the form of determination: I think, form of the determinable: time,
the idea that there are two types of determination remains to be seen, but you
can sense that it is the outcome of a series of shifts which must be justified,
namely the two types of determination, in this case the conceptual
determination, as all concepts refer to the "I think", concepts are the acts of
the "I think", thus on the one hand a conceptual determination, and on the
other hand a spatio-temporal determination. The two are absolutely
heterogeneous, irreducible, the conceptual determination and the spatiotemporal determination are absolutely irreducible to each other, and yet they
never cease to correspond to each other in such a way that for each concept I
can assign the spatio-temporal determinations which correspond to it, just as,
the spatio-temporal determinations being given, I can make a concept
correspond to them. In what way, this is what remains to be seen.
If you grant me these shifts which we will define in a moment, it amounts to
the same thing to say that Kant poses the problem of the relation between the
form of determination "I think" and the form of the determinable = time, and in
so doing completely upends [bouleverse] the element of philosophy, or to say,
on a more precise level: no longer the "I think" but concepts, no longer time
but the determinations of space and time, in this case it is a matter of the
relation between the conceptual determination and the spatio-temporal
determination.

[Break]

Our point of departure is this: how can we explain that conceptual

determinations and spatio-temporal determinations correspond with each other
when they are not at all of the same nature? What is a spatio-temporal
determination? We will see that there are perhaps several kinds. Kant poses the
question concerning the relation between the two types of determination on
very different levels. One of these levels will be called that of the synthesis,
another of these levels he calls that of the schema, and it would be disastrous

for a reader of Kant to confuse the synthesis and the schema. I'm saying that
the schema and the synthesis are operations which, in a certain way, put a
conceptual determination and a spatio-temporal determination into relation,
but then it's as if the synthesis will be shattered, pierced, will be overcome by a
stupefying adventure which is the experience of the sublime. The experience of
the sublime will knock over all the syntheses. But we do not live only on this.
We live only on the syntheses and then the experience of the sublime, which is
to say the infinity of the starry vault, or else the furious sea... The other case,
the schema, is another case where spatio-temporal determinations and
conceptual determinations come into correspondence, and there again there
are conditions where our schemas shatter, and this will be the astonishing
experience of the symbol and of symbolism. But the whole analysis of the
sublime, and the whole analysis of the symbol and symbolism, the English had
analyzed the sublime before him, but the whole novelty of Kant's analysis is
obvious: it will be the Critique of Judgement, in his last book, as if to the extent
that he aged, he became aware of the catastrophe. Of the double catastrophe
of the crushing of the sublime, the sublime crushes me, and the irruption of the
symbol, where our whole ground, the whole ground of our knowledge which we
had constructed with syntheses and schemas, starts to shake.
What is the synthesis? It's the synthesis of perception. But don't think that that
goes without saying. I'm saying that it's from this level of the analysis of the
synthesis of perception that Kant can be considered as the founder of
phenomenology. That is, that discipline of philosophy which has as its object
the study, not of appearances, but apparitions and the fact of appearing. What
is the synthesis of perception? All phenomena are in space and time. There is
strictly speaking an indefinite diversity in space and time. Moreover, space and
time are themselves diverse: they are not only the forms in which diversity is
given, but they also give us a properly spatial and temporal diversity: the
diversity of heres and the diversity of nows; any moment in time is a possible
now, any point in space is a possible here. Thus not only is there an indefinite
diversity in space and time, but also an indefinite diversity of space and time
itself. Thus for perception, certainly the diverse must be given to me, but if I
had nothing but this given diverse, this receptivity of the diverse, it would
never form a perception. When I say "I perceive", I perceive a hat, I perceive a
book, for example, this means that I constitute a certain space and a certain
time in space and time. Space and time are indefinitely divisible: any portion of
space is a space, any portion of time is a time. So it is not space and time
themselves which account for the operation by which I determine a space and
a time. I perceive a piece of sugar: I perceive a complex of space and time. You
will tell me: that works for space, I can see that, there is the form, the grain;
but why time? Because it forms part of my perception to wait for the sugar to
melt. When I perceive a thing, I perceive a certain temporality of the thing and
a certain spatiality of the thing. So there we have, according to Kant, a properly

logical order, not at all chronological, he doesn't say that we must start with
one.
There are three operations which constitute the synthesis, the synthesis
operating on diversity in space and in time, and diversity in space and time at
the same time. The synthesis consists in limiting a diversity in space and in
time, and a diversity of space and time themselves, in order to say: it begins, it
ends, etc.... The first aspect of the synthesis is what Kant calls the successive
synthesis of the apprehension of parts, that is: every thing is a multiplicity and
has a multiplicity of parts; I perceive parts, my eye runs over the thing. You will
tell me that there are things small enough for me to perceive them at once. Yes
and no, perhaps not, maybe so; moreover, however small something is, my
perception can begin from the right or begin from the left, from the top or the
bottom; it doesn't take very much time, it's a very contracted temporality. I
carry out a synthesis of successive apprehension of parts.
But by the same stroke things already become complicated, we must
distinguish two cases, we have not finished. In any case the apprehension of
parts is successive. There are cases where the succession is objective, this
already complicates things. I perceive a house, for example: ... the foreground,
the background, the perspective, the foreground becoming background etc. ...
there is a kind of subjective apprehension. But I begin from the right, or I begin
from the left, and I keep going; in both cases my apprehension is successive,
but the succession has only a subjective value. I can begin with the top or the
bottom, with the right or the left; this will be reversible or retrograde, whether
from right to left or from left to right, I can say that it's the wall in front of me.
The succession is in my apprehension, it is not in the thing, it is not in the
phenomenon. By contrast, you are sitting on ?????, there again you have a
succession, a successive apprehension of parts, but the succession is objective.
When the succession is objective, you will say: I perceive an event. When the
succession is grasped as solely [subjective?], you perceive a thing. We could
say that an event is a phenomenon whose successive apprehension of parts is
such that the succession therein is objective. By contrast a thing is such that
the succession therein is only subjective.
Thus the first aspect of the synthesis which consists in determining the parts of
a space and a time is the synthesis of apprehension. Through this I determine
the parts of a space. Let's suppose that you have carried out your successive
apprehension of parts, suppose that you are in a curious situation, suppose
that is that when you have arrived at the following part you have forgotten the
previous one, you would not be able to perceive. There must in fact be an
operation of contraction such that when you come to the following part, the
preceding one is conserved, otherwise if you lose on one side what you gain on
the other, you will never manage to determine a space and a time. This second
aspect of the synthesis is the synthesis of reproduction. You must reproduce

the preceding part when you come to the following part, so not only must you
produce successive parts, but you have to reproduce the preceding parts with
the following ones. The two aspects of the synthesis refer to the synthesis as
the act of what? Not receptivity, receptivity is solely space and time and what
appears in space and time is intuition. The concept is something else. The
synthesis refers to the imagination, it is the act of the imagination. This act of
the imagination is bizarre; see what he means: it's that through the two
aspects, the apprehension of parts and the reproduction of parts, I effectively
determine a space and a time. But according to Kant, to imagine is not to
fabricate images, it is not to think of Pierre who is not there. To imagine is to
determine a space and a time in space and time. There is certainly an empirical
imagination. Empirical imagination is when Pierre is not there, I think of Pierre,
or else I imagine Pierre, I dream. But the imagination which Kant will call
transcendental is the act by which the imagination determines a space and a
time, and it determines a space and a time through the synthesis of
apprehension and the synthesis of reproduction. But something else again is
needed. I am no longer in the situation of a diversity in space and in time, or a
diversity of space and time itself, I am in the situation of a space and a time
determined by the synthesis of the imagination. And yet I cannot yet say that I
perceive. In order to perceive we still need for this space and this time,
determined by the synthesis, or what comes to the same thing, that which
contains this space and this time, must be related to a form, to a form of what?
Not to a form of space or time since we have the form of space and time. What
other form? You can see the progression. We started from the form of space
and time in general, as the form of intuition, then the act of imagination
determines a space, a given space and a given time, through the two aspects
of the synthesis. In this case it's a form - not the form of space and time - but a
spatio-temporal form, the form of a house or the form of a lion for example, but
we need yet another form in order for there to be perception. It is necessary for
this space and time, or what contains this determined space and time, to be
related to the form of an object.
At this point it becomes difficult to understand. What does it mean that I have
to relate it to the form of an object? We can imagine a number of sensations
where the sensible givens, the diverse, sensible diversity, are not related to the
object-form. It's my perception which is constituted in such a way that sensible
diversity is related to the form of an object. In other words, I do not perceive an
object, it is my perception which presupposes the object-form as one of its
conditions, it's not something, it's an empty form. The object-form is precisely
the index by which sensible qualities, such as I experience them, are supposed
to refer to something. What something? Precisely a something = nothing. Kant
will invent the splendid formula: a something = x. You will tell me that it's not a
something = x when I say it's a table or it's a lion, it's not nothing, but the anyobject-whatever [l'objet quelconque], the object = x, only receives a

determination as lion, table or lighter by the diversity that I relate to it. When I
relate to the object = x a diversity comprising: long hair in the wind, a roar in
the air, a heavy step, a run of antelopes, well, I say it's a lion. And then I say:
look a mouse! What I would like you to understand is that in any case there is
an any-object-whatever, the object = x is a pure form of perception. I do not
perceive objects, and it's my perception which presupposes the object-form. So
the object is specified and qualified by myself according to a given diversity, a
given space and time that I relate it to; when I relate a given spatio-temporal
diversity, when I relate a given spatio-temporal form to the object = x, the
object = x is no longer x, I can say that it's a lion or a house. But inversely I
could never say that it's a lion or a house if the empty form of the object = x,
the any-object-whatever was not available to me, for it is not the sensible
diversity and it is nothing in the sensible diversity which accounts for the
operation by which the sensible diversity goes beyond itself towards something
that I call an object. Thus, apart from the form of space and of time (the form of
intuition), apart from the determined spatio-temporal form (the synthesis of the
imagination), I also need a third form: the form of the any-object-whatever such
as this form is related to the spatio-temporal form in saying "it's this".
Such that the third aspect of the synthesis, after apprehension and
reproduction, is what Kant calls recognition. To recognize. I effect a recognition
when I say: "it's this". But "it's this" implies an operation whereby I go beyond
what is given to me, I go beyond the forms of space and time, I go beyond
purely spatio-temporal forms towards the form of an any-object-whatever that
the spatio-temporal form will determine as such or such an object. But just as
the two first acts of the synthesis, apprehension and reproduction, refer to the
imagination, because it consists in determining a space and a time, so
recognition is an act of the understanding. Why? You remember the concepts
which are the representations of the understanding, they are the predicates of
the any-object-whatever, of the object = x. Not every object is a lion, not every
object is red, but every object has a cause, every object is one, every object is
a multiplicity of parts, etc.... The predicates that you can attribute to anyobject-whatever are the categories of the understanding, they are the concepts
of the understanding. So recognition, the form of recognition, the form of the
any-object-whatever is no longer in this case the synthesis of the imagination
but the unity of the synthesis of ????? [understanding?].
It's the three aspects, apprehension, reproduction and recognition which
constitute perception under the conditions [of an other of perception?].
A small note in parenthesis: above all never confuse, in the Kantian vocabulary,
the object = x and the thing in itself. The thing in itself is opposed to the
phenomenon since the phenomenon is the thing as it appears, whereas the
object = x is not at all opposed to the phenomenon, it is the referring of all
phenomena to the object-form. The thing in itself is situated outside of our

possible knowledge, since we only know what appears, the form of the anyobject-whatever is on the contrary a condition. The form of the object = x is a
condition of our knowledge. We begin again from zero. I have all the elements
[ensemble] of the synthesis: apprehension of successive parts, reproduction of
preceding parts in the following ones, reference to the form of an any-objectwhatever. So I have referred a spatio-temporal form to a conceptual form: the
object-form. So Kant says to himself... let's begin again at the beginning. We
have tried to analyze an edifice which emerges from the ground: the edifice
which emerges from the ground is the synthesis. What is underneath it? I have
said: in order to perceive an object I apprehend its successive parts, but how
do I choose these parts? It's a funny sort of thing because it varies greatly
according to the object. Apprehending successive parts implies, even at the
level of perception, it already implies something like a lived evaluation of a unit
of measure. But in following the nature of objects there is no constant unit of
measure. In reflection, yes; from the point of view of the understanding, yes, I
indeed have a constant unit of measure. I can fix a standard and even so, we
will see that this is not even true, but we could fix a standard, put it into place
for example and say that there are so many meters. But this is obviously not
what Kant means by the successive apprehension of parts. It's like a sort of
qualitative measure according to the object. What does that mean? When I see
a tree, for example, I carry out my apprehension of successive parts, I begin
with the top, then I go towards the bottom, or the other way round, and I say
that this tree must be as big as ten men... I choose a kind of sensible unit to
carry out my successive apprehension of parts. And then, behind the tree,
there is a mountain, and I say how big this mountain is, it must be ten trees
tall. And then I look at the sun and I wonder how many mountains it is; I never
stop changing the unit of measure according to my perceptions. My unit of
measure must be in harmony with the thing to be measured; there are some
amazing variations.
Kant tells us in the Critique of Judgement, he is very careful not to before, he
tells us that the most elementary act of the synthesis of perception
presupposes a logical act. This synthesis of perception is in spite of everything
a logical synthesis. I say in spite of everything because at the same time he
gives "logic" an entirely new meaning. So once again I must choose a unit of
measure, and this unit of measure is variable in each case in relation to the
thing to be perceived, just as the thing to be perceived depends on the chosen
unit. Beneath the successive apprehension of parts, which is a logical
synthesis, even though it refers to the imagination, we need an aesthetic
comprehension... this is no longer of the same order as measure; the aesthetic
comprehension of a unit of measure such as it is supposed by measuring...
Kant is in the process of discovering a sort of basis for the synthesis of
apprehension, how an aesthetic comprehension of the unit of measure can be
carried out because an aesthetic comprehension of the unit of measure is

presupposed by the synthesis of the imagination in perception, namely the

apprehension of an [evaluation of a rhythm?]. The evaluation of a rhythm will
allow me to say: yes, I'll take that as a unit of measure in a given case; and the
rhythms are always heterogeneous, we plunge into them in a sort of
exploration. Beneath measures and their units, there are rhythms which give
me, in each case, the aesthetic comprehension of the unit of measure. Beneath
the measure there is the rhythm. But this is the catastrophe. Again we can no
longer stop. We had the synthesis, we remained on the ground and the
synthesis was established on the ground; we wanted to dig a bit and we
discovered the phenomenon of aesthetic comprehension, and we can no longer
stop. The rhythm is something which comes out of chaos, and the rhythm is
something which can indeed perhaps return to chaos? What could happen?
Let's approach this like a story. I look at something and I tell myself that I'm
dizzy, or else my imagination wavers. What happens? In the first place I cannot
choose a unit of measure. I don't have a unit of measure; it goes beyond my
possible unit of measure. I look for an appropriate unit of measure and I don't
have one. Each time I find one it is destroyed. So I am pushed as if by a wind at
my back to choose bigger and bigger units of measure, and none is adequate.
By the same stroke I cannot carry out my synthesis of apprehension. What I see
is incommensurable to any unit of measure. Second catastrophe. In my panic I
can perhaps distinguish parts, completely heterogeneous parts, but when I
come to the next one everything happens as if I was struck by a dizzy spell: I
forget the preceding one; I am pushed into going ever further and losing more
and more. I can no longer carry out either my synthesis of apprehension or my
synthesis of reproduction. Why? Because what I grasped, what struck my
senses, was something which goes beyond any possibility of aesthetic
apprehension!
We have seen that aesthetic comprehension was - even though Kant does not
say it, but it is what he is thinking of - was the grasping of a rhythm as basis of
measure and the unit of measure. You can see the whole of the synthesis of
perception: I can no longer apprehend the successive parts, I cannot reproduce
the preceding parts as the following ones arrive, and finally I can no longer say
what it is, I can no longer qualify the any-object-whatever. My whole structure
of perception is in the process of exploding. Why? My whole structure of
perception is in the process of exploding because we have seen that it was
founded - not in the sense of a ground [fondement], but in the sense of a
foundation [fondation] - we have seen that this whole perceptive synthesis
found its foundation in aesthetic comprehension, which is to say the evaluation
of a rhythm.
Here it's as if this aesthetic comprehension, as evaluation of a rhythm which
would serve as a foundation of measure, thus the synthesis of perception, is
compromised, drowned in a chaos. The sublime.

Two things are said to be sublime. Kant's response: two things are said to be
sublime: the "mathematical" sublime (said to be mathematical because it is
extensive), and what is called the dynamical sublime (an intensive sublime).
Examples: the infinite spectacle of the calm sea is the mathematical sublime;
the starry celestial vault when the sky is clear is the mathematical sublime; it
inspires a sentiment close to respect within me, it's a dynamical [?] sublime. In
this case the infinity of an expanse gives way to the infinity of material forces,
the intensive infinity of forces which fill space and time. The dynamical sublime
is the tumultuous sea, it's the avalanche. In this case it's terror. Think to what
extent Kant is at the centre of a certain conception of German Romanticism. I'll
pass over the reasons why the dynamical sublime is more profound than the
mathematical sublime. My second question on the sublime is : what effect does
it have on me? We can move forward. I can no longer apprehend parts, I can no
longer reproduce parts, I can no longer recognize something, and in effect the
sublime, as Kant says, is the formless and the deformed. It is the infinite as
encompassing all of space, or the infinite as overturning all of space; if my
synthesis of perception is suppressed, this is because my aesthetic
comprehension is itself compromised, which is to say: instead of a rhythm, I
find myself in chaos.
Everything happens as if the imagination (the synthesis of perception) was
pushed to its own limit. Great, we are in the process of rediscovering on the
level of the faculty of the imagination something which we found on the level of
the faculty of thought: it is not only thought which has a consubstantial
relation, a fundamental relation, with an interior limit, the imagination is itself
traversed by a limit specific to it, and the sublime confronts the imagination
with its own limit. The beautiful, according to Kant, is not this at all, the
beautiful is a reflection of the form of the object in the imagination. The
sublime is when the imagination is in the presence of its own limit, it is
alarmed. There was an enormous ambiguity between rhythm and chaos; I refer
you to Paul Klee's famous text, how rhythm emerges from chaos, the way in
which the grey point jumps over itself and organizes a rhythm in chaos. The
grey point having the double function of being both chaos and at the same
time a rhythm in so far as it dynamically jumps over itself; it will organize chaos
and allow rhythm. Czanne tells us that we never look at a landscape, it looks
at something, and it is absolute chaos, "iridescent chaos". Czanne says that
it's like a landslide, a cave-in.
At this point I am one with the painting - this is Czanne speaking - we are an
iridescent chaos, etc. ... geological strata... translated into Kantian terms, it's
really: I go from the synthesis of perception to [aesthetic?] comprehension...
Fortunately we are not caught up in the sublime all the time, this would be
terrible, fortunately we hang on to our perception. At the moment that Kant
says that in the sublime the imagination is taken to its own limit, and by the

same stroke panicked, like a panicked compass, it is in the process of imagining

what cannot be imagined; well at that moment, Kant says, in the respect of the
mathematical sublime, or in the terror of the dynamic sublime, we suffer
[prouvons].
At the same time that my imagination is crushed by its own limit, it is a limit
which is like its founding kernel, it is the bottomless [sans fond]. What is this
bottomlessness of the imagination? It's something which makes me discover in
myself something like a faculty which is stronger than the imagination, and this
is the faculty of ideas.

Question:Can we say that music is the art of the sublime?

Gilles: That wouldn't be difficult. If I think, out of convenience for you, in terms
of the history of philosophy, we can distinguish the arts of the beautiful and the
arts of the sublime. However, about the arts of the beautiful and the arts of the
sublime, you will find a long history with Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. But how
do they make the distinction? Broadly, if you like, all art rests on an Idea; but in
the arts of the beautiful it's as if the Idea is mediated, which is to say it is
represented. There is a representation of the Idea. In the sublime the will
appears for itself. Nietzsche, in so far as he is concerned with the origin of
tragedy, will remain with this idea of a preeminence of music over all the arts
because music makes the Idea appear as such, in opposition to the other arts
which are condemned to representation.
You should sense that an Idea is not from the imagination, but neither is it a
concept of the understanding, it's something else still. We thus need a very
particular status for the Idea since the whole game of the sublime is this: the
imagination is vanquished and derailed before its own limit, but the joy which
we experience is because an awareness arises in us of a superior faculty, which
Kant will call the super-sensible faculty and which is the faculty of the Idea.
With Kant we cease to think the problem of evil in terms of exteriority. Very
broadly, in the classical tradition, there is a tendency rather to say that evil is
matter, evil is the body, it's what opposes, it's what resists. It's with Kant that
this very curious idea appears, which obviously comes from Protestantism, of
reform, the idea that evil is something spiritual. It is truly within spirit and not
matter as exterior. This is precisely what I was trying to say with the notion of
limit in Kant: the limit is not something outside, it is something which works
from within. Here evil is fundamentally bound to spirituality; it is not at all as it
is in Plato, where if there is evil it is because souls fall, and obviously they
incarnate themselves in a body. With the reform the devil is taken seriously,

only taking the devil seriously can be a philosophical operation. Evil is not the
body, evil is truly in thought qua thought.
Question: Can you give the definitions of causality in Kant?
Gilles: There are several. The first definition of causality is: causality is the
faculty of making something begin in the order of phenomena. It's a simple
definition which implies two causalities: a causality which Kant calls
phenomenal, namely that phenomena follow on from each other, and a
phenomenon begins something which will be called its effect, and, second
causality, the so-called free causality - because phenomenal causality is a
determined causality and free causality is the faculty of beginning something in
the order of phenomena on the basis of something which is not itself caused.
Second definition of causality, those before were nominal definitions, second
definition: it's the relation between phenomena when the succession in their
apprehension corresponds to an objective rule. Example: the boat which goes
down the flow of the river, there the succession corresponds to an objective
rule in opposition to succession in the perception of reason, where there is no
causality. I would not say that the right side determines the left side, whereas
in the perception of the boat I would say that the preceding state determines
the following state.

Today I would like to be as clear as possible within a problem which is

nevertheless complicated. I have only one idea at best which I would like to
develop today, and which is not only linked to the desire to help some of you in
speaking about Kant in a precise way, but also to try and show a kind of
development of an amazing problem throughout Kant's philosophy. The centre
of everything I would like to say today is precisely this: if we stay with the
Critique of Pure Reason, Kant's famous book, we can well see, in relation to the
themes which concern us involving time, we can well see that there are two
great operations. What these two great operations of knowledge have in
common - since pure reason is concerned with knowledge - what these two
great operations of knowledge have in common is that in both cases a
correspondence is created, despite their heterogeneous elements, despite their
difference in nature, between conceptual determinations and spatio-temporal
operations. These two great operations by which a correspondence is created whatever the difficulties this correspondence involves given their heterogeneity

- between spatio-temporal determinations and conceptual determinations are

both synthetic operations. They are synthetic for very simple reasons, they are
necessarily synthetic since, as we have seen, spatio-temporal determinations
on the one hand and conceptual determinations on the other hand, space-time
and concepts, are heterogeneous, so the act which puts them into
correspondence can only be a synthesis of heterogeneities. These two
synthetic operations have names. These two operations also have in common
the fact of being acts of the imagination. Obviously imagination no longer
means making up ideas or imagining something, since Kant gives a
fundamentally new meaning to the act of imagination, since it is the act by
which spatio-temporal determinations will be put into correspondence with
conceptual determinations. You will ask me why he calls that "imagination"?
Understand that he is already at a level where he grasps imagination at a much
deeper level than in the preceding philosophies; imagination is no longer the
faculty by which we produce images, it is the faculty by which we determine a
space and a time in a way that conforms to a concept, but that does not flow
from the concept which is of another nature than the determination of space
and time. It is really the productive imagination in opposition to the
reproductive imagination. When I say: I imagine my friend Pierre, this is the
reproductive imagination. I could do something else besides imagine Pierre, I
could say hello to him, go to his place, I could remember him, which is not the
same thing as imagining him. Imagining my friend Pierre is the reproductive
imagination. On the other hand, determining a space and a time in conformity
to a concept, but in such a way that this determination cannot flow from the
concept itself, to make a space and a time correspond to a concept, that is the
act of the productive imagination. What does a mathematician or a geometer
do? Or in another way, what does an artist do? They're going to make
productions of space-time.
The two synthetic operations which establish the correspondences of spacetime to concepts. I said that Kant gives them very strict names, and it would be
very unfortunate to confuse these two operations. One is designated under the
name of synthesis strictly speaking, synthesis as the act of the productive
imagination and the other - which is no less synthetic - Kant saves another
name for it, that of the Schema. A schema. It is also an operation of the
productive imagination. One of our problems is what the difference is between
a synthesis strictly speaking and a schema. We have seen what they have in
common: in both cases it is a matter of determining a space and a time in
correspondence with a concept. But my second problem is that if we don't stay
with the Critique of Pure Reason, if we go on to one of Kant's last works, where
Kant goes deeper and deeper, which is to say if we effect a confrontation with
the ultimate work, the Critique of Judgement, and if we see its effect on the
Critique of Pure Reason, we realise that Kant reveals to us in the Critique of
Judgement an amazing double adventure: how synthesis, as act of the

imagination, can be overwhelmed by a fundamental experience which is the

experience of the sublime; thus that there is an operation of extreme fragility in
the synthesis: something which comes from the depths [le fond] puts ???? this
operation at risk at each instant, drowning it. Drowning it in a simple
destruction? No, in favour no doubt of the revelation of another level which is
the revelation of the sublime and thus that the synthesis of the imagination
risks being overwhelmed by another act, or rather by another passion, by a
sort of passion of the imagination which is the spectacle and the experience of
the sublime, where the imagination vacillates on its own ground.
On the other hand, it is quite curious how it's both inspired and works in
symmetry; it is really the hinge of Classicism and Romanticism. The Critique of
Judgement is really the great book which all the Romantics will refer to. They
had all read it, it will be determining for the whole of German Romanticism. But
on the other hand as well we experience the same adventure, but under
another form. The schema, which is the other act of the imagination, risks
being overwhelmed by something which comes from the depths of the
imagination in the same way as the synthesis, namely the experience of the
sublime, the schema - [the] other act of the imagination from the point of view
of knowledge - also risks being overwhelmed by something monstrous, which
Kant is the first to analyse, to my knowledge. It is symbolism. In the same way
that the sublime threatens at each instant to overwhelm the imagination's act
of synthesis, the operation of symbolism and symbolisation threatens at each
instant to overwhelm this other act of imagination which is the schema. So
much so that between symbolism and the sublime, there will obviously be all
sorts of echoes, as if they brought about the emergence of a sort of ground
[fond] which is irreducible to knowledge, and which will testify to something
else in us besides a simple faculty of knowing. Feel how beautiful it is.
So first we must go via something more reasonable, duller: what is the
difference between the schema and the synthesis? The last time I tried to show
what the synthesis was. The synthesis as act of the imagination consists
precisely in this - but I want this to be very concrete, which is good if one is in
the world and in the world there are Kantian phenomena; if you come across a
typically Kantian moment in the world, then it's very good, at that moment you
must speak in Kantian terms; they are phenomena which can only be grasped
through Kantian spectacles, if not you pass on by. The synthesis and the
schema are always the forming of a correspondence between, on the one hand
conceptual determinations, and on the other spatio-temporal determinations.
What defines the synthesis as distinct from the schema? The synthesis is an act
of the imagination which operates here and now; there is no synthesis if it is
not an operation of your imagination that you do here and now. For example,
here and now, you see a diversity; or else here and now you see an
organisation of space and time. You will recall that this space and this time are
not yet determined: there is something in space and time. A synthesis must yet

be effected which will give you a certain space and time, in such a way that
you carry out a sort of isolation: if you say "that is a table", you have carried
out a synthesis of space and time in conformity with a concept. There is the
concept table, and then you have synthesised, you have carried out a synthesis
of a certain diversity. So the principle of the synthesis is recognition, it is this.
The synthesis has as its rule the process of recognition. Given this, it is
obligatory that the synthesis operates here and now: look, it's a house. What
does the synthesis consist in? We saw it last time: successive apprehension of
parts, synthesis of apprehension, reproduction of the preceding parts in the
following parts; thus the two aspects of the synthesis, apprehension and
reproduction, are what I use to determine a finite space and time.
The concept is the form of the object which I qualify according to the diversity
whose synthesis I have effected: it's a table, it's a house, it's a small dog.
So, in the synthesis, I have indeed effected a correspondence between a
determination of space and time and a conceptual determination, the
determination of space and time being carried out by the synthesis of
apprehension and reproduction, and the conceptual determination referring to
the form of the any-object-whatever in so far as this form of object will be
determined by the diversity upon which I effect the synthesis. I would almost
say that in the synthesis I go from the spatio-temporal determination to the
conceptual determination and that my point of departure is here and now. You
can see that, at the beginning, I only have a concept of any-object-whatever; I
only have the form of an any-object-whatever which is the empty form of the
concept, object = x. Why is this a concept? Because it is not at all contained in
the sensible diversity. So as the form of the pure concept I have only the form
of the any-object-whatever, and the synthesis of the imagination will make a
spatio-temporal determination correspond to the any-object-whatever in such a
way that the any-object-whatever will be specified as such or such an object:
this is a house, this is a table.
There is something quite curious in Kant. When things don't work, he invents
something which doesn't exist, but it doesn't matter. The schema. Put yourself
in the reverse situation. You have the concept, you start from the concept. So
the path of the schema will no longer be the here and now, not what your
productive imagination does here and now, that is determine space and time,
the schema will be on the contrary an operation that you carry out, when you
carry it out, as valid at all times. "This is a house" is not valid at all times. You
recall the rule of the synthesis, it's a rule of recognition. The schema: you have
a concept, and the problem is to determine the spatio-temporal relation which
corresponds to this concept. The synthesis is just the opposite, it's this: you
carry out a spatio-temporal operation and you specify the concept according to
this determination. So the operation of the synthesis, valid here and now, will
correspond with, in the other direction, the determination of the schema, valid

at all times. There you have a concept and you are looking for the spatiotemporal determination which is likely to correspond to it. What does that
mean? When I say: the straight line is equal in all its points, Euclid's definition, I
have a concept of a straight line. You will tell me, yes, but it's already spatial.
Yes it's spatial, but with space, I can make a concept of space for myself. A
straight line defined as a line equal in all its points doesn't yet give me any
determination, and while the synthesis went from the space-time intuition to
the concept carried out by a rule of recognition, the schema on the contrary
will operate by a rule of production. Given a concept, how can I produce it in
intuition? Which is to say in space and in time, an object conforming to the
concept. Producing in space and time, that is the operation of the schema. In
other words, the schema does not refer to a rule of recognition, but refers to a
rule of production. The synthesis of a house is the rule of recognition according
to which I say "it's a house". You say "it's a house" in front of very different
things. You effect a synthesis of the given such that you relate them to the anyobject-whatever "it's a house". The schema of the house is very different, it is
not a rule of recognition over random diversities. The schema of the house is a
rule of production, namely that you can give yourself a concept of house. For
example I can take a functional definition: house = apparatus made for
sheltering men, this doesn't yet give us a rule of production. The schema of the
house is what allows you to produce it in experience, in space and in time,
something, objects conforming to the concept. But that definition does not get
out of the concept; you can turn the concept around all you like in all
directions, apparatus made for sheltering men, you will not draw rules of
production from it, the rules of construction of the house. If you have the rule
of production you have a schema. It is very interesting from the point of view of
a study of judgement. Consider the two following judgements: the straight line
is a line equal in all its points; there you have a logical or conceptual definition,
you have the concept of the straight line. If you say "the straight line is black",
you have an encounter in experience, not all straight lines are black. The
straight line is the shortest path from one point to another, it's a type of
judgement, a quite extraordinary one according to Kant, and why? Because it
cannot be reduced to either of the two extremes that we have just seen. What
is the shortest path? Kant tells us that the shortest path is the rule of
production of a line qua straight. If you want to obtain a straight line, you take
the shortest path. It is not a predicate at all. When you say: the straight line is
the shortest path, you seem to treat the shortest path like an attribute or a
predicate, when in fact it is not a predicate at all, it's a rule of production. The
shortest path is the rule of production of a line qua straight line in space and in
time.
Why in time? Here you must understand why time is involved in this, and even
more deeply still than space. You can't define the shortest independently of
time. How is it a rule of production? If someone says to you: you want to draw a

straight line, very well, take the shortest! We no longer understand the
judgement; we say so many things without knowing that we say them. Once
again it is true historically that the judgement "the straight line is the shortest
path between one point and another" has very very precise implications from a
geometrical point of view, namely that while the Euclidean or conceptual
definition of the straight line is indeed a line equal in all its points, the straight
line as the shortest path from one point to another is an Archimedean notion,
and Archimedean geometry has quite different principles than Euclidean
geometry. The notion "the straight line is the shortest path" is purely
nonsensical if you separate it from a whole calculus which is a comparison of
heterogeneous elements. Here you find the theme of the synthesis again. The
heterogeneous elements are not the different sorts of lines, straight or not
straight, it's the confrontation of the curve and the straight line. It's the
Archimedean theme of the minimal angle, of the smallest angle which is
formed by the tangent and the curve. The shortest path is a notion which is
inseparable from the calculus which in antiquity was called the calculus of
exhaustion in which the straight line and the curve are treated in a synthetic
confrontation. Given this, tracing the tangent to the curve is indeed a rule of
production. So it is in this sense that I can say, despite appearances, that the
straight line is the shortest path, we must see that the shortest path is not an
attribute of the line and this is not surprising since "the shortest" is a relation. A
relation is not an attribute. If I say Pierre is smaller than Paul, "smaller" is not
an attribute of Pierre. Even Plato said that if Pierre is smaller than Paul, he is
bigger than Jean. A relation is not an attribute. "The shortest" is the rule
according to which I produce a line qua straight line in space and in time. In
other words, I make a correspondence between a conceptual determination,
that is the straight line defined as equal in all its points, and a spatio-temporal
determination by which I can produce as many straight lines as I like in
experience.
In one of Kant's distant successors, namely Husserl, there is something like this
which also interests me very much, but I think Husserl has let something slip
away. Husserl said to us: take two ends, at the two extremities of the chain, you
have pure essences. For example the circle, as pure geometrical essence. And
then, at the other end, you have things in experience which correspond to the
circle. I can make an open-ended list of them: a plate, a wheel of a car, the sun.
I would say, in technical terms, that all of these things in experience, a wheel,
the sun, a plate, are subsumed under the concept of a circle. Can you not see a
series of intermediaries between these two extremes, which will be of great
importance from Kant onwards. But notions, they must be lived, the abstract is
lived, it's really the same. At the moment when something becomes very very
abstract, then you can say that it concerns something lived. We already know
that "between the two" is not a mixture, that it will be a zone discovered by
Kant. Take a word: "the ring" [le rond]. I can always say that the circle is a ring.

The conceptual determination of the circle is: where points are situated at
equal distance from a common point named centre. That's the conceptual
determination, the empirical determination or determinations are the plate, the
wheel and the sun. When I say: "oh what a beautiful ring [rond] !" - I was saying
just before that the two extremes are the line conceptually defined as equal in
all its points, and then "the straight line is black" which is an encounter in
experience, a case of a straight line. But between the two, as a perfectly
specific region, there is "the straight line is the shortest path."
Now between the circle and the illustrations of the circle in experience, I would
almost say the images of the circle : the plate is an image of a circle, the wheel
is an image of a circle, but I have this bizarre thing: a ring [rond]! It is very
curious to do the logical analysis of a ring. I would say the same thing: if we go
far enough in our analysis of the round, we will see that it's a rule of
production; for example a round is the circumference [le tour], no, the round is
what allows us to make a circumference.
The circumference is what allows us to make certain materials round. The ring
must obviously be lived dynamically, as a dynamic process; in the same way
that "the straight line is the shortest path" implies an operation by which the
length of a curve is compared to that of a straight line, which is to say by which
there is a linearisation of the curve, the ring implies an operation by which
something in experience is rounded. It's a process of production of the
circumference-type which allows the production in experience of things
corresponding to the concept circle.
Where Husserl is obviously wrong is when he discovers this sphere of the ring we have just shown how the ring is completely in the same domain as the
shortest, it's the same domain of being - Husserl is wrong because he makes
them into inexact essences, like subordinate essences. The direction that Kant
went in seems much stronger to me, making them precisely into acts of the
productive imagination. Here you can see in what respect the productive
imagination is more profound than the reproductive imagination. The
reproductive imagination is when you can imagine circles, concrete circles; you
can imagine a circle drawn on a blackboard with red chalk, you can imagine a
plate... all that is the reproductive imagination. But the circumference that
allows you to make rounds, which allows you to round things, which is to say to
produce in experience something conforming to the concept of circle, that
doesn't depend on the concept of circle, that doesn't flow from the concept of
circle, it's a schema, and that is the act of productive imagination.
You can see why Kant feels the need to discover a domain of the productive
imagination distinct from the simply empirical or reproductive imagination. You
can see the difference between a schema and a synthesis, if you have
understood that I have finished with my first point: what the difference was

between the two fundamental acts, within the context of knowledge: the
schematism and the synthesis.
The schematism is not a case of reflective judgement, it is a dimension of
determining judgement. I will do the story of reflective judgement on request.
The a posteriori is what is in space and in time. It's the plate, the wheel, the
sun. A rule of production is solely a determination of space or of time
conforming to the concept. Take another case. You make yourself a concept of a
lion; you can define it by genus and specific difference. You can define it in this
way: big animal, mammal, with a mane, growling. You make a concept. You can
also make yourself lion images: a small lion, a big lion, a desert lion, a
mountain lion; you have your lion images. What would the schema of a lion be?
I would say in this case, not in all cases, that the concept is the determination
of the species, or its the determination by genus and specific differences. The
image in experience is all the individuals of this species, the schema of the lion
is something which is neither the examples of a lion... [end of tape] ... there are
spatio-temporal rhythms, spatio-temporal attitudes [allures]. We speak both of
an animal's territory and an animal's domain, with its paths, with the traces
that it leaves in its domain, with the times that it uses a particular path, all that
is a spatio-temporal dynamism that you will not draw from the concept. I am
not going to draw from the concept of a lion the way it inhabits space and time.
From one tooth you can draw something of a mode of living: this is a carnivore.
But really the spatio-temporal dynamism of an animal, that is really - I can't say
its rule of production - but it's something productive, it's the way in which it
produces a spatio-temporal domain in experience in conformity with its own
concept. The lion is Kantian, all the animals are Kantian. What is the schema of
the spider? The schema of the spider is its web, and its web is the way it
occupies space and time. The proof is that the concept of the spider, I don't
know how, but you can take the concept of a spider; the concept of a spider will
include all of its anatomical parts and even the physiological functions of the
spider. Thus one will encounter that funny sort of organ with which the spider
makes his web. But can you deduce from it what we can now call the spatiotemporal being, and the correspondence of the web with the concept of a
spider, which is to say with the spider as organism. It's very curious because it
varies enormously according to the species of spider. There are cases of very
extraordinary spiders which, when you mutilate one of their legs, which is
nevertheless not used for fabrication, make abnormal webs in relation to their
own species, they make a pathological web. What happened? As if a
disturbance in space and time corresponded to the mutilation. I would say that
the schema of an animal is its spatio-temporal dynamism.
Where Kant was determining, after Husserl, there were all sorts of experiments
and I'm thinking of a funny sort of school which, at one time, had some
success. It was the psychologists of the Wrzburg school, they were closely

linked to a Kantian lineage. They carried out psychological experiments. They

said that there are three sorts of things: there's thought which operates with
concepts, and then there's perception which grasps things, and if need be
there is the imagination which reproduces things: but they said that there is
also another dimension which they gave a very curious name to. They spoke of
the direction of consciousness, or even of the intention of consciousness, or
even of an empty intention. What is an empty intention? I think of a lion and an
image of a lion comes to me; I think of a rhinoceros and I can see the
rhinoceros very well in the image which comes to my mind, that is an intention.
I have a conscious intention and an image comes to fill it, the image of the
rhinoceros. So they carried out experiments on this, it was experimental
psychology. They set the rules of the game, you're going to laugh: you stop
yourself from having an image, you are given a word and you take a view
which both excludes any image, and which nevertheless is not purely
conceptual; what does that produce? It produces sorts of conscious
orientations, i.e. spatio-temporal directions. The more abstract it was, the
better. It was in order to persuade us that there were three possible attitudes of
conscious: abstract thinking consciousness, for example proletariat, where one
had to work for the proletariat. First reaction: proletariat = the class defined
by... etc... I would say that that is the conceptual definition of the proletariat; it
is a certain attitude of consciousness towards a word: I aim at the concept
through the word. Second attitude of consciousness: through the word
proletariat I evoke one, a proletarian: "ah yes, I've seen one!" That is really the
empirical attitude, an image. Sartre, in his book The Psychology of Imagination,
describes the third attitude, that of the Wrzburg-type experiments, and he
gives descriptions of people's responses; I see a sort of black wave advancing;
it defined a sort of rhythm. Managing to grasp an attitude of consciousness, a
sort of way of occupying space and time: the proletariat doesn't fill space and
time in the same way as the bourgeoisie. At that moment you have the
schema. Or else another method was to take a word that is empty for you,
whose meaning you don't know: in a precious poem, and you carry out the
direction of consciousness, you don't make an association, but a vague
direction of consciousness, a sort of purely lived spatio-temporal opening. How
does a consciousness orient itself following the sound of an understood word?
There you have a whole dimension of spatio-temporal dynamisms which are
somewhat similar to the schema. The schemas are subdivided, but while the
concepts are subdivided according to genus and species, the schema will have
another mode of division. In fact when I said that the true schema of the circle
was the circumference, it is in fact a sub-schema because the circumference
already implies certain modes, the circumference is the rule of production in
order to obtain things in experience, but in these conditions of suitable
materials. In other cases, something else would be required. I don't know how
bicycle wheels are made? When phenomenology and then Heidegger, then all
sorts of psychiatrists go on to define ways of being in space and in time,

complexes or blocks of space-time, rhythmic blocks, I'd say that all that derives
from Kant. Indeed the ethnologist constructs schemata of men to the extent
that he describes manners: a civilisation defines itself, amongst other ways, by
a block of space-time, by certain spatio-temporal rhythms which will vary the
concept of man. It's obvious that an African, an American or an Indian won't
inhabit space and time in the same way. What is interesting is when, in a
limited space, we see the coexistence of different types of space-times. I could
equally say that an artist operates through blocks of space-time. An artist is
above all a rhythmicist. What is a rhythm? It's a block of space-time, it's a
spatio-temporal block. But each time you have a concept, you don't yet have
the rhythmicity of the things which are subordinated to it. A concept, at best,
will give you the beat or the tempo. Which is to say a homogeneous beat, but
rhythmicity is something entirely different from a homogeneous beat,
something entirely different from a tempo.
I'll go on to my second point. You remember that we saw, in relation to the
synthesis, this adventure of the sublime. Kant realises that the synthesis of the
imagination, such as it arises in knowledge, rests on a basis of a different
nature, namely that the synthesis of the imagination in all its aspects assumes
an aesthetic comprehension, an aesthetic comprehension both of the thing to
be measured and the unit of measure. You must be clear that aesthetic
comprehension is not part of the synthesis, it's the basis [sol] that the
synthesis rests on. I would say that it is not the ground [fondement] of the
synthesis but that it is the foundation [fondation] of synthesis. At the same
time that he discovers this basis, he discovers the extraordinary viability of this
basis. He doesn't discover this basis without also seeing that this basis is ?????
Why? Because what the synthesis rests on is fundamentally fragile, because
the aesthetic comprehension of the unit of measure, assumed by all effective
measurement, can at each instant be overwhelmed, which is to say that
between the synthesis and its basis there is the constant risk of the emergence
of a sort of thrust coming up from underground [sous-sol], and this
underground will break the synthesis. For the synthesis rests on the aesthetic
comprehension of the unit of measure, an aesthetic comprehension which is
irreducible to the operations of knowledge. Why is this very fragile? Because at
every instant there are types of phenomena in space and in time which risk
overturning the aesthetic comprehension of the unit of measure, and it's the
sublime, where the imagination finds itself before its limit. It is confronted with
its own limit, it can no longer be at the service of the concepts of the
understanding. To be at the service of the concepts of the understanding is to
determine space and time in conformity with the concepts of the
understanding, and here it can no longer do this: the imagination finds itself
blocked before its own limit: the immense ocean, the infinite heavens, all that
overturns it, it discovers its own impotence, it starts to stutter. And it is thus at
the same time that the basis of the synthesis, namely aesthetic

comprehension, and the underground of the synthesis, namely the sublime in

so far as it overturns the base, is discovered. But there's a consolation; at the
moment that the imagination finds that it is impotent, no longer able to serve
the understanding, it makes us discover in ourselves a still more beautiful
faculty which is like the faculty of the infinite. So much so that at the moment
we feel for our imagination and suffer with it, since it has become impotent, a
new faculty is awakened in us, the faculty of the supersensible.
When the storm is over, when the avalanche is finished, I rediscover my
syntheses, but for a moment the horizon of knowledge will have been
traversed by something which came from elsewhere, it was the eruption of the
sublime which is not an object of knowledge. We must put ourselves in Kant's
place, assuming that he has discovered all of this. He says to himself that there
must be something analogous for the schema. The schema is also an operation
of knowledge, we saw its relation to the synthesis; the schema must also follow
its own limit and have something overwhelm it. It must be something different,
a different adventure. There is no reason to treat philosophy in a different way
from art or science. There are differences but they aren't at the level we think
they are. Here is the schema of the schema: I make a big white ring [rond] up
top and I put A on the side. To explain: this big white ring called A is the
concept of a. Concept of a. Vertically, I make a dotted line, above all dotted,
with an arrow at the end, and at the end of the arrow, beneath, I put a. I'll
explain, but for those who want the complete schema: from the a which is
beneath the end of my arrow, I make a filled line this time, a spray of little
arrows, and under each of the little arrows I put a', a'', a '''. The big A is the
concept a, at the end of my dotted arrow I have a, it's the schema of A, that is,
the spatio-temporal determination A. If I take an example: A = concept of the
circle, a = the ring or the schema of the circle, which is to say the rule of
production. Then a', a'', a''' are the empirical things which conform to the
schema, and led back to the concept by the schema. So a' = plate, a'' = wheel,
a''' = sun, in our previous example. Why is it that the arrow which goes from
the concept to the schema was dotted? Precisely in order to indicate subtly that
the symbol which he opposes [to] or which he explicitly distinguishes from the
schema in the Critique of Judgement, and it's among the most admirable pages
in Kant. Well that's going to complicate things and here are the two schemas.
A = concept. a = schema of the concept, which is to say spatio-temporal
determinations. B, dotted arrow and b. We need that to make a schema. I'll
give examples. First example: A = the sun. a = to rise (spatio-temporal
determination). Let's say that this is the auto-schema of the concept. B, the
virtue of the concept, b: schema or intuition = x?
Second example: A = the sun, a = to set. You can see that these are two subschemas, I could have taken rising and setting in a single schema. B = death. b
= intuition = x of death. Third example: A = a mill. a = a type of mill which

implies a certain space-time, which is to say not the general schema of a mill,
but a certain schema corresponding to category of mills = hand-mill. B =
despotic constitution. b: intuition = ? = x.
I have two remarks to make if you understand these examples. There would be
symbolisation when you use the schema or intuition a, not in relation to the
corresponding concept A, but in relation to the quite different concept B for
which you have no intuition of a schema. At that moment the schema ceases to
be a rule of production in relation to its concept, and becomes a rule of
reflection in relation to the other concept. So much so that you have the
Kantian sequence: the synthesis refers to a rule of recognition, the schema
refers to rules of production, the symbol refers to rules of reflection.
Why don't I have any intuition corresponding to the concept? Two possible
cases: either because I don't in fact have one, because I lack the necessary
knowledge, but I could have it, I could form a schema of the concept. Or else by
virtue of the special nature of this concept.

On Leibniz
We are going to be involved for a short while in a series on Leibniz. My goal is
very simple: for those who don't know him at all, I want to present this author
and to have you love him, to incite in you a sort of desire to read his works.
To begin reading Leibniz, there is an incomparable working instrument. It is the
life work, a very modest work, but a very profound one. It is by a lady, Madame
Prenant, who had long ago published selected excerpts by Leibniz. Usually a
collection of excerpts is of doubtful value, but this one is a work of art, for a
very simple reason: Leibniz had writing techniques which no doubt were rather
frequent during his era (beginning 18th century), but that he pushed to an
extraordinary extent. Of course, like all philosophers, he wrote huge books. But
one might almost be tempted to say that these huge books did not constitute
the essential part of his works, since what was essential was in the
correspondence and in quite tiny memoirs. Leibniz's great texts often ran 4 or
5, 10 pages, or were in letters. He wrote to some extent in all languages and in
some ways was the first great German philosopher. He constitutes the arrival in
Europe of German philosophy. His influence was immediate on the German
Romantic philosophers in the 19th century, then continues particularly with
Nietzsche. Leibniz is a philosopher who best helps us understand a possible
answer to this question: what is philosophy? What does a philosopher do? What
does philosophy grapple with?

If you think that definitions like search for the true or search for wisdom are not
adequate, is there a philosophical activity? I want to say very quickly how I
recognize a philosopher in his activity. One can only confront these activities as
a function of what they create and of their mode of creation. One must ask,
what does a woodworker create? What does a musician create? For me, a
philosopher is someone who creates concepts. This implies many things: that
the concept is something to be created, that the concept is the product of a
creation.
I see no possibility of defining science if one does not indicate something that
is created by and in science. And, it happens that what is created by and in
science, I'm not completely sure what it is, but not concepts properly speaking.
The concept of creation has been much more linked to art than to science or to
philosophy. What does a painter create? He creates lines and colors. That
suggests that lines and colors are not givens, but are the product of a creation.
What is given, quite possibly, one could always call a flow. It's flows that are
given, and creation consists in dividing , organizing, connecting flows in such a
way that a creation is drawn or made around certain singularities extracted
from flows.
A concept is not at all something that is a given. Moreover, a concept is not the
same thing as thought: one can very well think without concepts, and everyone
who does not do philosophy still thinks, I believe, but does not think through
concepts. If you accept the idea of a concept as the product of an activity or an
original creation.
I would say that the concept is a system of singularities appropriated from a
thought flow. A philosopher is someone who invents concepts. Is he an
intellectual? No, in my opinion. For a concept as system of singularities
appropriated from a thought flow... Imagine the universal thought flow as a
kind of interior monologue, the interior monologue of everyone who thinks.
Philosophy arises with the action that consists of creating concepts. For me,
there are as many creations in the invention of a concept as in the creation by
a great painter or musician. One can also conceive of a continuous acoustic
flow (perhaps that is only an idea, but it matters little if this idea is justified)
that traverses the world and that even encompasses silence. A musician is
someone who appropriates something from this flow: notes? Aggregates of
notes? No? What will we call the new sound from a musician? You sense then
that it is not simply a question of the system of notes. It's the same thing for a
philosopher, it is simply a question of creating concepts rather than sounds. It
is not a question of defining philosophy by some sort of search for the truth, for
a very simple reason: this is that truth is always subordinate to the system of
concepts at one's disposal. What is the importance of philosophers for nonphilosophers? It is that although non-philosophers don't know it, or pretend not

to be interested, whether they like it or not they think through concepts which
have proper names.
I recognize the name of Kant not in his life, but in a certain type of concept
signed Kant. Henceforth, one can very well conceive of being the disciple of a
philosopher. If you are situated so that you say that such and such a
philosopher signed the concepts for which you feel a need, then you become
Kantian, Leibnizian, etc.
It is quite necessary that two great philosophers not agree with each other to
the extent that each creates a system of concepts that serves as his point of
reference. Thus that is not all to be judged. One can very well only be a disciple
locally, only on one point or another, philosophy is detachable. You can be a
disciple of a philosopher to the extent that you consider that you personally
need this type of [concept]. Concepts are spiritual signatures, but that does not
mean it's in one's head because concepts are also ways of living. And this is
not through choice or reflections, the philosopher reflects no more than does
the painter or musician. Activities are defined by a creative activity and not by
a reflexive dimension. Henceforth, what does it mean to say: to need this or
that concept? In some ways, I tell myself that concepts are such living things,
that they really are things with four paws, that move, really. It's like a color, like
a sound. Concepts really are so living that they are not unrelated to something
that would, however, appear the furthest from the concept, notably the scream
.
In some ways, the philosopher is not someone who sings, but someone who
screams. Each time that you need to scream, I think that you are not far from a
kind of call of philosophy. What would it mean for the concept to be a kind of
scream or a kind of form of scream? That's what it means to need a concept, to
have something to scream! We must find the concept of that scream. One can
scream thousands of things. Imagine something that screams: "Well really, all
that must have some kind of reason to be." It's a very simple scream. In my
definition, the concept is the form of the scream, we immediately see a series
of philosophers who would say, "yes, yes"! These are philosophers of passion,
of pathos, distinct from philosophers of logos. For example, Kierkegaard based
his entire philosophy on fundamental screams.
But Leibniz is from the great rationalist tradition. Imagine Leibniz, there is
something frightening there. He is the philosopher of order, even more, of
order and policing, in every sense of the word "policing." In the first sense of
the word especially, that is, regulated organization of the city. He only thinks in
terms of order. But very oddly in this taste for order and to establish this order,
he yields to the most insane concept creation that we have ever witnessed in
philosophy. Disheveled concepts, the most exuberant concepts, the most
disordered, the most complex in order to justify what is. Each thing must have

a reason. In fact, there are two kinds of philosopher, if you accept the definition
by which philosophy is the activity consisting of creating concepts. But there
are perhaps two poles: there are those who engage in a very sober creation of
concepts; they create concepts on the level of a particular singularity well
distinguished from another, and I dream finally of a kind of quantification of
philosophers in which they would be quantified according to the number of
concepts they have signed or invented. If I say: Descartes! That's the type of
philosopher with a very sober concept creation. The history of the cogito,
historically one can always find an entire tradition, precursors, but there is
nonetheless something signed Descartes in the cogito concept, notably (a
proposition can express a concept) the proposition: "I think therefore I am," a
veritable new concept. It's the discovery of subjectivity, of thinking subjectivity.
It's signed Descartes.
Of course, we could always look in St. Augustine's works, to see if it wasn't
already in preparation. There is certainly a history of concepts, but it's signed
Descartes. Haven't we made rather quick work of Descartes though? We could
assign to him five or six concepts, an enormous feat to have invented six
concepts, but it's a very sober creation. And then there are exasperated
philosophers. For them, each concept covers an aggregate of singularities, and
then they always need to have other, always other concepts. One witnesses a
mad creation of concepts. The typical example is Leibniz. He never finished
creating something new.
That's all I wanted to explain.
He is the first philosopher to reflect on the power of the German language as a
concept, as German being an eminently conceptual language, and it's not by
chance that it can also be a great language of the scream. Multiple activities,
he attends to all, a very great mathematician, great physics scholar, very good
jurist, many political activities, always in the service of order. He does not stop,
he is very shady . There is a Leibniz-Spinoza visit (he who was the anti-Leibniz):
Leibniz has him read manuscripts, and one imagines Spinoza very exasperated,
wondering what this guy wants. Following that when Spinoza was attacked,
Leibniz said that he never went to see him, he said it was to monitor him...
Abominable, Leibniz is abominable. His dates: 1646-1716. It's a long life,
straddling plenty of things.
Finally he had a kind of diabolical humor. I'd say that his system is rather like a
pyramid. Leibniz's great system has several levels. None of these levels is
false, these levels symbolize each other, and Leibniz is the first great
philosopher to conceive of activity and thought as a vast symbolization.
Thus, all these levels symbolize, but they are all more or less close to what we
could provisionally call the absolute. And that belongs to his very body of work.

Depending on Leibniz's correspondent or on the public to which he addressed

himself, he presented his whole system at a particular level. Imagine that his
system is made of levels more or less contracted or more or less relaxed; in
order to explain something to someone, he goes to situate himself on a
particular level of his system. Let us assume that the someone in question was
suspected by Leibniz of having a mediocre intelligence: very well, he is
delighted, he situates himself on one of the lowest levels of his system, and if
he addresses someone of higher intelligence, he jumps to a higher level. As
these levels belong implicitly to Leibniz's own texts, that creates a great
problem of commentary. It's complicated because, in my opinion, one can
never rely on a Leibniz text if one has not first discerned the system level to
which this text corresponds.
For example, there are texts in which Leibniz explains what, according to him,
is the union of soul and body, right, and it's to one particular correspondent or
another; to another correspondent, he will explain that there is no problem in
the union of soul and body since the real problem is that of the relation of souls
to one another. The two things are not at all contradictory, it's two levels of the
system. The result is that if one does not evaluate the level of a Leibniz text,
then one will get the impression that he constantly contradicts himself, when in
fact, he does not contradict himself at all.
Leibniz is a very difficult philosopher. I would like to give titles to each part of
what I have to propose to you. The principal #1 I would call "a funny thought" .
Why do I call it "a funny thought"?, Well, because among Leibniz's texts, there
is a small one that Leibniz himself calls "funny thought." Thus I am authorized
by the author himself. Leibniz dreamed a lot, he has a whole science-fiction
side that is absolutely amazing, all the time he imagined institutions. In this
little "funny thought" text, he imagined a very disturbing institution that would
be as follows: an academy of games would be necessary. In that era, as well
with Pascal, certain other mathematicians, and Leibniz himself, there
developed a great theory of games and probabilities. Leibniz is one of the great
founders of game theory. He was impassioned by mathematical game
problems, he must have been quite a games player himself. He imagined this
academy of games as necessarily being at once - why at once? Because
depending on the point of view in which one is situated to see this institution,
or to participate in it - this would be at once a section of the academy of
sciences, a zoological and botanical garden, a universal exposition, a casino
where one gambled, and an enterprise of police control. That's not bad. He
called that "a funny thought."
Assume that I'm telling you a story. This story consists in taking up one of the
central points of Leibniz's philosophy, and I tell it to you as if it were the
description of another world, and there I also number the principal propositions
that go into forming a funny thought.

a) The thought flow, eternally, brings with it a famous principle that has a very
special characteristic because it is one of the only principles about which one
can be certain, and at the same time one can not see at all what it offers to us.
It is certain, but it is empty. This famous principle is the principle of identity.
The principle of identity has a classical formula, A is A. That is certain. If I say
blue is blue or God [is] God, I am not saying with this that God exists, in a
sense I am in certainty. Only there it is, do I think something when I say A is A,
or am I not thinking? Let us nonetheless try to say what results from this
principle of identity. It is presented in the form of a reciprocal proposition. A is A
means: subject A, verb to be, A attribute or predicate. There is a reciprocity of
subject and predicate. Blue is blue, a triangle is a triangle, these are empty and
certain propositions. Is that all? An identical proposition is a proposition such
that the attribute or the predicate is the same as the subject and reciprocates
with the subject. There is a second case just a bit more complex, notably that
the principle of identity can determine propositions which are not simply
reciprocal propositions. There is no longer simply reciprocity of the predicate
with the subject and subject with the predicate. Suppose that I say: "The
triangle has tree sides," this is not the same thing as saying, "The triangle has
three angles." "The triangle has three angles" is an identical proposition
because it is reciprocal. "The triangle has three sides" is a little different, it is
not reciprocal. There is no identity of subject and predicate. In fact, "three
sides" is not the same thing as "three angles". And nonetheless, there is a
supposed logical necessity. This logical necessity is that you cannot
conceptualize three angles composing a single figure without this figure also
having three sides. There is no reciprocity, but there is inclusion. Three sides
are included in the triangle. Inherence or inclusion.
Likewise, if I say that matter is matter, matter and matter is an identical
proposition in the form of a reciprocal proposition. The subject is identical to
the predicate. If I say that matter is in extension <tendue>, this is again an
identical proposition because I cannot think of the concept matter without
already introducing extension. Extension is in matter. This is all the more a
reciprocal proposition since, inversely, perhaps I really can think of extension
without anything filling it in, that is, without matter. This is therefore not a
reciprocal proposition, but it is a proposition of inclusion; when I say "matter is
in extension," this is an identical proposition by inclusion.
I would say therefore that there are two kinds of identical propositions: there
are reciprocal propositions in which the subject and predicate are one and the
same, and propositions of inherence or inclusion in which the predicate is
contained in the concept of the subject. If I say "this page has a front side and
a back side," OK, let's leave that, I withdraw my example. If I am looking for a
more interesting statement of the identity principle, I would say in Leibnizian

fashion that the identity principle is stated as follows: every analytical

proposition is true.
What does analytical mean? According to the example we have just seen, an
analytical proposition is one in which either the predicate or the attribute is
identical with the subject, for example, "the triangle is triangular," reciprocal
proposition, or proposition of inclusion such as "the triangle has three sides."
The predicate is contained in the subject to the point that when you have
conceived of the subject, the predicate was already there. It suffices therefore
to have an analysis in order to find the predicate in the subject. Up to this
point, Leibniz as original thinker has yet to emerge.

b) Leibniz emerges. He arises in the form of this very bizarre scream . I am

going to give it a more complex expression than I did earlier. Everything that
we're saying is not philosophy, but pre-philosophy. This is the terrain on which a
very prodigious philosophy will be built. Leibniz arrives and says: OK, the
identity principle gives us a certain model. Why a certain model? In its very
statement <nonc>, an analytical proposition is true, if you attribute to a
subject something that constitutes a unity with the subject itself, or that is
mixed up with or is already contained in the subject. You risk nothing in being
wrong. Thus, every analytical proposition is true.
Leibniz's stroke of pre-philosophical genius is to say: Let's consider reciprocity!
Something absolutely new and nonetheless very simple starts there, since this
had to be thought through. And what does it mean to say, "it had to be thought
through"? It means that one had to have need of that, that had to relate to
something quite urgent for him. What is the reciprocity of the identity principle
in its complex statement, "every analytical proposition is true"? Reciprocity
poses many more problems. Leibniz emerges and says: every true proposition
is analytical.
If it is true that the identity principle gives us a model of truth, why are we
stumped by the following difficulty, notably: it is true, it doesn't make us think
anything. The identity principle will force us to think something; it is going to
be reversed, turned around. You will tell me that turning A is A around yields A
is A. Yes and no. That yields A is A in the formal formulation which prevents the
reversal of the principle. But in the philosophical formulation, which still
amounts to exactly the same thing, "every analytical proposition is a true
proposition", if you reverse the principle: "every true proposition is necessarily
analytical," what does that mean? Each time that you formulate a true
proposition, it must be analytical (and this is where there is the scream!),
whether you want it or not, that is, it is reducible to a proposition of attribution
or of predication, and not only is it reducible to a judgment of predication or

attribution (the sky is blue), but it is analytical, that is the predicate is either
reciprocal with the subject or contained in the concept of the subject? Does
that go without saying? He throws himself into a strange undertaking , and it is
not from preference that he says that, rather he needs it. But he undertakes an
impossible task, in fact he needs some entirely crazy concepts in order to reach
this task that he is in the process of giving himself. If every analytical
proposition is true, every true proposition certainly must be analytical. It does
not go without saying at all that every judgment is reducible to a judgment of
attribution. It's not going to be easy to show. He throws himself into a
combinatory analysis, as he himself says, that is fantastic.
Why doesn't it go without saying? "The box of matches is on the table," I'd say
that this is a judgment, you know? "On the table" is a spatial determination. I
could say that the matchbox is "here." "Here," what's that? I'd say that it's a
judgment of localization. Again I repeat very simple things, but they always
have been fundamental problems of logic. It's only to suggest that in
appearance, all judgments do not have as form predication or attribution. When
I say, "the sky is blue," I have a subject, sky, and an attribute, blue. When I say
"the sky is up there" or "I am here," is "here" - spatial localization - assimilable
to a predicate? Can I formally link the judgment "I am here" to a judgment of
the kind "I am blond"? It's not certain that spatial localization is a quality. And
"2+2=4" is a judgment that we ordinarily call a relational judgment. Or if I say,
"Pierre is smaller than Paul," this is a relation between two terms, Pierre and
Paul. No doubt I orient this relation upon Pierre: if I say "Pierre is smaller than
Paul," I can say "Paul is larger than Pierre." Where is the subject, where is the
predicate? That is exactly the problem that has disturbed philosophy since its
beginnings; ever since there was logic they have wondered to what extent the
judgment of attribution could be considered as the universal form of any
possible judgment, or rather one case of judgment among others. Can I treat
"smaller than Paul" like an attribute of Pierre? It's not certain, not at all obvious.
Perhaps we have to distinguish very different types of judgment from each
other, notably: relational judgment, judgment of spatio-temporal localization,
judgment of attribution, and still many more: judgment of existence. If I say
"God exists," can I formally translate it into the form of "God is existent,"
existent being an attribute? Can I say that "God exists" is a judgment of the
same form as "God is all-powerful"? Undoubtedly not, since I can only say "God
is all-powerful" by adding "yes, if he exists". Does God exist? Is existence an
attribute? Not certain.
So you see that by proposing the idea that every true proposition must be in
one way or another an analytical proposition, that is identical, Leibniz already
gives himself a very hard task; he commits himself to showing in what way all
propositions can be linked to the judgment of attribution, notably propositions
that state relations, that state existences, that state localizations, and that, at

the outside, exist, are in relation with, can be translated as the equivalent of
the attribute of the subject.
In your mind there must arise the idea of an infinite task.
Let us assume that Leibniz reached it: what world is going to emerge from it?
What very bizarre world? What kind of world is it in which I can say "every true
proposition is analytical"? You recall certainly that ANALYTICAL is a proposition
in which the predicate is identical to the subject or else is included in the
subject. That kind of world is going to be pretty strange.
What is the reciprocity of the identity principle? The identity principle is thus
any true proposition is analytical; not the reverse, any analytical proposition is
true. Leibniz said that another principle is necessary, reciprocity: every true
proposition is necessarily analytical. He will give to it a very beautiful name:
the principle of sufficient reason. Why sufficient reason? Why does he believe
himself fully immersed in his very own scream? EVERYTHING MUST SURELY
HAVE A REASON. The principle of sufficient reason can be expressed as follows:
whatever happens to a subject, be it determinations of space and time, of
relation, event, whatever happens to a subject, what happens, that is what one
says of it with truth, everything that is said of a subject must be contained in
the notion of the subject.
Everything that happens to a subject must already be contained in the notion
of the subject. The notion of "notion" is going to be essential. It is necessary for
"blue" to be contained in the notion of sky. Why is this the principle of sufficient
reason ? Because if it is this way, each thing with a reason, reason is precisely
the notion itself in so far as it contains all that happens to the corresponding
subject . Henceforth everything has a reason.
Reason = the notion of the subject in so far as this notion contains everything
said with truth about this subject. That is the principle of sufficient reason
which is therefore justly the reciprocal of the identity principle. Rather than
looking for abstract justifications I wonder what bizarre world is going to be
born from all that? A world with very strange colors if I return to my metaphor
of painting. A painting signed Leibniz. Every true proposition must be analytical
or still more, everything that you say with truth about a subject must be
contained in the notion of the subject. You sense that this is getting crazy, he's
got a lifetime of work ahead of him.
What does "notion" mean? It's signed Leibniz. Just as there is a Hegelian
conception of the concept, there is a Leibnizian conception of the concept.

c) Again, my problem is what world is going to emerge, and in this subcategory c), I would like to begin to show that, from this point, Leibniz is going
to create truly hallucinatory concepts. It's truly a hallucinatory world. If you
want to think about relations between philosophy and madness, for example,
there are some very weak pages by Freud on the intimate relation of
metaphysics with delirium . One can only grasp the positivity of these relations
through a theory of the concept, and the direction that I would like to take
would be the relationship of the concept with the scream. I would like to make
you feel this presence of a kind of conceptual madness in Leibniz's universe as
we are going to see it be born. It is a gentle violence, let yourself go. It is not a
question of arguing. Understand the stupidity of objections.
I will add a parenthesis to complicate things. You know that there is a
philosopher following Leibniz who said that truth is one of synthetic judgments.
He is opposed to Leibniz. OK! How does that concern us? It's Kant. This is not to
say that they do not agree with each other. When I say that, I credit Kant with a
new concept which is synthetic judgment. This concept had to be invented, and
it was Kant who did so. To say that philosophers contradict one another is a
feeble formula, it's like saying that Velasquez did not agree with Giotto, right!
It's not even true, it's nonsensical.
Every true proposition must be analytical, that is such that it attributes
something to a subject and that the attribute must be contained in the notion
of the subject. Let us consider an example. I do not wonder if it is true, I
wonder what it means. Let us take an example of a true proposition. A true
proposition can be an elementary one concerning an event that took place.
Let's take Leibniz's own example: "CAESAR CROSSED THE RUBICON". It's a
proposition. It is true or we have strong reasons to assume it's true. Another
proposition: "ADAM SINNED".
There is a highly true proposition. What do you mean by that? You see that all
these propositions chosen by Leibniz as fundamental examples are event-ual
propositions , so he does not give himself an easy task. He is going to tell us
this: since this proposition is true, it is necessary, whether you want it or not,
that the predicate "crossed the Rubicon," if the proposition is true, but it is true,
this predicate must be contained in the notion of Caesar. Not in Caesar himself,
but in the notion of Caesar. The notion of the subject contains everything that
happens to a subject, that is, everything that is said about the subject with
truth. In "Adam sinned," sin at a particular moment belongs to the notion of
Adam. Crossing the Rubicon belongs to the notion of Caesar. I would say that
here, Leibniz proposes one of his greatest concepts, the concept of inherence.
Everything that is said with truth about something is inherent in the notion of
this something.
This is the first aspect or development of sufficient reason.

d) When we say that, we can no longer stop. When one has started into the
domain of the concept, one cannot stop. In the domain of screams, there is a
famous scream from Aristotle. The great Aristotle -- who, let us note, exerted
an extremely strong influence on Leibniz -- at one point proposed in the
Metaphysics a very beautiful formula: it is indeed necessary to stop
(anankstenai). This is a great scream. This is the philosopher in front of the
chasm of the interconnection of concepts. Leibniz could care less, he does not
stop. Why? If you refer to proposition c): everything that you attribute to a
subject must be contained in the notion of this subject. But what you attribute
with truth to any subject whatsoever in the world, if were it Caesar, it is
sufficient for you to attribute to it a single thing with truth in order for you to
notice with fright that, from that moment on, you are forced to cram into the
notion of the subject not only the thing that you attribute to it with truth, but
the totality of the world. Why? By virtue of a well-known principle that is not at
all the same as that of sufficient reason. This is the simple principle of causality.
For in the end, the causality principle stretches to infinity, that's it's very
characteristic. And this is a very special infinite since, in fact, it stretches to the
indefinite . Specifically, the causality principle states that everything has a
cause, which is very different from every thing has a reason. But the cause is a
thing, and in its turn, it has a cause, etc. etc. I can do the same thing, notably
that every cause has an effect and this effect is in its turn the cause of effects.
This is therefore an indefinite series of causes and effects.
What difference is there between sufficient reason and cause? We understand
very well. Cause is never sufficient. One must say that the causality principle
poses a necessary cause, but never a sufficient one. We must distinguish
between necessary cause and sufficient reason. What distinguishes them
evidently is that the cause of a thing is always something else. The cause of A
is B, the cause of B is C, etc..... An indefinite series of causes. Sufficient reason
is not at all something other than the thing. The sufficient reason of a thing is
the notion of the thing. Thus, sufficient reason expresses the relation of the
thing with its own notion whereas cause expresses the relations of the thing
with something else. It's limpid.

e) If you say that a particular event is encompassed in the notion of Caesar,

"crossing the Rubicon" is encompassed in the notion of Caesar . You can't stop
yourself in which sense? From cause to cause and effect to effect, it's at that
moment the totality of the world that must be encompassed in the notion of a
particular subject. That becomes very odd, there's the world passing by inside
each subject, or each notion of subject. Iinitropositil triauses and hathe gnitroiin
fact, ition certainly must be analytira partick thrhhe gnitroiie is s started

imething itslian conceptioect.e) If you ve acof itslian co Not ust be encompean

conceptioect.

LECTURES BY GILLES DELEUZE

On Leibniz
We are going to be involved for a short while in a series on Leibniz. My goal is
very simple: for those who don't know him at all, I want to present this author
and to have you love him, to incite in you a sort of desire to read his works.
To begin reading Leibniz, there is an incomparable working instrument. It is the
life work, a very modest work, but a very profound one. It is by a lady, Madame
Prenant, who had long ago published selected excerpts by Leibniz. Usually a
collection of excerpts is of doubtful value, but this one is a work of art, for a
very simple reason: Leibniz had writing techniques which no doubt were rather
frequent during his era (beginning 18th century), but that he pushed to an
extraordinary extent. Of course, like all philosophers, he wrote huge books. But
one might almost be tempted to say that these huge books did not constitute
the essential part of his works, since what was essential was in the
correspondence and in quite tiny memoirs. Leibniz's great texts often ran 4 or
5, 10 pages, or were in letters. He wrote to some extent in all languages and in
some ways was the first great German philosopher. He constitutes the arrival in
Europe of German philosophy. His influence was immediate on the German
Romantic philosophers in the 19th century, then continues particularly with
Nietzsche. Leibniz is a philosopher who best helps us understand a possible
answer to this question: what is philosophy? What does a philosopher do? What
does philosophy grapple with?
If you think that definitions like search for the true or search for wisdom are not
adequate, is there a philosophical activity? I want to say very quickly how I
recognize a philosopher in his activity. One can only confront these activities as
a function of what they create and of their mode of creation. One must ask,
what does a woodworker create? What does a musician create? For me, a
philosopher is someone who creates concepts. This implies many things: that
the concept is something to be created, that the concept is the product of a
creation.
I see no possibility of defining science if one does not indicate something that
is created by and in science. And, it happens that what is created by and in
science, I'm not completely sure what it is, but not concepts properly speaking.
The concept of creation has been much more linked to art than to science or to

philosophy. What does a painter create? He creates lines and colors. That
suggests that lines and colors are not givens, but are the product of a creation.
What is given, quite possibly, one could always call a flow. It's flows that are
given, and creation consists in dividing , organizing, connecting flows in such a
way that a creation is drawn or made around certain singularities extracted
from flows.
A concept is not at all something that is a given. Moreover, a concept is not the
same thing as thought: one can very well think without concepts, and everyone
who does not do philosophy still thinks, I believe, but does not think through
concepts. If you accept the idea of a concept as the product of an activity or an
original creation.
I would say that the concept is a system of singularities appropriated from a
thought flow. A philosopher is someone who invents concepts. Is he an
intellectual? No, in my opinion. For a concept as system of singularities
appropriated from a thought flow... Imagine the universal thought flow as a
kind of interior monologue, the interior monologue of everyone who thinks.
Philosophy arises with the action that consists of creating concepts. For me,
there are as many creations in the invention of a concept as in the creation by
a great painter or musician. One can also conceive of a continuous acoustic
flow (perhaps that is only an idea, but it matters little if this idea is justified)
that traverses the world and that even encompasses silence. A musician is
someone who appropriates something from this flow: notes? Aggregates of
notes? No? What will we call the new sound from a musician? You sense then
that it is not simply a question of the system of notes. It's the same thing for a
philosopher, it is simply a question of creating concepts rather than sounds. It
is not a question of defining philosophy by some sort of search for the truth, for
a very simple reason: this is that truth is always subordinate to the system of
concepts at one's disposal. What is the importance of philosophers for nonphilosophers? It is that although non-philosophers don't know it, or pretend not
to be interested, whether they like it or not they think through concepts which
have proper names.
I recognize the name of Kant not in his life, but in a certain type of concept
signed Kant. Henceforth, one can very well conceive of being the disciple of a
philosopher. If you are situated so that you say that such and such a
philosopher signed the concepts for which you feel a need, then you become
Kantian, Leibnizian, etc.
It is quite necessary that two great philosophers not agree with each other to
the extent that each creates a system of concepts that serves as his point of
reference. Thus that is not all to be judged. One can very well only be a disciple
locally, only on one point or another, philosophy is detachable. You can be a
disciple of a philosopher to the extent that you consider that you personally

need this type of [concept]. Concepts are spiritual signatures, but that does not
mean it's in one's head because concepts are also ways of living. And this is
not through choice or reflections, the philosopher reflects no more than does
the painter or musician. Activities are defined by a creative activity and not by
a reflexive dimension. Henceforth, what does it mean to say: to need this or
that concept? In some ways, I tell myself that concepts are such living things,
that they really are things with four paws, that move, really. It's like a color, like
a sound. Concepts really are so living that they are not unrelated to something
that would, however, appear the furthest from the concept, notably the scream
.
In some ways, the philosopher is not someone who sings, but someone who
screams. Each time that you need to scream, I think that you are not far from a
kind of call of philosophy. What would it mean for the concept to be a kind of
scream or a kind of form of scream? That's what it means to need a concept, to
have something to scream! We must find the concept of that scream. One can
scream thousands of things. Imagine something that screams: "Well really, all
that must have some kind of reason to be." It's a very simple scream. In my
definition, the concept is the form of the scream, we immediately see a series
of philosophers who would say, "yes, yes"! These are philosophers of passion,
of pathos, distinct from philosophers of logos. For example, Kierkegaard based
his entire philosophy on fundamental screams.
But Leibniz is from the great rationalist tradition. Imagine Leibniz, there is
something frightening there. He is the philosopher of order, even more, of
order and policing, in every sense of the word "policing." In the first sense of
the word especially, that is, regulated organization of the city. He only thinks in
terms of order. But very oddly in this taste for order and to establish this order,
he yields to the most insane concept creation that we have ever witnessed in
philosophy. Disheveled concepts, the most exuberant concepts, the most
disordered, the most complex in order to justify what is. Each thing must have
a reason. In fact, there are two kinds of philosopher, if you accept the definition
by which philosophy is the activity consisting of creating concepts. But there
are perhaps two poles: there are those who engage in a very sober creation of
concepts; they create concepts on the level of a particular singularity well
distinguished from another, and I dream finally of a kind of quantification of
philosophers in which they would be quantified according to the number of
concepts they have signed or invented. If I say: Descartes! That's the type of
philosopher with a very sober concept creation. The history of the cogito,
historically one can always find an entire tradition, precursors, but there is
nonetheless something signed Descartes in the cogito concept, notably (a
proposition can express a concept) the proposition: "I think therefore I am," a
veritable new concept. It's the discovery of subjectivity, of thinking subjectivity.
It's signed Descartes.

Of course, we could always look in St. Augustine's works, to see if it wasn't

already in preparation. There is certainly a history of concepts, but it's signed
Descartes. Haven't we made rather quick work of Descartes though? We could
assign to him five or six concepts, an enormous feat to have invented six
concepts, but it's a very sober creation. And then there are exasperated
philosophers. For them, each concept covers an aggregate of singularities, and
then they always need to have other, always other concepts. One witnesses a
mad creation of concepts. The typical example is Leibniz. He never finished
creating something new.
That's all I wanted to explain.
He is the first philosopher to reflect on the power of the German language as a
concept, as German being an eminently conceptual language, and it's not by
chance that it can also be a great language of the scream. Multiple activities,
he attends to all, a very great mathematician, great physics scholar, very good
jurist, many political activities, always in the service of order. He does not stop,
he is very shady . There is a Leibniz-Spinoza visit (he who was the anti-Leibniz):
Leibniz has him read manuscripts, and one imagines Spinoza very exasperated,
wondering what this guy wants. Following that when Spinoza was attacked,
Leibniz said that he never went to see him, he said it was to monitor him...
Abominable, Leibniz is abominable. His dates: 1646-1716. It's a long life,
straddling plenty of things.
Finally he had a kind of diabolical humor. I'd say that his system is rather like a
pyramid. Leibniz's great system has several levels. None of these levels is
false, these levels symbolize each other, and Leibniz is the first great
philosopher to conceive of activity and thought as a vast symbolization.
Thus, all these levels symbolize, but they are all more or less close to what we
could provisionally call the absolute. And that belongs to his very body of work.
Depending on Leibniz's correspondent or on the public to which he addressed
himself, he presented his whole system at a particular level. Imagine that his
system is made of levels more or less contracted or more or less relaxed; in
order to explain something to someone, he goes to situate himself on a
particular level of his system. Let us assume that the someone in question was
suspected by Leibniz of having a mediocre intelligence: very well, he is
delighted, he situates himself on one of the lowest levels of his system, and if
he addresses someone of higher intelligence, he jumps to a higher level. As
these levels belong implicitly to Leibniz's own texts, that creates a great
problem of commentary. It's complicated because, in my opinion, one can
never rely on a Leibniz text if one has not first discerned the system level to
which this text corresponds.

For example, there are texts in which Leibniz explains what, according to him,
is the union of soul and body, right, and it's to one particular correspondent or
another; to another correspondent, he will explain that there is no problem in
the union of soul and body since the real problem is that of the relation of souls
to one another. The two things are not at all contradictory, it's two levels of the
system. The result is that if one does not evaluate the level of a Leibniz text,
then one will get the impression that he constantly contradicts himself, when in
fact, he does not contradict himself at all.
Leibniz is a very difficult philosopher. I would like to give titles to each part of
what I have to propose to you. The principal #1 I would call "a funny thought" .
Why do I call it "a funny thought"?, Well, because among Leibniz's texts, there
is a small one that Leibniz himself calls "funny thought." Thus I am authorized
by the author himself. Leibniz dreamed a lot, he has a whole science-fiction
side that is absolutely amazing, all the time he imagined institutions. In this
little "funny thought" text, he imagined a very disturbing institution that would
be as follows: an academy of games would be necessary. In that era, as well
with Pascal, certain other mathematicians, and Leibniz himself, there
developed a great theory of games and probabilities. Leibniz is one of the great
founders of game theory. He was impassioned by mathematical game
problems, he must have been quite a games player himself. He imagined this
academy of games as necessarily being at once - why at once? Because
depending on the point of view in which one is situated to see this institution,
or to participate in it - this would be at once a section of the academy of
sciences, a zoological and botanical garden, a universal exposition, a casino
where one gambled, and an enterprise of police control. That's not bad. He
called that "a funny thought."
Assume that I'm telling you a story. This story consists in taking up one of the
central points of Leibniz's philosophy, and I tell it to you as if it were the
description of another world, and there I also number the principal propositions
that go into forming a funny thought.

a) The thought flow, eternally, brings with it a famous principle that has a very
special characteristic because it is one of the only principles about which one
can be certain, and at the same time one can not see at all what it offers to us.
It is certain, but it is empty. This famous principle is the principle of identity.
The principle of identity has a classical formula, A is A. That is certain. If I say
blue is blue or God [is] God, I am not saying with this that God exists, in a
sense I am in certainty. Only there it is, do I think something when I say A is A,
or am I not thinking? Let us nonetheless try to say what results from this
principle of identity. It is presented in the form of a reciprocal proposition. A is A
means: subject A, verb to be, A attribute or predicate. There is a reciprocity of

subject and predicate. Blue is blue, a triangle is a triangle, these are empty and
certain propositions. Is that all? An identical proposition is a proposition such
that the attribute or the predicate is the same as the subject and reciprocates
with the subject. There is a second case just a bit more complex, notably that
the principle of identity can determine propositions which are not simply
reciprocal propositions. There is no longer simply reciprocity of the predicate
with the subject and subject with the predicate. Suppose that I say: "The
triangle has tree sides," this is not the same thing as saying, "The triangle has
three angles." "The triangle has three angles" is an identical proposition
because it is reciprocal. "The triangle has three sides" is a little different, it is
not reciprocal. There is no identity of subject and predicate. In fact, "three
sides" is not the same thing as "three angles". And nonetheless, there is a
supposed logical necessity. This logical necessity is that you cannot
conceptualize three angles composing a single figure without this figure also
having three sides. There is no reciprocity, but there is inclusion. Three sides
are included in the triangle. Inherence or inclusion.
Likewise, if I say that matter is matter, matter and matter is an identical
proposition in the form of a reciprocal proposition. The subject is identical to
the predicate. If I say that matter is in extension <tendue>, this is again an
identical proposition because I cannot think of the concept matter without
already introducing extension. Extension is in matter. This is all the more a
reciprocal proposition since, inversely, perhaps I really can think of extension
without anything filling it in, that is, without matter. This is therefore not a
reciprocal proposition, but it is a proposition of inclusion; when I say "matter is
in extension," this is an identical proposition by inclusion.
I would say therefore that there are two kinds of identical propositions: there
are reciprocal propositions in which the subject and predicate are one and the
same, and propositions of inherence or inclusion in which the predicate is
contained in the concept of the subject. If I say "this page has a front side and
a back side," OK, let's leave that, I withdraw my example. If I am looking for a
more interesting statement of the identity principle, I would say in Leibnizian
fashion that the identity principle is stated as follows: every analytical
proposition is true.
What does analytical mean? According to the example we have just seen, an
analytical proposition is one in which either the predicate or the attribute is
identical with the subject, for example, "the triangle is triangular," reciprocal
proposition, or proposition of inclusion such as "the triangle has three sides."
The predicate is contained in the subject to the point that when you have
conceived of the subject, the predicate was already there. It suffices therefore
to have an analysis in order to find the predicate in the subject. Up to this
point, Leibniz as original thinker has yet to emerge.

b) Leibniz emerges. He arises in the form of this very bizarre scream . I am

going to give it a more complex expression than I did earlier. Everything that
we're saying is not philosophy, but pre-philosophy. This is the terrain on which a
very prodigious philosophy will be built. Leibniz arrives and says: OK, the
identity principle gives us a certain model. Why a certain model? In its very
statement <nonc>, an analytical proposition is true, if you attribute to a
subject something that constitutes a unity with the subject itself, or that is
mixed up with or is already contained in the subject. You risk nothing in being
wrong. Thus, every analytical proposition is true.
Leibniz's stroke of pre-philosophical genius is to say: Let's consider reciprocity!
Something absolutely new and nonetheless very simple starts there, since this
had to be thought through. And what does it mean to say, "it had to be thought
through"? It means that one had to have need of that, that had to relate to
something quite urgent for him. What is the reciprocity of the identity principle
in its complex statement, "every analytical proposition is true"? Reciprocity
poses many more problems. Leibniz emerges and says: every true proposition
is analytical.
If it is true that the identity principle gives us a model of truth, why are we
stumped by the following difficulty, notably: it is true, it doesn't make us think
anything. The identity principle will force us to think something; it is going to
be reversed, turned around. You will tell me that turning A is A around yields A
is A. Yes and no. That yields A is A in the formal formulation which prevents the
reversal of the principle. But in the philosophical formulation, which still
amounts to exactly the same thing, "every analytical proposition is a true
proposition", if you reverse the principle: "every true proposition is necessarily
analytical," what does that mean? Each time that you formulate a true
proposition, it must be analytical (and this is where there is the scream!),
whether you want it or not, that is, it is reducible to a proposition of attribution
or of predication, and not only is it reducible to a judgment of predication or
attribution (the sky is blue), but it is analytical, that is the predicate is either
reciprocal with the subject or contained in the concept of the subject? Does
that go without saying? He throws himself into a strange undertaking , and it is
not from preference that he says that, rather he needs it. But he undertakes an
impossible task, in fact he needs some entirely crazy concepts in order to reach
this task that he is in the process of giving himself. If every analytical
proposition is true, every true proposition certainly must be analytical. It does
not go without saying at all that every judgment is reducible to a judgment of
attribution. It's not going to be easy to show. He throws himself into a
combinatory analysis, as he himself says, that is fantastic.

Why doesn't it go without saying? "The box of matches is on the table," I'd say
that this is a judgment, you know? "On the table" is a spatial determination. I
could say that the matchbox is "here." "Here," what's that? I'd say that it's a
judgment of localization. Again I repeat very simple things, but they always
have been fundamental problems of logic. It's only to suggest that in
appearance, all judgments do not have as form predication or attribution. When
I say, "the sky is blue," I have a subject, sky, and an attribute, blue. When I say
"the sky is up there" or "I am here," is "here" - spatial localization - assimilable
to a predicate? Can I formally link the judgment "I am here" to a judgment of
the kind "I am blond"? It's not certain that spatial localization is a quality. And
"2+2=4" is a judgment that we ordinarily call a relational judgment. Or if I say,
"Pierre is smaller than Paul," this is a relation between two terms, Pierre and
Paul. No doubt I orient this relation upon Pierre: if I say "Pierre is smaller than
Paul," I can say "Paul is larger than Pierre." Where is the subject, where is the
predicate? That is exactly the problem that has disturbed philosophy since its
beginnings; ever since there was logic they have wondered to what extent the
judgment of attribution could be considered as the universal form of any
possible judgment, or rather one case of judgment among others. Can I treat
"smaller than Paul" like an attribute of Pierre? It's not certain, not at all obvious.
Perhaps we have to distinguish very different types of judgment from each
other, notably: relational judgment, judgment of spatio-temporal localization,
judgment of attribution, and still many more: judgment of existence. If I say
"God exists," can I formally translate it into the form of "God is existent,"
existent being an attribute? Can I say that "God exists" is a judgment of the
same form as "God is all-powerful"? Undoubtedly not, since I can only say "God
is all-powerful" by adding "yes, if he exists". Does God exist? Is existence an
attribute? Not certain.
So you see that by proposing the idea that every true proposition must be in
one way or another an analytical proposition, that is identical, Leibniz already
gives himself a very hard task; he commits himself to showing in what way all
propositions can be linked to the judgment of attribution, notably propositions
that state relations, that state existences, that state localizations, and that, at
the outside, exist, are in relation with, can be translated as the equivalent of
the attribute of the subject.
In your mind there must arise the idea of an infinite task.
Let us assume that Leibniz reached it: what world is going to emerge from it?
What very bizarre world? What kind of world is it in which I can say "every true
proposition is analytical"? You recall certainly that ANALYTICAL is a proposition
in which the predicate is identical to the subject or else is included in the
subject. That kind of world is going to be pretty strange.

What is the reciprocity of the identity principle? The identity principle is thus
any true proposition is analytical; not the reverse, any analytical proposition is
true. Leibniz said that another principle is necessary, reciprocity: every true
proposition is necessarily analytical. He will give to it a very beautiful name:
the principle of sufficient reason. Why sufficient reason? Why does he believe
himself fully immersed in his very own scream? EVERYTHING MUST SURELY
HAVE A REASON. The principle of sufficient reason can be expressed as follows:
whatever happens to a subject, be it determinations of space and time, of
relation, event, whatever happens to a subject, what happens, that is what one
says of it with truth, everything that is said of a subject must be contained in
the notion of the subject.
Everything that happens to a subject must already be contained in the notion
of the subject. The notion of "notion" is going to be essential. It is necessary for
"blue" to be contained in the notion of sky. Why is this the principle of sufficient
reason ? Because if it is this way, each thing with a reason, reason is precisely
the notion itself in so far as it contains all that happens to the corresponding
subject . Henceforth everything has a reason.
Reason = the notion of the subject in so far as this notion contains everything
said with truth about this subject. That is the principle of sufficient reason
which is therefore justly the reciprocal of the identity principle. Rather than
looking for abstract justifications I wonder what bizarre world is going to be
born from all that? A world with very strange colors if I return to my metaphor
of painting. A painting signed Leibniz. Every true proposition must be analytical
or still more, everything that you say with truth about a subject must be
contained in the notion of the subject. You sense that this is getting crazy, he's
got a lifetime of work ahead of him.
What does "notion" mean? It's signed Leibniz. Just as there is a Hegelian
conception of the concept, there is a Leibnizian conception of the concept.

c) Again, my problem is what world is going to emerge, and in this subcategory c), I would like to begin to show that, from this point, Leibniz is going
to create truly hallucinatory concepts. It's truly a hallucinatory world. If you
want to think about relations between philosophy and madness, for example,
there are some very weak pages by Freud on the intimate relation of
metaphysics with delirium . One can only grasp the positivity of these relations
through a theory of the concept, and the direction that I would like to take
would be the relationship of the concept with the scream. I would like to make
you feel this presence of a kind of conceptual madness in Leibniz's universe as
we are going to see it be born. It is a gentle violence, let yourself go. It is not a
question of arguing. Understand the stupidity of objections.

I will add a parenthesis to complicate things. You know that there is a

philosopher following Leibniz who said that truth is one of synthetic judgments.
He is opposed to Leibniz. OK! How does that concern us? It's Kant. This is not to
say that they do not agree with each other. When I say that, I credit Kant with a
new concept which is synthetic judgment. This concept had to be invented, and
it was Kant who did so. To say that philosophers contradict one another is a
feeble formula, it's like saying that Velasquez did not agree with Giotto, right!
It's not even true, it's nonsensical.
Every true proposition must be analytical, that is such that it attributes
something to a subject and that the attribute must be contained in the notion
of the subject. Let us consider an example. I do not wonder if it is true, I
wonder what it means. Let us take an example of a true proposition. A true
proposition can be an elementary one concerning an event that took place.
Let's take Leibniz's own example: "CAESAR CROSSED THE RUBICON". It's a
proposition. It is true or we have strong reasons to assume it's true. Another
proposition: "ADAM SINNED".
There is a highly true proposition. What do you mean by that? You see that all
these propositions chosen by Leibniz as fundamental examples are event-ual
propositions , so he does not give himself an easy task. He is going to tell us
this: since this proposition is true, it is necessary, whether you want it or not,
that the predicate "crossed the Rubicon," if the proposition is true, but it is true,
this predicate must be contained in the notion of Caesar. Not in Caesar himself,
but in the notion of Caesar. The notion of the subject contains everything that
happens to a subject, that is, everything that is said about the subject with
truth. In "Adam sinned," sin at a particular moment belongs to the notion of
Adam. Crossing the Rubicon belongs to the notion of Caesar. I would say that
here, Leibniz proposes one of his greatest concepts, the concept of inherence.
Everything that is said with truth about something is inherent in the notion of
this something.
This is the first aspect or development of sufficient reason.

d) When we say that, we can no longer stop. When one has started into the
domain of the concept, one cannot stop. In the domain of screams, there is a
famous scream from Aristotle. The great Aristotle -- who, let us note, exerted
an extremely strong influence on Leibniz -- at one point proposed in the
Metaphysics a very beautiful formula: it is indeed necessary to stop
(anankstenai). This is a great scream. This is the philosopher in front of the
chasm of the interconnection of concepts. Leibniz could care less, he does not
stop. Why? If you refer to proposition c): everything that you attribute to a
subject must be contained in the notion of this subject. But what you attribute

with truth to any subject whatsoever in the world, if were it Caesar, it is

sufficient for you to attribute to it a single thing with truth in order for you to
notice with fright that, from that moment on, you are forced to cram into the
notion of the subject not only the thing that you attribute to it with truth, but
the totality of the world. Why? By virtue of a well-known principle that is not at
all the same as that of sufficient reason. This is the simple principle of causality.
For in the end, the causality principle stretches to infinity, that's it's very
characteristic. And this is a very special infinite since, in fact, it stretches to the
indefinite . Specifically, the causality principle states that everything has a
cause, which is very different from every thing has a reason. But the cause is a
thing, and in its turn, it has a cause, etc. etc. I can do the same thing, notably
that every cause has an effect and this effect is in its turn the cause of effects.
This is therefore an indefinite series of causes and effects.
What difference is there between sufficient reason and cause? We understand
very well. Cause is never sufficient. One must say that the causality principle
poses a necessary cause, but never a sufficient one. We must distinguish
between necessary cause and sufficient reason. What distinguishes them
evidently is that the cause of a thing is always something else. The cause of A
is B, the cause of B is C, etc..... An indefinite series of causes. Sufficient reason
is not at all something other than the thing. The sufficient reason of a thing is
the notion of the thing. Thus, sufficient reason expresses the relation of the
thing with its own notion whereas cause expresses the relations of the thing
with something else. It's limpid.

e) If you say that a particular event is encompassed in the notion of Caesar,

"crossing the Rubicon" is encompassed in the notion of Caesar . You can't stop
yourself in which sense? From cause to cause and effect to effect, it's at that
moment the totality of the world that must be encompassed in the notion of a
particular subject. That becomes very odd, there's the world passing by inside
each subject, or each notion of subject. In fact, crossing the Rubicon has a
cause, this cause itself has multiple causes, from cause to cause, into cause
from cause and into cause from cause of cause. It's the whole series of the
world that passes there, at least the antecedent series. And moreover, crossing
the Rubicon has effects. If I limit myself to the largest ones: commencement of
a Roman empire. The Roman empire in its turn has effects, we follow directly
from the Roman empire. From cause to cause and effect to effect, you cannot
say a particular event is encompassed in the notion of a particular subject
without saying that, henceforth, the entire world is encompassed in the notion
of a particular subject.

There is indeed a trans-historical characteristic of philosophy. What does it

mean to be Leibnizian in 1980? They exist, or at least it's possible that they
exist.
If you said, conforming to the principle of sufficient reason, that what happens
to a particular subject, and which personally concerns it, then what you
attribute it with truth, having blue eyes, crossing the Rubicon, etc. ... belongs to
the notion of the subject, that is encompassed in this notion of the subject; you
cannot stop, one must say that this subject contains the whole world. It is no
longer the concept of inherence or inclusion, it's the concept of expression
which, in Leibniz's work, is a fantastic concept. Leibniz expresses himself in this
form: the notion of the subject expresses the totality of the world.
His own "crossing the Rubicon" stretches to infinity backward and forward by
the double play of causes and effects. But then, it is time to speak for
ourselves, little matter what happens to us and the importance of what
happens to us. We must say that it is each notion of subject that contains or
expresses the totality of the world. That is, each of you, me, expresses or
contains the totality of the world. Just like Caesar, no more, no less. That gets
complicated, why? A great danger: if each individual notion, if each notion of
the subject expresses the totality of the world, that means that there is only a
single subject, a universal subject, and the you, me, Caesar, would only be
appearances of this universal subject. It would be quite possible to say: there
would be a single subject that would express the world.
Why couldn't Leibniz say that? He had no choice. It would mean repudiating
himself. All that he had done before that with the principle of sufficient reason
would then make what sense? In my opinion, this was the first great
reconciliation of the concept and the individual. Leibniz was in the process of
constructing a concept of the concept such that the concept and the individual
were finally becoming adequate to one another. Why?
That the concept might extend into the individual, why is this new? Never had
anyone dared that. The concept, what is it? It is defined by the order of
generality. There is a concept when there is a representation which is applied to
several things. But identifying the concept and the individual with each other,
never had that been done. Never had a voice reverberated in the domain of
thought to say that the concept and the individual were the same thing.
What had always been distinguished was an order of the concept that referred
to a generality and an order of the individual that referred to a singularity. Even
more, it was always considered as going without saying that the individual as
such was not comprehensible via the concept.
It was always understood that the proper name was not a concept. Indeed,
"dog" is certainly a concept, but "Fido" is not a concept. There is certainly a

dogness about all dogs, as certain logicians say in a splendid language, but
there is no Fido-ness about all Fidos. Leibniz is the first to say that concepts are
proper names, that is, that concepts are individual notions.
There is a concept of the individual as such. Thus you see that Leibniz cannot
fall back on the proposition since every true proposition is analytical, the world
is thus contained in a single and same subject which would be a universal
subject. He cannot since his principle of sufficient reason implied that what was
contained in a subject -- thus what was true, what was attributable to a subject
-- was contained in a subject as an individual subject. Thus he cannot give
himself a kind of universal mind. He has to remain fixed on the singularity, on
the individual as such. And in fact, this will be one of the truly original points for
Leibniz, the perpetual formula in his works: substance (no difference between
substance and subject for him) is individual.
It's the substance Caesar, it's the substance you, the substance me, etc. ... The
urgent question in my sub-category d) since he forbids himself from invoking a
universal mind in which the world will be included ... other philosophers will
invoke a universal mind. There is even a very short text by Leibniz entitled
"Considerations on universal mind," in which he goes on to show in what way
there is indeed a universal mind, God, but that does not prevent substance
from being individual. Thus irreducibility of individual substances.
Since each substance expresses the world, or rather each substantial notion,
each notion of a subject, since each one expresses the world, you express the
world, for all times. We notice that, in fact, he has a lifetime of work because he
faces the objection that's made to him immediately: but then, what about
freedom? If everything that happens to Caesar is encompassed in the
individual notion of Caesar, if the entire world is encompassed in the universal
notion of Caesar, then Caesar crossing the Rubicon only acts to unroll --odd
word, devolvere, which comes up all the time in Leibniz's works -- or explicate
(the same thing), that is to say, literally to unfold , like you unfold a rug. It's the
same thing: explicate, unfold, unroll. Thus crossing the Rubicon as event only
acts to unroll something that was encompassed for all times in the notion of
Caesar. You see that it's quite a real problem.
Caesar crossed the Rubicon in a particular year, but even were he crossing the
Rubicon in a particular year, it was encompassed for all time in his individual
notion. Thus, where is this individual notion? It is eternal. There is an eternal
truth of dated events. But then, how about freedom? Everyone jumps on him.
Freedom is very dangerous under a Christian regime. So Leibniz will write a
little work, "On freedom," in which he explains what freedom is. Freedom is
going to be a pretty funny thing for him.
But leave that aside for the moment.

What distinguishes one subject from another? That, we can't leave aside for the
moment, unless our flow were to be cut off. What is going to distinguish you
from Caesar since just like him, you express the totality of the world, present,
past, and future? It's odd, this concept of Expression. That's where he proposes
a very rich notion.

f) What distinguishes an individual substance from another is not very difficult.

In some way, it has to be irreducible.
Each one, each subject, for each individual notion, each notion of subject has to
encompass this totality of the world, express this total world, but from a certain
point of view. And there begins a perspectivist philosophy. And it's not
inconsiderable. You will tell me: what is more banal than the expression "a
point of view"? If philosophy means creating concepts, what does create
concepts mean? Generally speaking, these are banal formulae. Great
philosophers each have banal formulae that they wink at. A wink from a
philosopher is, at the outside limit, taking a banal formula and having a ball ,
you have no idea what I'm going to put inside it. To create a theory of point of
view, what does that imply? Could that be done at any time at all? Is it by
chance that it's Leibniz who created the first great theory at a particular
moment? At the moment in which the same Leibniz created a particularly
fruitful chapter in geometry, called projective geometry. Is it by chance that it's
out of an era in which are elaborated, in architecture as in painting, all sorts of
techniques of perspective? We retain simply these two domains that symbolize
that: architecture-painting and perspective in painting on one hand, and on the
other hand, projective geometry. Understand what Leibniz wants to develop
from them. He is going to say that each individual notion expresses the totality
of the world, yes, but from a certain point of view.
What does that mean? Of so little import is it, banally, pre-philosophically, that
it is henceforth as equally impossible for him to stop. That commits him to
showing that what constitutes the individual notion as individual is point of
view. And that therefore point of view is deeper that whosoever places himself
there.
At the basis of each individual notion, it will indeed be necessary for there to be
a point of view that defines the individual notion. If you prefer, the subject is
second in relation to the point of view. And after all, to say that is not a piece of
cake, it's not inconsiderable. He established a philosophy that will find its name
in the works of another philosopher who stretches out his hand to Leibniz
across the centuries, to wit Nietzsche. Nietzsche will say: my philosophy is a
perspectivism. You understand that it becomes idiotic or banal to whine about
whether perspectivism consists in saying that everything is relative to the

subject; or simply that everything is relative. Everyone says it, it belongs to

propositions that hurt no one since it is meaningless. So long as I take the
formula as signifying everything depends on the subject, that means nothing, I
caused, as one says ...

. . . What makes me = me is a point of view on the world. Leibniz cannot stop.

He has to go all the way to a theory of point of view such that the subject is
constituted by the point of view and not the point of view constituted by the
subject. Fully into the nineteenth century, when Henry James renews the
techniques of the novel through a perspectivism, through a mobilization of
points of view, there too in James's works, it's not points of view that are
explained by the subjects, it's the opposite, subjects that are explained through
points of view. An analysis of points of view as sufficient reason of subjects,
that's the sufficient reason of the subject. The individual notion is the point of
view under which the individual expresses the world. It's beautiful and it's even
poetic. James has sufficient techniques in order for there to be no subject; what
becomes one subject or another is the one who is determined to be in a
particular point of view. It's the point of view that explains the subject and not
the opposite. For Leibniz, every individual substance is like an entire world and
like a mirror of God or of the whole universe that each substance expresses in
its own way: kind of like an entire city is diversely represented depending on
the different situations of the one who looks at it. Thus, the universe is
seemingly multiplied as many times as there are substances, and the glory of
God is redoubled equally by as many completely different representations of
his/her/its . He speaks like a cardinal. One can even say that every substance
bears in some ways the characteristic of infinite wisdom and of all of God's
power, and limits as much as it is able to.
In all this, I maintain that the new concept of point of view is deeper than the
concept of individual and individual substance. It is point of view which will
define essence. Individual essence. One must believe that to each individual
notion corresponds a point of view. But that gets complicated because this
point of view would be in effect from birth to death for an individual. What
would define us is a certain point of view on the world. I said that Nietzsche will
rediscover this idea. He didn't like him , but that's what he took from him. The
theory of point of view is an idea from the Renaissance. The Cardinal de Cuse ,
a very great Renaissance philosopher, referred to portraiture changing
according to point of view. From the era of Italian fascism, one notices a very
odd portrait almost everywhere: face on, it represented Mussolini, from the
right side it represented his son-in-law, and if one stood to the left, it
represented the king.

The analysis of points of view in mathematics -- and it's again Leibniz who
caused this chapter of mathematics to make considerable progress under the
name of analysis situs --, and it is evident that it is connected to projective
geometry. There is a kind of essentiality, of objectity of the subject, and the
objectity is the point of view. Concretely were everyone to express the world in
his own point of view, what does that mean? Leibniz did not retreat from the
strangest concepts. I can no longer say "from his own point of view." If I said
"from his own point of view," I would make the point of view depend on a
preceding subject , but it's the opposite. But what determines this point of
view? Leibniz : understand, each of us expresses the totality of the world, only
he expresses it in an obscure and confused way. Obscurely and confused
means what in Leibniz's vocabulary? That means that the totality of the world
is really in the individual, but in the form of minute perception. Minute
perceptions. Is it by chance that Leibniz is one of the inventors of differential
calculus? These are infinitely tiny perceptions, in other words, unconscious
perceptions. I express everyone, but obscurely, confusedly, like a clamor.
Later we will see why this is linked to differential calculus, but notice that the
minute perceptions of the unconscious are like differentials of consciousness,
it's minute perceptions without consciousness. For conscious perceptions,
Leibniz uses another word: apperception. Apperception, to perceive , is
conscious perception, and minute perception is the differential of
consciousness which is not given in consciousness. All individuals express the
totality of the world obscurely and confusedly. So what distinguishes a point of
view from another point of view? On the other hand, there is a small portion of
the world that I express clearly and distinctly, and each subject, each individual
has his/her own portion, but in what sense? In this very precise sense that this
portion of the world that I express clearly and distinctly, all other subjects
express it as well, but confusedly and obscurely.
What defines my point of view is like a kind of projector that, in the buzz of the
obscure and confused world, keeps a limited zone of clear and distinct
expression. However stupid you may be, however insignificant we all may be,
we have our own little thing, even the pure vermin has its little world: it does
not express much clearly and distinctly, but it has its little portion. Beckett's
characters are individuals: everything is confused, an uproar , they understand
nothing, they are in tatters ; there is the great uproar of the world. However
pathetic they may be in their garbage can, they have their very own little zone.
What the great Molloy calls "my properties." He no longer moves, he has his
little hook and, in a strip of one meter, with his hook, he grabs things, his
properties. It's a clear and distinct zone that he expresses. We are all the same.
But our zone is more or less sizable, and even then it's not certain, but it is
never the same. What is it that determines the point of view? It's the proportion
of the region of the world expressed clearly and distinctly by an individual in

relation to the totality of the world expressed obscurely and confusedly. That's
what point of view is.
Leibniz has a metaphor that he likes: you are near the sea and you listen to
waves. You listen to the sea and you hear the sound of a wave. I hear the
sound of a wave, that is, I have an apperception: I distinguish a wave. And
Leibniz says: you would not hear the wave if you did not have a minute
unconscious perception of the sound of each drop of water that slides over and
through another, and that makes up the object of minute perceptions. There is
the roaring of all the drops of water, and you have your little zone of clarity,
you clearly and distinctly grasp one partial result from this infinity of drops,
from this infinity of roaring, and from it, you make your own little world, your
own property.
Each individual notion has its point of view, that is from this point of view, it
extracts from the aggregate of the world that it expresses a determined portion
of clear and distinct expression. Given two individuals, you have two cases:
either their zones do not communicate in the least, and create no symbols with
one another -- there aren't merely direct communications, one can conceive of
there being analogies -- and in that moment, they have nothing to say to each
other; or it's like two circles that overlap: there is a little common zone, there
we can do something together. Leibniz thus can say quite forcefully that no two
individual substances have the same point of view or exactly the same clear
and distinct zone of expression. And finally, Leibniz's stroke of genius: what will
define the clear and distinct zone of expression that I have? I express the
totality of the world, but I only express clearly and distinctly a reduced portion
of it, a finite portion. What I express clearly and distinctly, Leibniz tells us, is
what relates to my body. We will see what this body means, but what I express
clearly and distinctly is that which affects my body.
Thus I obviously do not express clearly and distinctly the passage of the
Rubicon, since that concerned Caesar's body. There is something that concerns
my body and that only I express clearly and distinctly, in relation to this buzz
that covers the entire universe.
f) In this story of the city, there is a problem. OK, there are different points of
view. These points of view preexist the subject who is placed there, good. In
this event, the secret of point of view is mathematical, geometrical, and not
psychological. It's at the least psycho-geometrical. Leibniz is a man of notions,
not a man of psychology. But everything urges me to say that the city exists
outside points of view. But in my story of expressed world, in the way we
started off, the world has no existence outside the point of view that expresses
it; the world does not exist in itself. The world is uniquely the common
expressed of all individual substances, but the expressed does not exist outside
that which expresses it. The world does not exist in itself, the world is uniquely

the expressed. The entire world is contained in each individual notion, but it
exists only in this inclusion. It has no existence outside. It's in this sense that
Leibniz will be, and not incorrectly, on the side of the idealists: there is no world
in itself, the world exists only in the individual substances that express it. It's
the common expressed of all individual substances. It's the expressed of all
individual substances, but the expressed does not exist outside the substances
that express it. It's a real problem!
What distinguishes these substances is that they all express the same world,
but they don't express the same clear and distinct portion. It's like chess. The
world does not exist. It's the complication of the concept of expression. Which
is going to provide this final difficulty. Still it is necessary that all individual
notions express the same world. So it's curious -- it's curious because by virtue
of the principle of identity that permits us to determine what is contradictory,
that is, what is impossible, it's A is not A. It's contradictory: example: the
squared circle. A squared circle is a circle that is not a circle. So starting from
the principle of identity, I can have a criterion of contradiction. According to
Leibniz, I can demonstrate that 2 + 2 cannot make 5, I can demonstrate that a
circle cannot be squared. Whereas, on the level of sufficient reason, it's much
more complicated, why? Because Adam the non-sinner, Caesar not crossing the
Rubicon, is not like the squared circle. Adam the non-sinner is not contradictory.
Understand how he's going to try to save freedom, once he has placed himself
in a bad situation for saving it. This is not at all impossible: Caesar could have
not crossed the Rubicon, whereas a circle cannot be squared; here, there is no
freedom.
So, again he's stuck, again Leibniz has to find another concept and, of all his
crazy concepts, this will undoubtedly be the craziest. Adam could have not
sinned, so in other words, the truths governed by the principle of sufficient
reason are not the same type as the truths governed by the principle of
identity, why? Because the truths governed by the principle of identity are such
that their contradictory status is impossible, whereas the truths governed by
the principle of sufficient reason have a contradictory status that is possible:
Adam the non-sinner is possible.
It's even all that distinguishes, according to Leibniz, the truths called truths of
essence and those called truths of existence. The truths of existence are such
that their contradictory status is possible. How is Leibniz going to get out of this
final difficulty? How is he going to be able to maintain at once that all that
Adam did is contained forever in his individual notion, and nonetheless Adam
the non-sinner was possible. He seems stuck, it's delicious because from this
perspective, philosophers are somewhat like cats, it's when they are stuck that
they get loose, or they're like fish, the concept becoming fish. He is going to tell
us the following: that Adam the non-sinner is perfectly possible, like Caesar not
having crossed the Rubicon, all that is possible, but it did not happen because,

if it is possible in itself, it's incompossible. That's when he created the very

strange logical concept of incompossibility. On the level of existences, it is not
enough for a thing to be possible in order to exist, one must also know with
what it is compossible. So Adam the non-sinner, though possible in himself, is
incompossible with the world that exists. Adam could have not sinned, yes, but
provided that there were another world. You see that the inclusion of the world
in the individual notion, and the fact that something else is possible, he
suddenly reconciles the notion of compossibility, Adam the non-sinner belongs
to another world. Adam the non-sinner could have been possible, but this world
was not chosen. It is incompossible with the existing world. It is only
compossible with other possible worlds that have not passed into existence.
Why is it that world which passed into existence? Leibniz explains what is, for
him, the creation of worlds by God, and we see well how this is a theory of
games: God, in his understanding , conceives an infinity of possible worlds,
only these possible worlds are not compossible with each other, and
necessarily so since it's God who chooses the best. He chooses the best of
possible worlds. And it happens that the best of possible worlds implies Adam
as sinner. Why? That's going to be awful . What is interesting logically is the
creation of a proper concept of compossiblity to designate a more limited
logical sphere than that of logical possibility. In order to exist, it is not enough
for something to be possible, this thing must also be compossible with others
that constitute the real world. In a famous formula from the Monadology,
Leibniz says that individual notions have neither doors nor windows. That
arrives to correct the metaphor of the city. No doors or windows means that
there is no opening. Why? Because there is no exterior. The world that
individual notions express is interior, it is included in individual notions.
Individual notions have no doors or windows, everything is included in each
one, and yet there is a world common to all individual notions: for what each
individual notion includes, to wit the totality of the world, the notion includes it
necessarily as a form in which what it expresses is compossible with what the
others express. It's a marvel. It's a world in which there is no direct
communication between subjects. Between Caesar and you, between you and
me, there is no direct communication, and as we'd say today, each individual
notion is programmed in such a way that what it expresses forms a common
world with what the other expresses. It's one of the last concepts from Leibniz:
pre-established harmony. Pre-established, it's absolutely a programmed
harmony. It's the idea of the spiritual automaton, and at the same time, it's the
grand age of automatons at this end of the seventeenth century.
Each individual notion is like a spiritual automaton, that is what it expresses is
interior to it, it's without doors or windows; it is programmed in such a way that
what it expresses is in compossibility with what the other expresses.

What I have done today was solely a description of the world of Leibniz, and
even so, only one part of this world. Thus, the following notions have been
successively laid out: sufficient reason, inherence and inclusion, expression or
point of view, incompossibility.

The last time, as we agreed, we had begun a series of studies on Leibniz that
should be conceived as an introduction to a reading, yours, of Leibniz.
To introduce a numerical clarification, I relied on numbering the paragraphs so
that everything did not get mixed up.
The last time, our first paragraph was a kind of presentation of Leibniz's
principal concepts. As background to all this, there was a corresponding
problem for Leibniz, but obviously much more general, to wit: what precisely
does it mean to do philosophy. Starting from a very simple notion: to do
philosophy is to create concepts, just as doing painting is to create lines and
colors. Doing philosophy is creating concepts because concepts are not
something that pre-exists, not something that is given ready made. In this
sense, we must define philosophy through an activity of creation: creation of
concepts. This definition seemed perfectly suitable for Leibniz who, precisely, in
an apparently fundamentally rationalist philosophy, is engaged in a kind of
exuberant creation of unusual concepts of which there are few such examples
in the history of philosophy.
If concepts are the object of a creation, then one must say that these concepts
are signed. There is a signature, not that the signature establishes a link
between the concept and the philosopher who created it. Rather the concepts
themselves are signatures. The entire first paragraph caused a certain number
of properly Leibnizian concepts to emerge. The two principal ones that we
discerned were inclusion and compossibility. There are all kinds of things that
are included in certain things, or enveloped in certain things. Inclusion,
envelopment. Then, the completely different, very bizarre concept of
compossibility: there are things which are possible in themselves, but that are
not compossible with another.
Today, I would like to give a title to this second paragraph, this second inquiry
on Leibniz: Substance, World, and Continuity.

The purpose of this second paragraph is to analyze more precisely these two
major concepts of Leibniz: Inclusion and Compossibility.
At the point where we ended the last time, we found ourselves faced with two
problems: the first is that of inclusion. In what sense? We saw that if a
proposition were true, it was necessary in one way or another that the
predicate or attribute be contained or included -- not in the subject --, but in the
notion of the subject. If a proposition is true, the predicate must be included in
the notion of the subject. Lets allow ourselves the freedom to accept that and,
as Leibniz says, if Adam sinned, the sin had to be contained or included in the
individual notion of Adam. Everything that happens, everything that can be
attributed, everything that is predicated about a subject must be contained in
the notion of the subject. This is a philosophy of predication. Faced with such a
strange proposition, if one accepts this kind of Leibnizian gamble, one finds
oneself immediately faced with problems. Specifically if any given event that
concerns a specific individual notion, for example, Adam, or Caesar -- Caesar
crossed the Rubicon, it is necessary that crossing the Rubicon be included in
the individual notion of Caesar -- great, O.K., we are quite ready to support
Leibniz. But if we say that, we cannot stop: if a single thing is contained in the
individual notion of Caesar, like "crossing the Rubicon," then it is quite
necessary that, from effect to cause and from cause to effect, the totality of the
world be contained in this individual notion. Indeed, crossing the Rubicon itself
has a cause that must also be contained in the individual notion, etc. etc. to
infinity, both ascending and descending. At that point, the entire Roman empire
-- which, grosso modo, results from the crossing of the Rubicon as well as all
the consequences of the Roman empire -- in one way or another, all of this
must be included in the individual notion of Caesar such that every individual
notion will be inflated by the totality of the world that it expresses. It expresses
the totality of the world. There we see the proposition becoming stranger and
stranger.
There are always delicious moments in the history of philosophy, and one of
the most delicious of these came at the far extreme of reason -- that is, when
rationalism, pushed all the way to the end of its consequences, engendered
and coincided with a kind of delirium that was a delirium of madness. At that
moment, we witness this kind of procession, a parade, in which the same thing
that is rational pushed to the far end of reason is also delirium, but delirium of
the purest madness.
Thus, if it is true that the predicate is included in the notion of the subject, each
individual notion must express the totality of the world, and the totality of the
world must be included in each notion.
We saw that this led Leibniz to an extraordinary theory that is the first great
theory in philosophy of perspective or point of view since each individual notion

will be said to express and contain the world. Yes, but from a certain point of
view which is deeper, notably it is subjectivity that refers to the notion of point
of view and not the notion of point of view that refers to subjectivity. This is
going to have many consequences in philosophy, starting with the echo that
this would have for Nietzsche in the creation of a perspectivist philosophy.
The first problem is this: in saying that the predicate is contained in the
subject, we assume that this brought up all sorts of difficulties, specifically: can
relations be reduced to predicates, can events be considered as predicates?
But let us accept that. We can find Leibniz wrong only starting from an
aggregate of conceptual coordinates from Leibniz's. A true proposition is one
for which the attribute is contained in the subject; we see quite well what that
can mean on the level of truths of essences. Truths of essences, be they
metaphysical truths (concerning God), or else mathematical truths. If I say
2+2=4, there is quite a bit to discuss about that, but I immediately understand
what Leibniz meant, always independently of the question of whether he is
right or wrong; we already have enough trouble knowing what someone is
saying that if, on top of that, we wonder if he is right, then there is no end to it.
2+2=4 is an analytical proposition. I remind you that an analytical proposition
is a proposition for which the predicate is contained in the subject or in the
notion of the subject, specifically it is an identical proposition or is reducible to
the identical. Identity of the predicate with the subject. Indeed, Leibniz tells us:
I can demonstrate through a series of finite procedures, a finite number of
operational procedures, I can demonstrate that 4, by virtue of its definition, and
2+2, by virtue of their definition, are identical. Can I really demonstrate it, and
in what way? Obviously I do not pose the problem of how. We understand
generally what that means: the predicate is encompassed in the subject, that
means that, through a group of operations, I can demonstrate the identity of
one and the other. Leibniz selects an example in a little text called "On
Freedom." He proceeds to demonstrate that every number divisible by twelve
is by this fact divisible by six. Every duodecimal number is sextuple .
Notice that in the logistics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, you will
again find proofs of this type that, notably, made Russell famous. Leibniz's
proof is very convincing: he first demonstrates that every number divisible by
twelve is identical to those divisible by two, multiplied by two, multiplied by
three. It's not difficult. On the other hand, he proves that the number divisible
by six is equal to that divisible by two multiplied by three.
By that, what did he reveal?
He revealed an inclusion since two multiplied by three is contained in two
multiplied by two multiplied by three.

It's an example that helps us understand on the level of mathematical truths

that we can say that the corresponding proposition is analytical or identical.
That is, the predicate is contained in the subject. That means, strictly speaking,
that I can make into an aggregate, into a series of determinate operations, a
finite series of determinate operations -- I insist on that -- I can demonstrate
the identity of the predicate with the subject, or I can cause an inclusion of the
predicate in the subject to emerge. And that boils down to the same thing. I
can display this inclusion, I can show it. Either I can demonstrate the identity or
I can show the inclusion.
He showed the inclusion when he showed, for example... -- a pure identity
would have been: any number divisible by twelve is divisible by twelve -- but
with that, we reach another case of truth of essence: any number divisible by
twelve is divisible by six, this time he does not stop at showing an identity, he
shows an inclusion resulting from finite operations, quite determinate.
That's what truths of essence are. I can say that inclusion of the predicate in
the subject is proven by analysis and that this analysis responds to the
condition of being finite, that is, it only includes a limited number of quite
determinate operations.

But when I say that Adam sinned, or that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, what is
that? That no longer refers to a truth of essence, it's specifically dated, Caesar
crossed the Rubicon here and now, with reference to existence, since Caesar
crossed the Rubicon only if it existed. 2+2=4 occurs in all time and in all
places. Thus, there are grounds to distinguish truths of essence from truths of
existence.
The truth of the proposition "Caesar crossed the Rubicon" is not the same type
as 2+2=4. And yet, by virtue of the principles we saw the last time, no less for
truths of existence than for truths of essence, the predicate must be in the
subject and included in the notion of the subject; included therefore for all
eternity in the notion of the subject, including for all eternity that Adam will sin
in a particular place at a particular time. This is a truth of existence.
No less than for truths of essence, for truths of existence, the predicate must
be contained in the subject. Granted, but no less, that does not mean in the
same way. And in fact, and this is our problem, what initial great difference is
there between truth of essence and truth of existence? We sense it
immediately. For the truths of existence, Leibniz tells us that even there, the
predicate is contained in the subject. The "sinner" must be contained in the
individual notion of Adam, just look: if the sinner is contained in the individual
notion of Adam, it's the entire world that is contained in the individual notion of
Adam, if we follow the causes back and if we track down the effects, as it's the

entire world, you understand, that the proposition "Adam sinned" must be an
analytical proposition, only in that case, the analysis is infinite. The analysis
extends to infinity.
What could that even mean? It seems to mean this: in order to demonstrate
the identity of "sinner" and "Adam," or the identity of "who crossed the
Rubicon" and "Caesar," this time an infinite series of operations is required. It
goes without saying that we aren't capable of that, or it appears that we aren't.
Are we capable of making an analysis to infinity? Leibniz is quite formal: [no],
you, us, men, are not able to do so. Thus, in order to situate ourselves in the
domain of truths of existence, we have to wait for the experience. So why does
he present this whole story about analytical truths? He adds: yes, but infinite
analysis, on the other hand, not only is possible, but created in the
understanding of God.
Does it suit us that God, he who is without limits, he who is infinite, can
undertake infinite analysis? We're happy, we're happy for him, but at first
glance, we wonder what Leibniz is talking about. I emphasize only that our
initial difficulty is: what is infinite analysis? Any proposition is analytical, only
there is an entire domain of our propositions that refers to an infinite analysis.
We are hopeful: if Leibniz is one of the great creators of differential calculus or
of infinitesimal analysis, undoubtedly this is in mathematics, and he always
distinguished philosophical truths and mathematical truths, and so it's not a
question for us of mixing up everything. But it's impossible to think that, when
he discovers a certain idea of infinite analysis in metaphysics, that there aren't
certain echoes in relation to a certain type of calculus that he himself invented,
notably the calculus of infinitesimal analysis.
So there is my initial difficulty: when analysis extends to infinity, what type or
what is the mode of inclusion of the predicate in the subject? In what way is
"sinner" contained in the notion of Adam, once it is stated that the identity of
sinner and Adam can appear only in an infinite analysis?
What does infinite analysis mean, then, when it seems that there is analysis
only under conditions of a well-determined finitude?
That's a tough problem.
Second problem. I just exposed already a first difference between truths of
essence and truths of existence. In truths of essence, the analysis is finite, in
truths of existence, the analysis is infinite. That is not the only one, for there is
a second difference: according to Leibniz, a truth of essence is such that its
contradictory is impossible, that is, it is impossible for 2 and 2 not to make 4.
Why? For the simple reason that I can prove the identity of 4 and of 2+2
through a series of finite procedures. Thus 2+2=5 can be proven to be
contradictory and impossible. Adam non sinner, Adam who might not have

sinned, I therefore seize the contradictory of sinner. It's possible. The proof is
that, following the great criterion of classical logic -- and from this perspective
Leibniz remains within classical logic -- I can think nothing when I say 2+2=5, I
cannot think the impossible, no more than I think whatever it might be
according to this logic when I say squared circle. But I can very well think of an
Adam who might not have sinned.Truths of existence are called contingent
truths.
Caesar could have not crossed the Rubicon. Leibniz's answer is admirable:
certainly, Adam could have not sinned, Caesar could have not crossed the
Rubicon. Only here it is: this was not compossible with the existing world. An
Adam non sinner enveloped another world. This world was possible in itself, a
world in which the first man might not have sinned is a logically possible world,
only it is not compossible with our world. That is, God chose a world such that
Adam sinned. Adam non sinner implied another world, this world was possible,
but it was not compossible with ours.
Why did God choose this world? Leibniz goes on to explain it. Understand that
at this level, the notion of compossibility becomes very strange: what is going
to make me say that two things are compossible and that two other things are
incompossible? Adam non sinner belongs to another world than ours, but
suddenly Caesar might not have crossed the Rubicon either, that would have
been another possible world. What is this very unusual relation of
compossibility? Understand that perhaps this is the same question as what is
infinite analysis, but it does not have the same outline. So we can draw a
dream out of it, we can have this dream on several levels. You dream, and a
kind of wizard is there who makes you enter a palace; this palace... it's the
dream of Apollodorus told by Leibniz. Apollodorus is going to see a goddess,
and this goddess leads him into the palace, and this palace is composed of
several palaces. Leibniz loved that, boxes containing boxes. He explained, in a
text that we will examine, he explained that in the water, there are many fish
and that in the fish, there is water, and in the water of these fish, there are fish
of fish. It's infinite analysis. The image of the labyrinth hounds him. He never
stops talking about the labyrinth of continuity. This palace is in the form of a
pyramid. Then, I look closer and, in the highest section of my pyramid, closest
to the point, I see a character who is doing something. Right underneath, I see
the same character who is doing something else in another location. Again
underneath the same character is there in another situation, as if all sorts of
theatrical productions were playing simultaneously, completely different, in
each of the palaces, with characters that have common segments. It's a huge
book by Leibniz called Theodicy , specifically divine justice.
You understand, what he means is that at each level is a possible world. God
chose to bring into existence the extreme world closest to the point of the
pyramid. How was he guided in making that choice? We shall see, we must not

hurry since this will be a tough problem, what the criteria are for God's choice.
But once we've said that he chose a particular world, this world implicated
Adam sinner; in another world, obviously all that is simultaneous, these are
variants, one can conceive of something else, and each time, it's a world. Each
of them is possible. They are incompossible with one another, only one can
pass into existence. And all of them attempt with all their strength to pass into
existence. The vision that Leibniz proposes of the creation of the world by God
becomes very stimulating. There are all these worlds that are in God's
understanding, and each of which on its own presses forward pretending to
pass from the possible into the existent. They have a weight of reality, as a
function of their essences. As a function of the essences they contain, they
tend to pass into existence. And this is not possible for they are not
compossible with each other: existence is like a dam. A single combination will
pass through. Which one? You already sense Leibniz's splendid response: it will
be the best one!
And not the best one by virtue of a moral theory, but by virtue of a theory of
games. And it's not by chance that Leibniz is one of the founders of statistics
and of the calculus of games. And all that will get more complicated...
What is this relation of compossibility? I just want to point out that a famous
author today is Leibnizian. What does it mean to be Leibnizian today? I think
that means two things, one not very interesting and one very interesting. The
last time, I said that the concept is in a special relationship with the scream.
There is an uninteresting way to be Leibnizian or to be Spinozist today, by job
necessity, people working on an author, but there is another way to make use
of a philosopher, one that is non-professional. These are people who are able
not to be philosophers. What I find amazing in philosophy is when a nonphilosopher discovers a kind of familiarity that I can no longer call conceptual,
but immediately seizes upon a familiarity between his very own screams and
the concepts of the philosopher. I think of Nietzsche, he had read Spinoza early
on and, in this letter, he had just re-read him, and he exclaims: I can't get over
it! I can't get over it! I have never had a relation with a philosopher like the one
I have had with Spinoza. And that interests me all the more when it's from nonphilosophers. When the British novelist Lawrence expresses in a few words the
way Spinoza upset him completely. Thank God he did not become a
philosopher over that. What did he grasp, what does that mean? When Kleist
stumbles across Kant, he literally can't get over it. What is this kind of
communication? Spinoza shook up many uncultivated readers ... Borges and
Leibniz. Borges is an extremely knowledgeable author who read widely. He is
always talking about two things: the book that does not exist...

...he really likes detective stories, Borges. In Ficciones, there is a short story,
"The Garden of Forking Paths." As I summarize the story, keep in mind the
famous dream of the Theodicy.
"The Garden of Forking Paths," what is it? It's the infinite book, the world of
compossibilities. The idea of the Chinese philosopher being involved with the
labyrinth is an idea of Leibniz's contemporaries, appearing in mid-17th century.
There is a famous text by Malebranche that is a discussion with the Chinese
philosopher, with some very odd things in it. Leibniz is fascinated by the Orient,
and he often cites Confucius. Borges made a kind of copy that conformed to
Leibniz's thought with an essential difference: for Leibniz, all the different
worlds that might encompass an Adam sinning in a particular way, an Adam
sinning in some other way, or an Adam not sinning at all, he excludes all this
infinity of worlds from each other, they are incompossible with each other, such
that he conserves a very classical principle of disjunction: it's either this world
or some other one. Whereas Borges places all these incompossible series in the
same world, allowing a multiplication of effects. Leibniz would never have
allowed incompossibles to belong to a single world. Why? I only state our two
difficulties: the first is, what is an infinite analysis? and second, what is this
relationship of incompossibility? The labyrinth of infinite analysis and the
labyrinth of compossibility.
Most commentators on Leibniz, to my knowledge, try in the long run to situate
compossibility in a simple principle of contradiction. They conclude that there
would be a contradiction between Adam non sinner and our world. But,
Leibniz's letter already appears to us such that this would not be possible.
It's not possible since Adam non sinner is not contradictory in itself and the
relation of compossibility is absolutely irreducible to the simple relation of
logical possibility.
So trying to discover a simple logical contradiction would be once again to
situate truths of existence within truths of essence. Henceforth it's going to be
very difficult to define compossibility.
Still remaining within this paragraph on substance, the world, and continuity, I
would like to ask the question, what is infinite analysis? I ask you to remain
extremely patient. We have to be wary of Leibniz's texts because they are
always adapted to the correspondents within given audiences, and if I again
take up his dream, I must change it, and a variant of the dream, even within
the same world, would result in levels of clarity or obscurity such that the world
might be presented from one point of view or another. So that for Leibniz's
texts, we have to know to whom he addresses them in order to be able to
judge them.

Here is a first kind of text by Leibniz in which he tells us that, in any

proposition, the predicate is contained in the subject. Only it is contained either
in act -- actually -- or virtually. The predicate is contained in the subject, but
this inclusion, this inherence is either actual or virtual. We would like to say that
that seems fine. Let us agree that in a proposition of existence of the type
Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the inclusion is only virtual, specifically crossing
the Rubicon is contained in the notion of Caesar, but is only virtually contained.
Second kind of text: the infinite analysis in which sinner is contained in the
notion of Adam is an indefinite analysis, that is, I can move back from sinner to
another term, then to another term, etc... Exactly as if sinner = 1/2+1/4+1/8,
etc., to infinity. This would result in a certain status: I would say that infinite
analysis is virtual analysis, an analysis that goes toward the indefinite. There
are texts by Leibniz saying that, notably in "The discourse on metaphysics," but
in "The discourse on metaphysics," Leibniz presents and proposes the totality
of his system for use by people with little philosophical background. I choose
another text that seems to contradict the first; in a more scholarly text, "On
Freedom," Leibniz uses the word "virtual," but quite strangely he does not use
this word with reference to truths of existence, but to truths of essence.
This text suffices already for me to say that it is not possible for the distinction
truths of essence/truths of existence be reduced to saying that in truths of
existence, inclusion would only be virtual, since virtual inclusion is a case of
truths of essence. In fact, you recall that truths of essence refer to two cases:
the pure and simple identity in which we demonstrate the identity of the
predicate and the subject, and the discovery of an inclusion of the type every
number divisible by 12 is divisible by 6, (I demonstrate the inclusion following
a finite operation), and it is for the latter case that Leibniz says: I have
discovered a virtual identity. Thus it is not enough to say that infinite analysis is
virtual.
Can we say that this is an indefinite analysis? No, because an indefinite
analysis would be the same as saying that it's an analysis that is infinite only
through my lack of knowledge, that is, I cannot reach the end of it. Henceforth,
God with his understanding would reach the end. Is that it? No, it's not possible
for Leibniz to mean that because the indefinite never existed in his thinking.
We have here notions that are incompatible, anachronistic. Indefinite is not one
of Leibniz's gimmicks . What is the indefinite, rigorously defined? What
differences are there between indefinite and infinite?
The indefinite is the fact that I must always pass from one term to another
term, always, without stopping, but without the following term at which I arrive
pre-existing. It is my own procedure that consists in causing to exist. If I say
1=1/4+1/8, etc...., we must not believe that this "etc." pre-exists, it's my
procedure that makes it appear each time, that is, the indefinite exists in a
procedure through which I never stop pushing back the limit that I confront.

Nothing pre-exists. It's Kant who will be the first philosopher to give a status to
the indefinite, and this status will be precisely that the indefinite refers to an
aggregate that is not separable from the successive synthesis that runs
through it. That is, the terms of the indefinite series do not pre-exist the
synthesis that goes from one term to another.
Leibniz does not know that. Moreover, the indefinite appears to him to be
purely conventional or symbolic; why? There is an author who said quite well
what creates the family resemblance of philosophers of the 17th century, it was
Merleau-Ponty. He wrote a small text on so-called classical philosophers of the
seventeenth century, and he tried to characterize them in a lively way, and
said that what is so incredible in these philosophers is an innocent way of
thinking starting from and as a function of the infinite. That's what the classical
century is. This is much more intelligent than to tell us that it's an era in which
philosophy is still confused with theology. That's stupid. One must say that if
philosophy is still confused with theology in the 17th century, it's precisely
because philosophy is not separable at that time from an innocent way of
thinking as a function of infinity.
What differences are there between the infinite and the indefinite? It's this: the
indefinite is virtual; in fact, the following term does not exist prior to my
procedure having constituted it. What does that mean? The infinite is actual,
there is no infinite except in act . So there can be all sorts of infinites. Think of
Pascal. It's a century that will not stop distinguishing orders of infinities, and
the thought of orders of infinity is fundamental throughout the 17th century. It
will fall back on our heads, this thought, at the end of the 19th and 20th
centuries precisely with the theory of so-called infinite aggregates. With infinite
aggregates, we rediscover something that worked at the basis of classical
philosophy, notably the distinction of orders of infinities: this obviously includes
Pascal, Spinoza with the famous letter on infinity, and Leibniz who would
subordinate an entire mathematical apparatus to the analysis of the infinite
and orders of infinities. Specifically, in what sense can we say that an order of
infinities is greater than another, what is an infinite that is greater than another
infinite, etc...? An innocent way of thinking starting from the infinite, but not at
all in a confused way since all sorts of distinctions are introduced.

In the case of truths of existence, Leibniz's analysis is obviously infinite. It is not

indefinite. Thus, when he uses the words virtual, etc..., there is a formal text
that supports this interpretation that I am trying to sketch, it's a text taken
from "On Freedom" in which Leibniz says exactly this: "When it is a matter of
analyzing the inclusion of the predicate sinner in the individual notion Adam,
God certainly sees, not the end of the resolution, but the end that does not
take place." Thus, in other words, even for God there is no end to this analysis.

So, you will tell me that it's indefinite even for God? No, it's not indefinite since
all the terms of the analysis are given. If it were indefinite, all the terms would
not be given, they would be given little by little. They would not be given in a
pre-existing manner. In other words, in an infinite analysis, we reach what
result: you have a passage of infinitely small elements one to another, the
infinity of infinitely small elements being given. Of such an infinity, we will say
that it is actual since the totality of infinitely small elements is given. You will
say to me that we can then reach the end! No, by its nature, you cannot reach
the end since it's an infinite aggregate. The totality of elements is given, and
you pass from one element to another, and thus you have an infinite aggregate
of infinitely small elements. You pass from one element to another: you perform
an infinite analysis, that is, an analysis without end, neither for you nor for God.
What do you see if you perform this analysis? Let us assume that there is only
God that can do it, you make yourself the indefinite because your
understanding is limited, but as for God, he makes infinity. He does not see the
end of the analysis since there is no end of the analysis, but he performs the
analysis. Furthermore, all the elements of the analysis are given to him in an
actual infinity. So that means that sinner is connected to Adam. Sinner is an
element, it is connected to the individual notion of Adam by an infinity of other
elements actually given. Fine, it's the entire existing world, specifically all this
whole compossible world that has passed into existence. We are getting at
something quite profound here. When I perform the analysis, I pass from what
to what? I pass from Adam sinner to Eve temptress, from Eve temptress to the
evil Serpent, to the apple. It's an infinite analysis, and it's this infinite analysis
that shows the inclusion of sinner in the individual notion Adam. What does
that mean, the infinitely small element? Why is sin an infinitely small element?
Why is the apple an infinitely small element? Why is crossing the Rubicon an
infinitely small element? You understand what that means? There are no
infinitely small elements, so an infinitely small elements means obviously, we
don't need to say it, it means an infinitely small relation between two elements.
It is a question of relations, not a question of elements. In other words, an
infinitely small relation between elements, what can that be? What have we
achieved in saying that it is not a question of infinitely small elements, but of
infinitely small relations between two elements? And you understand that if I
speak to someone who has no idea of differential calculus, you can tell him it's
infinitely small elements. Leibniz was right. If it's someone who has a very
vague knowledge, he has to understand that these are infinitely small relations
between finite elements. If it's someone who is very knowledgeable in
differential calculus, I can perhaps tell him something else.
Infinite analysis that goes on to demonstrate the inclusion of the predicate in
the subject at the level of truths of existence, does not proceed by the
demonstration of an identity, even a virtual one. It's not that. But Leibniz, in
another drawer, has another formula to give you: identity governs truths of

essence, but not truths of existence; all the time he says the opposite, but that
has no importance. Ask yourself to whom he says it. So what is it? What
interests him at the level of truths of existence is not identity of the predicate
and the subject, it's rather that one passes from one predicate to another, from
one to another, and again on from one to another, etc.... from the point of view
of an infinite analysis, that is, from the maximum of continuity.
In other words, it's identity that governs truths of essence, but it's continuity
that governs truths of existence. And what is a world? A world is defined by its
continuity. What separates two incompossible worlds? It's the fact that there is
discontinuity between the two worlds. What defines a compossible world? It's
the compossibility of which it is capable. What defines the best of worlds? It's
the most continuous world. The criterion of God's choice will be continuity. Of
all the worlds incompossible with each other and possible in themselves, God
will cause to pass into existence the one that realizes the maximum of
continuity.
Why is Adam's sin included in the world that has the maximum of continuity?
We have to believe that Adam's sin is a formidable connection, that it's a
connection that assures continuities of series. There is a direct connection
between Adam's sin and the Incarnation and the Redemption by Christ. There is
continuity. There are something like series that are going to begin to fit into
each other across the differences of time and space. In other words, in the case
of truths of essence, I demonstrated an identity in which I revealed an
inclusion; in the case of truths of existence, I am going to witness a continuity
assured by the infinitely small relations between two elements. Two elements
will be in continuity when I will be able to assign an infinitely small relation
between these two elements.
I have passed from the idea of infinitely small element to the infinitely small
relation between two elements, that's not enough. A greater effort is required.
Since there are two elements, there is a difference between the two elements:
between Adam's sin and the temptation of Eve, there is a difference, only what
is the formula of the continuity? We will be able to define continuity as the act
of a difference in so far as it tends to disappear. Continuity is an evanescent
difference.
What does it mean that there is continuity between the seduction of Even and
Adam's sin? It's that the difference between the two is a difference that tends
to disappear. I would say therefore that truths of essence are governed by the
principle of identity, truths are governed by the law of continuity, or
evanescent differences, and that comes down to the same.
Thus between sinner and Adam you will never be able to demonstrate a logical
identity, but you will be able to demonstrate -- and the word demonstration will

change meaning --, you will be able to demonstrate a continuity, that is, one or
several evanescent differences.
An infinite analysis is an analysis of the continuous operating through
evanescent differences.
That refers to a certain symbolic, a symbolic of differential calculus or of
infinitesimal analysis. But it's at the same time that Newton and Leibniz
develop differential calculus. And the interpretation of differential calculus by
the evanescent categories is Leibniz's very own. In Newton's works, whereas
both of them really invent it at the same time, the logical and theoretical
armature is very different in Leibniz's works and Newton's, and the theme of
the differential conceived as evanescent difference is proper to Leibniz.
Moreover, he relies on it greatly, and there is a great polemic between
Newtonians and Leibniz. Our story becomes more precise: what is this
evanescent difference? . Differential equations today are fundamental. There is
no physics without a differential equation. Mathematically, today, differential
calculus has purged itself of any consideration of the infinite; the kind of
axiomatic status of differential calculus in which it is absolutely no longer a
question of the infinite dates from the end of the 19th century. But if we place
ourselves at the time of Leibniz, put yourself in the place of a mathematician:
what is he going to do when he finds himself faced with the magnitude and
quantities of different powers, equations whose variables are to different
powers, equations of the ax2+y type? You have a quantity to the second power
and a quantity to the first power. How does one compare? You all know the
story of non-commensurable quantities. Then, in the 17th century, the
quantities of different powers received a neighboring term, incomparable
quantities. The whole theory of equations collides in the 17th century with this
problem that is a fundamental one, even in the simplest algebra; what is
differential calculus for? Differential calculus allows you to proceed directly to
compare quantities raised to different powers. Moreover, it is used only for
that.
Differential calculus finds its level of application when you are faced with
incomparables, that is, faced with quantities raised to different powers. Why? In
ax2+y, let us assume that by various means, you extract dx and dy. What is
that? We will define it verbally, conventionally, we will say that dx or dy is the
infinitely small quantity assumed to be added or subtracted from x or from y.
Now there is an invention! The infinitely small quantity... that is, it's the
smallest variation of the quantity considered. It is unassignable by convention.
Thus dx=0 in x, is the smallest quantity by which x can vary, so it equals zero.
dy = 0 in relation to y. The notion of evanescent difference is beginning to take
shape. It's a variation or a difference, dx or dy; it is smaller than any given or
givable quantity. It's a mathematical symbol. In a sense, it's crazy, in a sense
it's operational. For what? Here is what is formidable in the symbolism of

differential calculus: dx=0 in relation to x, the smallest different, the smallest

increase of which the quantity x or the unassignable quantity y might be
capable, it's infinitely small. The miracle dy/dx is not equal to zero, and
furthermore: dy/dx has a perfectly expressible finite quantity.
These are relative , uniquely relative. dx is nothing in relation to y, dy is
nothing in relation to y, but then dy/dx is something.
A stupefying, admirable, and great mathematical discovery.
It's something because in an example such as ax2-by+c, you have two powers
in which you have incomparable quantities: y2 and x. If you consider the
differential relation, it is not zero, it is determined, it is determinable.
The relation dy/dx gives you the means to compare two incomparable
quantities that were raised to different powers since it operates a
depotentialization of quantities. So it gives you a direct means to confront
incomparable quantities raised to different powers. From that moment on, all
mathematics, all algebra, all physics will be inscribed in the symbolism of
differential calculus... It's the relation between dx and dy that made possible
this kind of co-penetration of physical reality and mathematical calculus.
There is a small note of three pages called "Justification of the calculus of
infinitesimals by the calculus of ordinary algebra." With that you will
understand everything. Leibniz tries to explain that in a certain way, differential
calculus already functioned before being discovered, and that it couldn't occur
otherwise, even at the level of the most ordinary algebra.
.
x is not equal to y, neither in one case, nor another, since it would be contrary
to the very givens of the construction of the problem. To the extent that, for
this case, you can write x/y = c/e, c and e are zeros.
Like he says in his language, these are nothings, but they are not absolute
nothings, that are nothings respectively.
Specifically, these are nothings but ones which conserve the relational
difference. Thus c does not become equal to e since it remains proportional to x
and x is not equal to y.
This is a justification of the old differential calculus, and the interest of this text
is that it's a justification through the easiest or most ordinary algebra. This
justification puts nothing into question about the specificity of differential
calculus.
I read this very beautiful text:

"Thus, in the present case, there will be x-c=x. Let us assume that this case is
included under the general rule, and nonetheless c and e will not at all be
absolute nothings since they together maintain the reason of CX to XY, or that
which is between the entire sine or radius and between the tangent that
corresponds to the angle in c. We have assumed this angle always to remain
the same. For if c, C and e were absolutely nothings in this calculus reduced to
the case of coincidence of points c, e and a, as one nothing has the same value
as the other, then c and e would be equal and the equations or analogy x/y =
c/e would make x/y = 0/0 = 1. That is, we would have x=y which would be
totally absurd."
"So we find in algebraic calculus the traces of the transcendent calculus of
differences (i.e. differential calculus), and its same singularities that some
scholars have fretted about, and even algebraic calculus could not do without it
if it must conserve its advantages of which one of the most considerable is the
generality that it must maintain so that it can encompass all cases."
It's exactly in this way that I can consider that rest is an infinitely small
movement, or that the circle is the limit of an infinite series of polygons the
sides of which increase to infinity. What is there to compare in all these
examples? We have to consider the case in which there is a single triangle as
the extreme case of two similar triangles opposed at the vertex. What Leibniz
demonstrated in this text is how and in what circumstances a triangle can be
considered as the extreme case of two similar triangles opposed at the vertex.
There you sense that we are perhaps in the process of giving to "virtual" the
sense that we were looking for. I could say that in the case of my second figure
in which there is only one triangle, the other triangle is there, but it is only
there virtually. It's there virtually since a contains virtually e and c distinct from
a. Why do e and c remain distinct from a when they no longer exist? e and c
remain distinct from a when they no longer exist because they intervene in a
relation with it, continue to exist when the terms have vanished. It's in this way
that rest will be considered as a special case of movement, specifically an
infinitely small movement. In my second figure, xy, I would say it's not at all
the triangle CEA, it's not at all the case that the triangle has disappeared in the
common sense of the word, but we have to say both that it has become
unassignable, and however that it is perfectly determined since in this case,
c=0, e=0, but c/e is not equal to zero.
c/e is a perfectly determined relation equal to x/y.
Thus it is determinable and determined, but it is unassignable. Likewise, rest is
a perfectly determined movement, but it's an unassignable movement.
Likewise, the circle is an unassignable polygon, yet perfectly determined.

You see what virtual means. Virtual no longer means at all the indefinite, and
there all Leibniz's texts can be revived. He undertook a diabolical operation: he
took the word virtual, without saying anything -- it's his right -- he gave it a new
meaning, completely rigorous, but without saying anything. He will only say it
in other texts: that no longer meant going toward the indefinite; rather, that
meant unassignable, yet also determined.
It's a conception of the virtual that is both quite new and very rigorous. Yet the
technique and concepts were required so that this rather mysterious
expression might acquire a meaning at the beginning: unassignable, yet
determined. It's unassignable since c became equal to zero, and since e
became equal to zero. And yet it's completely determined since c/e, specifically
0/0 is not equal to zero, nor to 1, it's equal to x/y.
Moreover, he really had a professor-like genius. He succeeded in explaining to
someone who never did anything but elementary algebra what differential
calculus is. He assumed no a priori notion of differential calculus.
The idea that there is a continuity in the world -- it seems that there are too
many commentators on Leibniz who make more theological pronouncements
than Leibniz requires: they are content to say that infinite analysis is in God's
understanding, and it is true according to the letter of his texts. But with
differential calculus, it happens that we have the artifice not to make ourselves
equal to God's understanding, that's impossible of course, but differential
calculus gives us an artifice so that we can operate a well-founded
approximation of what happens in God's understanding so that we can
approach it thanks to this symbolism of differential calculus, since after all, God
also operates by the symbolic, not the same way, certainly. Thus this
approximation of continuity is such that the maximum of continuity is assured
when a case is given, the extreme case or contrary can be considered from a
certain point of view as included in the case first defined.
You define the movement, it matters little, you define the polygon, it matters
little, you consider the extreme case or the contrary: rest, the circle is stripped
of any angle. Continuity is the institution of the path following which the
extrinsic case -- rest contrary to movement, the circle contrary to the polygon -can be considered as included in the notion of the intrinsic case.
There is continuity when the extrinsic case can be considered as included in the
notion of the intrinsic case.
Leibniz just showed why. You find the formula of predication: the predicate is
included in the subject.
Understand well. I call general, intrinsic case the concept of movement that
encompasses all movements. In relation to this first case, I call extrinsic case

rest or the circle in relation to all the polygons, or the unique triangle in relation
to all the triangles combined. I undertake to construct a concept that implies all
the differential symbolism, a concept that both corresponds to the general
intrinsic case and which still includes the extrinsic case. If I succeed in that, I
can say that in all truth, rest is an infinitely small movement, just as I say that
my unique triangle is the opposition of two similar triangles opposed at the
vertex, simply, by which one of the two triangles has become unassignable. At
that moment, there is continuity from the polygon to the circle, there is
continuity from rest to movement, there is continuity from two similar triangles
opposed at the vertex to a single triangle.
In the mid-19th century, a very great mathematician named Poncelet will
produce projective geometry in its most modern sense, it is completely
Leibnizian. Projective geometry is entirely based on what Poncelet called a
completely simple axiom of continuity: if you take an arc of a circle cut at two
points by a right angle, if you cause the right angle to recede, there is a
moment in which it leaves the circle, no longer touching it at any point.
Poncelet's axiom of continuity claims the possibility of treating the case of the
tangent as an extreme case, specifically it's not that one of the points has
disappeared, both points are still there, but virtual. When they all leave, it's not
that the two points have disappeared, they are still there, but both are virtual.
This is the axiom of continuity that precisely allows any system of projection,
any so-called projective system. Mathematics will keep that integrally, it's a
formidable technique.
There is something desperately comical in all that, but that will not bother
Leibniz at all. There again, commentators are very odd. From the start, we sink
into a domain in which it's a question of showing that the truths of existence
are not the same thing as truths of essence or mathematical truths. To show it,
either it's with very general propositions full of genius in Leibniz's works, but
that leave us like that, God's understanding, infinite analysis, and then what
does that amount to? And finally when it's a question of showing in what way
truths of existence are reducible to mathematical truths, when it's a question of
showing it concretely, all that is convincing in what Leibniz says is
mathematical. It's funny, no?
A professional objector would say to Leibniz: you announce to us, you talk to us
of the irreducibility of truths of existence, and you can define this irreducibility
concretely only by using purely mathematical notions. What would Leibniz
answer? In all sorts of texts, people have always had me say that differential
calculus designated a reality. I never said that, Leibniz answers, differential
calculus is a well-founded convention. Leibniz relies enormously on differential
calculus being only a symbolic system, and not sketching out a reality, but
designating a way of treating reality. What is this well-founded convention? It's
not in relation to reality that it's a convention, but in relation to mathematics.

That's the misinterpretation not to make. Differential calculus is symbolism, but

in relation to mathematical reality, not at all in relation to real reality. It's in
relation to mathematical reality that the system of differential calculus is a
fiction. He also used the expression "well founded fiction." Its a well-founded
fiction in relation to the mathematical reality. In other words, differential
calculus mobilizes concepts that cannot be justified from the point of view of
classical algebra, or from the point of view of arithmetic. It's obvious.
Quantities that are not nothing and that equal zero, it's arithmetical nonsense,
it has neither arithmetic reality, nor algebraic reality. It's a fiction. So, in my
opinion, it does not mean at all that differential calculus does not designate
anything real, it means that differential calculus is irreducible to mathematical
reality. It's therefore a fiction in this sense, but precisely in so far as it's a
fiction, it can cause us to think of existence.
In other words, differential calculus is a kind of union of mathematics and the
existent, specifically it's the symbolic of the existent.
It's because it's a well-founded fiction in relation to mathematical truth that it is
henceforth a basic and real means of exploration of the reality of existence.
You see therefore what the words "evanescent" and "evanescent difference"
mean. It's when the relation continues when the terms of the relation have
disappeared. The relation c/e when C and E have disappeared, that is, coincide
with A. You have therefore constructed a continuity through differential
calculus.
Leibniz becomes much stronger in order to tell us: understand that in God's
understanding, between the predicate sinner and the notion of Adam, well,
there is continuity. There is a continuity by evanescent difference to the point
that when he created the world, God was only doing calculus . And what a
calculus! Obviously not an arithmetical calculus.
He will oscillate on this topic between two explanations. Therefore God created
the world by calculating . God calculates, the world is created.
The idea of God as player can be found everywhere. We can always say that
God created the world by playing, but everyone has said that. It's not very
interesting. There is a text by Heraclitus in which it is a question of the player
child who really constituted the world. He plays, at what? What do the Greeks
and Greek children play? Different translations yield different games. But
Leibniz would not say that, when he gives his explanation of games, he has two
explanations. In problems of tiling , astride architectural and mathematical
problems, a surface being given, with what figure is one to fill it completely? A
more complicated problem: if you take a rectangular surface and you want to
tile it with circles, you do not fill it completely. With squares, do you fill it
completely? That depends on the measurement. With rectangles? Equal or

unequal? Then, if you suppose two figures, which of them combine to fill a
space completely? If you want to tile with circles, with which other figure will
you fill in the empty spaces? Or you agree not to fill everything; you see that
it's quite connected to the problem of continuity. If you decide not to fill it all, in
what cases and with which figures and which combination of different figures
will you succeed in filling the maximum possible? That puts incommensurables
into play, and puts incomparables into play. Leibniz has a passion for tiling.
When Leibniz says that God causes to exist and chooses the best of all possible
worlds, we have seen, one gets ahead of Leibniz before he has spoken. The
best of all possible worlds was the crisis of Leibnizianism, that was the
generalized anti-Leibnizianism of the 18th century. They could not stand the
story of the best of all possible worlds.
Voltaire was right, these worlds had a philosophical requirement that obviously
was not fulfilled by Leibniz, notably from the political point of view. So, he could
not forgive Leibniz. But if one casts oneself into a pious approach, what does
Leibniz mean by the statement that the world that exists is the best of possible
worlds? Something very simple: since there are several worlds possible, only
they are not compossible with each other, God chooses the best and the best is
not the one in which suffering is the least. Rationalist optimism is at the same
time an infinite cruelty, it's not at all a world in which no one suffers, it's the
world that realizes the maximum of circles.
If I dare use a non-human metaphor, it's obvious that the circle suffers when it
is no more than an affection of the polygon. When rest is no more than an
affection of movement, imagine the suffering of rest. Simply it's the best of
worlds because it realizes the maximum of continuity. Other worlds were
possible, but they would have realized less continuity. This world is the most
beautiful, the most harmonious, uniquely under the weight of this pitiless
phrase: because it effectuates the most continuity possible. So if that occurs at
the price of your flesh and blood, it matters little. As God is not only just, that
is, pursuing the maximum of continuity, but as he is at the same time quite
stylish, he wants to vary the world. So God hides this continuity. He poses a
segment that should be in continuity with that other segment that he places
elsewhere to hide his tracks.
We run no risk of making sense of this. This world is created at our expense.
So, obviously the 18th century does not receive Leibniz's story very favorably.
You see henceforth the problem of tiling: the best of worlds will be the one in
which figures and forms will fill the maximum of space time while leaving the
least emptiness.
Second explanation by Leibniz, and there he is even stronger: the chess game.
Such that between Heraclitus's phrase that alludes to a Greek game and

Leibniz's allusion to chess, there is all the difference that there is between the
two games at the same moment in which the common formula "God plays"
could make us believe that it's a kind of beatitude. How does Leibniz conceive
of chess: the chess board is a space, the pieces are notions. What is the best
move in chess, or the best combination of moves? The best move or
combination of moves is the one that results in a determinate number of pieces
with determinate values holding or occupying the maximum space. The total
space being contained on the chess board. One must place ones pawns in such
a way that they command the maximum space.
Why are these only metaphors? Here as well there is a kind of principle of
continuity: the maximum of continuity. What does not work just as well in the
metaphor of chess as in the metaphor of tiling? In both cases, you have
reference to a receptacle. The two things are presented as if the possible
worlds were competing to be embodied in a determinate receptacle. In the
case of tiling, it's the surface to be tiled; in the case of chess, it's the chess
board. But in the conditions of the creation of the world, there is no a priori
receptacle.
We have to say, therefore, that the world that passes into existence is the one
that realizes in itself the maximum of continuity, that is, which contains the
greatest quantity of reality or of essence. I cannot speak of existence since
there will come into existence the world that contains not the greatest quantity
of existence, but the greatest quantity of essence from the point of view of
continuity. Continuity is, in fact, precisely the means of containing the
maximum quantity of reality.
Now that's a very beautiful vision, as philosophy.
In this paragraph, I have answered the question: what is infinite analysis. I have
not yet answered the question: what is compossibility. That's it.

Today we must look at some amusing and recreational, but also quite delicate,
things.

Answer to a question on differential calculus: It seems to me that one cannot

say that at the end of the seventeenth century and in the eighteenth century,
there were people for whom differential calculus is something artificial and
others for whom it represents something real. We cannot say that because the
division is not there. Leibniz never stopped saying that differential calculus is
pure artifice, that its a symbolic system. So, on this point, everyone is in strict
agreement. Where the disagreement begins is in understanding what a
symbolic system is, but as for the irreducibility of differential signs to any
mathematical reality, that is to say to geometrical, arithmetical and algebraic
reality, everyone agrees. A difference arises when some people think that,
henceforth, differential calculus is only a convention, a rather suspect one, and
others think that its artificial character in relation to mathematical reality, on
the contrary, allows it to be adequate to certain aspects of physical reality.
Leibniz never thought that his infinitesimal analysis, his differential calculus, as
he conceived them sufficed to exhaust the domain of the infinite such as he,
Leibniz, conceived it. For example, calculus. There is what Leibniz calls calculus
of the minimum and of the maximum which does not at all depend on
differential calculus. So differential calculus corresponds to a certain order of
infinity. If it is true that a qualitative infinity cannot be grasped by differential
calculus, Leibniz is, on the other hand, so conscious of it that he initiates other
modes of calculus relative to other orders of infinity. What eliminated this
direction of the qualitative infinity, or even simply of actual infinity tout court,
Leibniz wasnt the one who blocked it off. What blocked this direction was the
Kantian revolution. This was what imposed a certain conception of the
indefinite and directed the most absolute critique of actual infinity. We owe that
to Kant and not to Leibniz.
In geometry, from the Greeks to the seventeenth century, you have two kinds
of problems: those in which its a question of finding so-called straight lines and
so-called rectilinear surfaces. Classical geometry and algebra were sufficient.
You have problems and you get the necessary equations; its Euclidean
geometry. Already with the Greeks, then in the Middle Ages of course,
geometry will not cease to confront a type of problem of another sort: its when
one must find and determine curves and curvilinear surfaces. Where all
geometries are in agreement is in the fact that classical methods of geometry
and algebra no longer sufficed. The Greeks already had to invent a special
method called the method by exhaustion. It allowed them to determine curves
and curvilinear surfaces in so far as it gave equations of variable degrees, to
the infinite limit, an infinity of various degrees in the equation. These are the
problems that are going to make necessary and inspire the discovery of
differential calculus and the way in which differential calculus takes up where
the old method by exhaustion left off. If you already connect a mathematical
symbolism to a theory, if you dont connect it to the problem for which it is
created, then you can no longer understand anything. Differential calculus has

sense only if you place yourself before an equation in which the terms are
raised to different powers. If you dont have that, then its non-sensical to
speak of differential calculus. Its very much about considering the theory that
corresponds to a symbolism, but you must also completely consider the
practice. In my opinion, as well, one cant understand anything about
infinitesimal analysis if one does not see that all physical equations are by
nature differential equations. A physical phenomenon can only be studied ? and
Leibniz will be very firm: Descartes only had geometry and algebra, and what
Descartes himself had invented under the name of analytical geometry, but
however far he went in that invention, it gave him at most the means to grasp
figures and movement of a rectilinear kind; but with the aggregate of natural
phenomena being after all phenomena of the curvilinear type, that doesnt
work at all. Descartes remained stuck on figures and movement. Leibniz will
translate: its the same thing to say that nature proceeds in a curvilinear
manner, or to say that beyond figures and movement, there is something that
is the domain of forces. And on the very level of the laws of movement, Leibniz
is going to change everything, thanks precisely to differential calculus. He will
say that what is conserved is not MV, not mass and velocity, but MV2. The only
difference in the formula is the extension of V to the second power. This is
made possible by differential calculus because differential calculus allows the
comparison of powers and of rejects . Descartes did not have the technical
means to say MV2. >From the point of view of the language of geometry and of
arithmetic and algebra, MV2 is pure and simple non-sense.
With what we know in science today, we can always explain that what is
conserved is MV2 without appealing to any infinitesimal analysis. That happens
in high school texts, but to prove it, and for the formula to make any sense, an
entire apparatus of differential calculus is required.

< Intervention by Comptesse.>

Gilles: Differential calculus and the axiomatic certainly have a point of

encounter, but this is one of perfect exclusion. Historically, the rigorous status
of differential calculus arises quite belatedly. What does that mean? It means
that everything that is convention is expelled from differential calculus. And,
even for Leibniz, what is artifice? Its an entire set of things: the idea of a
becoming, the idea of a limit of becoming, the idea of a tendency to approach
the limit, all these are considered by mathematicians to be absolutely
metaphysical notions. The idea that there is a quantitative becoming, the idea
of the limit of this becoming, the idea that an infinity of small quantities tends
toward the limit, all these are considered as absolutely impure notions, thus as

really non-axiomatic or non-axiomitizable. Thus, from the start, whether in

Leibnizs work or in Newtons and the work of his successors, the idea of
differential calculus is inseparable and not separated from a set of notions
judged not to be rigorous or scientific. They themselves are quite prepared to
recognize it. It happens that at the end of the nineteenth and the start of the
twentieth century, differential calculus or infinitesimal analysis would receive a
rigorously scientific status, but at what price? We hunt for any reference to the
idea of infinity; we hunt for any reference to the idea of limit, we hunt for any
reference to the idea of tendency toward the limit. Who does that? An
interpretation and a rather strange status of calculus will be given because it
stops operating with ordinary quantities, and its interpretation will be purely
ordinal. Henceforth, that becomes a mode of exploring the finite, the finite as
such. Its a great mathematician, Weierstrass, who did that, but it came rather
late. So, he creates an axiomatic of calculus, but at what price? He transformed
it completely. Today, when we do differential calculus, there is no reference to
the notions of infinity, of limit and of tendency toward the limit. There is a static
interpretation. There is no longer any dynamism in differential calculus, but a
static and ordinal interpretation of calculus. One must read Vuillemins book, La
philosophie de lalgbre [Paris: PUF, 1960, 1962].
This fact is very important for us because it must certainly show us that the
differential relations ? Yes, but even before the axiomatization, all
mathematicians agreed in saying that differential calculus interpreted as a
method for exploring the infinite was an impure convention. Leibniz was the
first to say that, but still in that case, one would have to know what the
symbolic value was then. Axiomatic relations and differential relations, well no.
They were in opposition.
Infinity has completely changed meaning, nature, and, finally, is completely
expelled. A differential relation of the type dy/dx is such that one extracts it
from x and y.
At the same time, dy is nothing in relation to y, its an infinitely small quantity;
dx is nothing in relation to x, its an infinitely small quantity in relation to x.
On the other hand, dy/dx is something else.
But its something completely different from y/x.
For example, if y/x designates a curve, dy/dx designates a tangent.
And whats more, its not just any tangent.
I would say therefore that the differential relation is such that it signifies
nothing concrete in relation to what its derived from, that is, in relation to x
and to y, but it signifies something else concrete [autre chose de concret], and

that is how it assures [the] passage to limits. It assures something else

concrete, namely a z.
Its exactly as if I said that differential calculus is completely abstract in relation
to a determination of the type a/b. But on the other hand, it determines a C.
Whereas the axiomatic relation is completely formal from all points of view, if it
is formal in relation to a and b, it does not determine a c that would be
concrete for it. So it doesnt assure a passage at all. This would be the whole
classical opposition between genesis and structure. The axiomatic is really the
structure common to a plurality of domains.
Last time, we were considering my second topic heading, which dealt with
Substance, World, and Compossibility.
In the first past, I tried to state what Leibniz called infinite analysis. The answer
was this: infinite analysis fulfills the following condition: it appears to the extent
that continuity and tiny differences or vanishing differences are substituted for
identity.
Its when we proceed by continuity and vanishing differences that analysis
becomes properly infinite analysis. Then I arrive at the second aspect of the
question. There would be infinite analysis and there would be material for
infinite analysis when I find myself faced with a domain that is no longer
directly governed by the identical, by identity, but a domain that is governed
by continuity and vanishing differences. We reach a relatively clear answer.
Hence the second aspect of the problem: what is compossibility? What does it
mean for two things to be compossible or non compossible? Yet again, Leibniz
tells us that Adam non-sinner is possible in itself, but not compossible with the
existing world. So he maintains a relation of compossibility that he invents, and
you sense that its entirely linked to the idea of infinite analysis.
The problem is that the incompossible is not the same thing as the
contradictory. Its complicated. Adam non-sinner is incompossible with the
existing world, another world would have been necessary. If we say that, I only
see three possible solutions for trying to characterize the notion of
incompossibility.
First solution: well say that one way or another, incompossibility has to imply a
kind of logical contradiction. A contradiction would have to exist between Adam
non-sinner and the existing world. Yet we could only bring out this contradiction
at infinity; it would be an infinite contradiction. Whereas there is a finite
contradiction between circle and square, there is only an infinite contradiction
between Adam non-sinner and the world. Certain texts by Leibniz move in this
direction. But yet again, we know that we have to be careful about the levels of
Leibnizs texts. In fact, everything we said previously implied that

compossibility and incompossibility are truly an original relation, irreducible to

identity and contradiction. Contradictory identity.
Furthermore, we saw that infinite analysis, in accordance with our first part,
was not an analysis that discovered the identical as a result of an infinite series
of steps. The whole of our results the last time was that, far from discovering
the identical at the end of a series, at the limit of an infinite series of steps, far
from proceeding in this way, infinite analysis substituted the point of view of
continuity for that of identity. Thus, its another domain than the
identity/contradiction domain.
Another solution that I will state rapidly because certain of Leibnizs texts
suggest it as well: its that the matter is beyond our understanding because our
understanding is finite, and hence, compossibility would be an original relation,
but we could not know what its roots are. Leibniz brings a new domain to us.
There is not only the possible, the necessary and the real. There is the
compossible and the incompossible. He was attempting to cover an entire
region of being.
Here is the hypothesis that Id like to suggest: Leibniz is a busy man, he writes
in all directions, all over the place, he does not publish at all or very little
during his life. Leibniz has all the material, all the details to give a relatively
precise answer to this problem. Necessarily so since hes the one who invented
it, so its him who has the solution. So what happened for him not to have put
all of it together? I think that what will provide an answer to this problem, at
once about infinite analysis and about compossibility, is a very curious theory
that Leibniz was no doubt the first to introduce into philosophy, that we could
call the theory of singularities.
In Leibnizs work, the theory of singularities is scattered, its everywhere. One
even risks reading pages by Leibniz without seeing that one is fully in the midst
of it, thats how discreet he is.
The theory of singularities appears to me to have two poles for Leibniz, and one
would have to say that its a mathematical-psychological theory. And our work
today is: what is a singularity on the mathematical level, and what does Leibniz
create through that? Is it true that he creates the first great theory of
singularities in mathematics? Second question: what is the Leibnizian theory of
psychological singularities?
And the last question: to what extent does the mathematical-psychological
theory of singularities, as sketched out by Leibniz, help us answer the question:
what is the incompossible, and thus the question what is infinite analysis?
What is this mathematical notion of singularity? Why did it arrive [tomb?]? Its
often like that in philosophy: there is something that emerges at one moment

and will be abandoned. Thats the case of a theory that was more than outlined
by Leibniz, and then nothing came afterwards, the theory was unlucky, without
follow-up. Wouldnt it be interesting if we were to return to it?
I am still divided about two things in philosophy: the idea that it does not
require a special kind of knowledge, that really, in this sense, anyone is open to
philosophy, and at the same time, that one can do philosophy only if one is
sensitive to a certain terminology of philosophy, and that you can always
create the terminology, but you cannot create it by doing just anything. You
must know what terms like these are: categories, concept, idea, a priori, a
posteriori, exactly like one cannot do mathematics if one does not know what
a, b, xy, variables, constants, equation are. There is a minimum. So you have to
attach some importance to those points.
The singular has always existed in a certain logical vocabulary. "Singular"
designates what is not difference, and at the same time, in relation to
"universal." There is another pair of notions, its "particular" that is said with
reference to "general." So the singular and the universal are in relation with
each other; the particular and the general are in relation. What is a judgment of
singularity? Its not the same thing as a judgment called particular, nor the
same thing as a judgment called general. I am only saying, formally, "singular"
was thought, in classical logic, with reference to "universal." And that does not
necessarily exhaust a notion: when mathematicians use the expression
"singularity," with what do they place it into relation? One must be guided by
words. There is a philosophical etymology, or even a philosophical philology.
"Singular" in mathematics is distinct from or opposed to "regular." The singular
is what is outside the rule.
There is another pair of notions used by mathematicians, "remarkable" and
"ordinary." Mathematicians tell us that there are remarkable singularities and
singularities that arent remarkable. But for us, out of convenience, Leibniz
does not yet make this distinction between the non-remarkable singular and
the remarkable singular. Leibniz uses "singular," "remarkable," and "notable" as
equivalents, such that when you find the word "notable" in Leibniz, tell yourself
that necessarily theres a wink, that it does not at all mean "well-known"; he
enlarges the word with an unusual meaning. When he talks about a notable
perception, tell yourself that he is in the process of saying something. What
interest does this have for us? Its that mathematics already represents a
turning point in relation to logic. The mathematical use of the concept
"singularity" orients singularity in relation to the ordinary or the regular, and no
longer in relation to the universal. We are invited to distinguish what is singular
and what is ordinary or regular. What interest does this have for us? Suppose
someone says: philosophy isnt doing too well because the theory of truth in
thought has always been wrong. Above all, weve always asked what in thought
was true, what was false. But you know, in thought, its not the true and the

false that count, its the singular and the ordinary. What is singular, what is
remarkable, what is ordinary in a thought? Or what is ordinary? I think of
Kierkegaard, much later, who would say that philosophy has always ignored the
importance of a category, that of the interesting! While it is perhaps not true
that philosophy ignored it, there is at least a philosophical-mathematical
concept of singularity that perhaps has something interesting to tell us about
the concept "interesting."
This great mathematical discovery is that singularity is no longer thought in
relation to the universal, but is thought rather in relation to the ordinary or to
the regular. The singular is what exceeds the ordinary and the regular. And
saying that already takes us a great distance since saying it indicates that,
henceforth, we wish to make singularity into a philosophical concept, even if it
means finding reasons to do so in a favorable domain, namely mathematics.
And in which case does mathematics speak to us of the singular and the
ordinary? The answer is simple: concerning certain points plotted on a curve.
Not necessarily on a curve, but occasionally, or more generally concerning a
figure. A figure can be said quite naturally to include singular points and others
that are regular or ordinary. Why a figure? Because a figure is something
determined! So the singular and the ordinary would belong to the
determination, and indeed, that would be interesting! You see that by dint of
saying nothing and marking time, we make a lot of progress. Why not define
determination in general, by saying that its a combination of singular and
ordinary, and all determination would be like that? Perhaps? I take a very
simple figure: a square. Your very legitimate requirement would be to ask me:
what are the singular points of a square? There are four singular points in a
square, the four vertices a, b, c, d. We are going to define singularity, but we
remain with examples, and we are making a childish inquiry, we are talking
mathematics, but we dont know a word of it. We only know that a square has
four sides, so there are four singular points that are the extremes. The points
are markers, precisely that a straight line is finished/finite [finie], and that
another begins, with a different orientation, at 90 degrees. What will the
ordinary points be? This will be the infinity of points that compose each side of
the square; but the four extremities will be called singular points.
Question: how many singular points do you give to a cube? I see your vexed
amazement! There are eight singular points in a cube. That is what we call
singular points in the most elementary geometry: points that mark the
extremity of a straight line. You sense that this is only a start. I would therefore
oppose singular points and ordinary points. A curve, a rectilinear figure
perhaps, can I say of them that singular points are necessarily the extremes ?
Maybe not, but let us assume that at first sight, I can say something like that.
For a curve, its ruined. Lets take the simplest example: an arc of a circle,
concave or convex, as you wish. Underneath, I make a second arc, convex if
the other is concave, concave if the other is convex. The two meet one another

at a point. Underneath I trace a straight line that, in accordance with the order
of things, I call the ordinate. I trace the ordinate. I draw a line perpendicular to
the ordinate. Its Leibnizs example, in a text with the exquisite title, "Tantanem
analogicum", a tiny little work seven pages long written in Latin, which means
"analogical essays." Segment ab thus has two characteristics: its the only
segment raised from the ordinate to be unique. Each of the others has, as
Leibniz says, a double, its little twin. In fact, xy has its mirror, its image in xy,
and you can get closer through vanishing differences of ab, there is only ab
that remains unique, without twin. Second point: ab can also be considered a
maximum or a minimum, maximum in relation to one of the arcs of the circle,
minimum in relation to the other. Ouf, youve understood it all. Id say that AB
is a singularity.
I have introduced the example of the simplest curve: an arc of a circle. Its a bit
more complicated: what I showed was that a singular point is not necessarily
connected, is not limited to the *extremum*. It can very well be in the middle,
and in that case, it is in the middle. And its either a minimum or a maximum,
or both at once. Hence the importance of a calculus that Leibniz will contribute
to extending quite far, that he will call calculus of maxima and of minima. And
still today, this calculus has an immense importance, for example, in
phenomena of symmetry, in physical and optical phenomena. I would say
therefore that my point a is a singular point; all the others are ordinary or
regular. They are ordinary and regular in two ways: first, they are below the
maximum and above the minimum, and second, they exist doubly. Thus, we
can clarify somewhat this notion of ordinary. Its another case; its a singularity
of another case.
Another attempt: take a complex curve. What will we call its singularities? The
singularities of a complex curve, in simplest terms, are neighboring points of
which ? and you know that the notion of neighborhood, in mathematics, which
is very different from contiguity, is a key notion in the whole domain of
topology, and its the notion of singularity that is able to help us understand
what neighborhood is. Thus, in the neighborhood of a singularity, something
changes: the curve grows, or it decreases. These points of growth or decrease,
I will call them singularities. The ordinary one is the series, that which is
between two singularities, going from the neighborhood of one singularity to
anothers neighborhood, of ordinary or regular character.
We grasp some of these relations, some very strange nuptials: isnt "classical"
philosophys fate relatively linked, and inversely, to geometry, arithmetic, and
classical algebra, that is, to rectilinear figures? You will tell me that rectilinear
figures already include singular points, OK, but once I discovered and
constructed the mathematical notion of singularity, I can say that it was
already there in the simplest rectilinear figures. Never would the simplest
rectilinear figures have given me a consistent occasion, a real necessity to

construct the notion of singularity. Its simply on the level of complex curves
that this becomes necessary. Once I found it on the level of complex curves,
now there, yes, I back up and can say: ah, it was already an arc of a circle, it
was already in a simple figure like the rectilinear square, but before you
couldnt.

Intervention: xxx [missing from transcript].

Gilles groans: Too bad [Piti?] My God He caught me. You know, speaking
is a fragile thing. Too bad ah, too bad Ill let you talk for an hour when you
want, but not now Too bad, oh l? l? Its the blank in memory [trou].
I will read to you a small, late text by Poincar? that deals extensively with the
theory of singularities that will be developed during the entire eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. There are two kinds of undertaking by Poincar?, logical
and philosophical projects, and mathematical ones. He is above all a
mathematician. There is an essay by Poincar? on differential equations. I am
reading a part of it on kinds of singular points in a curve referring to a function
or to a differential equation. He tells us that there are four kinds of singular
points: first, crests , which are points through which two curves defined by the
equation pass, and only two. Here, the differential equation is such that, in the
neighborhood of this point, the equation is going to define and going to cause
two curves and only two to pass. The second type of singularity: knots, in which
an infinity of curves defined by the equation come to intersect. The third type
of singularity: foci , around which these curves turn while drawing closer to
them in the form of a spiral. Finally, the fourth type of singularity: centers,
around which curves appear in the form of a closed circle. And Poincar?
explains in the sequel to the essay that, according to him, one great merit of
mathematics is to have pushed the theory of singularities into relationship with
the theory of functions or of differential equations.
Why do I quote this example from Poincar?? You could find equivalent notions
in Leibnizs works. Here a very curious terrain appears, with crests, foci,
centers, truly like a kind of astrology of mathematical geography. You see that
we went from the simplest to the most complex: on the level of a simple
square, of a rectilinear figure, singularities were extremum; on the level of a
simple curve, you have singularities that are even easier to determine, for
which the principle of determination was easy. The singularity was the unique
case that had no twin, or else was the case in which the maximum and
minimum were identified. There you have more complex singularities when you
move into more complex curves. Therefore its as if the domain of singularities
is infinite, strictly speaking. What is the formula going to be? As long as you are

dealing with problems considered as rectilinear, that is, in which its a question
of determining right angles or rectilinear surfaces, you dont need differential
calculus. You need differential calculus when you find yourself faced with the
task of determining curves and curvilinear surfaces. What does that mean? In
what way is the singularity linked to differential calculus? Its that the singular
point is the point in the neighborhood of which the differential relation dy/dx
changes its sign . For example: vertex, relative vertex of a curve before it
descends, so you will say that the differential relation changes its sign. It
changes its sign at this spot, but to what extent? To the extent that it becomes
equal; in the neighborhood of this point, it becomes equal to zero or to infinity.
Its the theme of the minimum and of the maximum that you again find there.
All this together consists in saying: look at the kind of relationship between
singular and ordinary, such that you are going to define the singular as a
function of curvilinear problems in relation to differential calculus, and in this
tension or opposition between singular point and ordinary point, or singular
point and regular point. This is what mathematicians provide us with as basic
material, and yet again if it is true that in the simplest cases, the singular is the
extremity, in other simple cases, its the maximum or the minimum or even
both at once. Singularities there develop more and more complex relations on
the level of more and more complex curves.
I hold onto the following formula: a singularity is a distinct or determined point
on a curve, its a point in the neighborhood of which the differential relation
changes its sign, and the singular points characteristic is to extend [prolonger]
itself into the whole series of ordinary points that depend on it all the way to
the neighborhood of subsequent singularities. So I maintain that the theory of
singularities is inseparable from a theory or an activity of extension .
Wouldnt these be elements for a possible definition of continuity? Id say that
continuity or the continuous is the extension of a remarkable point onto an
ordinary series all the way into the neighborhood of the subsequent singularity.
With this, Im very pleased because at last, I have an initial hypothetical
definition of what the continuous is. Its all the more bizarre since, in order to
reach this definition of the continuous, I used what apparently introduces a
discontinuity, notably a singularity in which something changes. And rather
than being the opposite, its the discontinuity that provides me with this
approximate definition. Leibniz tells us that we all know that we have
perceptions, that for example, I see red, I hear the sea. These are perceptions;
moreover, we should reserve a special word for them because they are
conscious. Its perception endowed with consciousness, that is, perception
perceived as such by an "I" , we call it apperception, as a-perceiving. For,
indeed, its perception that I perceive. Leibniz tells us that consequently there
really have to be unconscious perceptions that we dont perceive. These are
called minute perceptions, that is, unconscious perception. Why is this
necessary? Why necessary? Leibniz gives us two reasons: its that our a-

perceptions, our conscious perceptions are always global. What we perceive is

always a whole. What we grasp through conscious perception is relative
totalities. And it is really necessary that parts exist since there is a whole.
Thats a line of reasoning that Leibniz constantly follows: there has to be
something simple if there is something composite , he builds this into a grand
principle; and it doesnt go without saying, do you understand what he means?
He means that there is no indefinite, and that goes so little without saying that
it implies the actual infinite. There has to be something simple since there is
something composite. There are people who will think that everything is
composite to infinity, and they will be partisans of the indefinite, but for other
reasons, Leibniz thinks that the infinite is actual. Thus, there has to be
something . Henceforth, since we perceive the global noise of the sea when we
are seated on the beach, we have to have minute perceptions of each wave, as
he says in summary form, and moreover, of each drop of water. Why? Its a
kind of logical requirement, and we shall see what he means.
He pursues the same reasoning on the level of the whole and the parts yet
again as well, not by invoking a principle of totality, but a principle of causality:
what we perceive is always an effect, so there have to be causes. These causes
themselves have to be perceived, otherwise the effect would not be perceived.
In this case, the tiny drops are no longer the parts that make up the wave, nor
the waves the parts that make up the sea, but they intervene as causes that
produce an effect. You will tell me that there is no great difference here, but let
me point out simply that in all of Leibnizs texts, there are always two distinct
arguments that he is perpetually trying to make coexist: an argument based on
causality and an argument based on parts. Cause-effect relationship and partwhole relationship. So this is how our conscious perceptions bathe in a flow of
unconscious minute perceptions.
On the one hand, this has to be so logically, in accordance with the principles
and their requirement, but the great moments occur when experience comes to
confirm the requirement of great principles. When the very beautiful
coincidence of principles and experience occurs, philosophy knows its moment
of happiness, even if its personally the misfortune of the philosopher. And at
that moment, the philosopher says: everything is fine, as it should be. So it is
necessary for experience to show me that under certain conditions of
disorganization in my consciousness, minute perceptions force open the door of
my consciousness and invade me. When my consciousness relaxes, I am thus
invaded by minute perceptions that do not become for all that conscious
perceptions. They do not become apperceptions since I am invaded in my
consciousness when my consciousness is disorganized. At that moment, a flow
of minute unconscious perceptions invades me. Its not that these minute
perceptions stop being unconscious, but its me who ceases being conscious.
But I live them, there is an unconscious lived experience . I do not represent
them, I do not perceive them, but they are there, they swarm in these cases. I

receive a huge blow on the head: dizziness is an example that recurs

constantly in Leibnizs work. I get dizzy, I faint, and a flow of minute
unconscious perceptions arrives: a buzz in my head. Rousseau knew Leibniz, he
will undergo the cruel experience of fainting after having received a huge blow,
and he relates his recovery and the swarming of minute perceptions. Its a very
famous text by Rousseau in the Reveries of a Solitary Stroller , which is the
return to consciousness.
Lets look for thought experiences: we dont even need to pursue this thought
experience, we know its like that, so through thought, we look for the kind of
experience that corresponds to the principle: fainting. Leibniz goes much
further and says: wouldnt that be death? This will pose problems for theology.
Death would be the state of a living person who would not cease living. Death
would be catalepsy, straight out of Edgar Poe, one is simply reduced to minute
perceptions.
And yet again, its not that they invade my consciousness, but its my
consciousness that is extended, that loses all of its own power, that becomes
diluted because it loses self-consciousness, but very strangely it becomes an
infinitely minute consciousness of minute unconscious perceptions. This would
be death. In other words, death is nothing other than an envelopment,
perceptions cease being developed into conscious perceptions, they are
enveloped in an infinity of minute perceptions. Or yet again, he says, sleep
without dreaming in which there are lots of minute perceptions.
Do we have to say that only about perception? No. And there, once again,
appears Leibnizs genius. There is a psychology with Leibnizs name on it,
which was one of the first theories of the unconscious. I have already said
almost enough about it for you to understand the extent to which its a
conception of the unconscious that has absolutely nothing to do with Freuds
which is to say how much innovation one finds in Freud: its obviously not the
hypothesis of an unconscious that has been proposed by numerous authors,
but its the way in which Freud conceived the unconscious. And, in the lineage
from Freud some very strange phenomena will be found, returning to a
Leibnizian conception, but I will talk about that later.
But understand that he simply cannot say that about perception since,
according to Leibniz, the soul has two fundamental faculties: conscious
apperception which is therefore composed of minute unconscious perceptions,
and what he calls "appetition", appetite, desire. And we are composed of
desires and perceptions. Moreover, appetition is conscious appetite. If global
perceptions are made up of an infinity of minute perceptions, appetitions or
gross appetites are made up of an infinity of minute appetitions. You see that
appetitions are vectors corresponding to minute perceptions, and that becomes
a very strange unconscious. The drop of sea water to which the droplet

corresponds, to which a minute appetition corresponds for someone who is

thirsty. And when I say, "my God, Im thirsty, Im thirsty," what do I do? I
grossly express a global outcome of thousands of minute perceptions working
within me, and thousands of minute appetitions that crisscross me. What does
that mean?
In the beginning of the twentieth century, a great Spanish biologist fell into
oblivion; his name was Turro. He wrote a book entitled in French: The Origins of
Knowledge (1914), and this book is extraordinary. Turro said that when we say
"I am hungry" ? his background was entirely in biology -- and we might say that
its Leibniz who has awakened-- and Turro said that when one says, "I am
hungry," its really a global outcome, what he called a global sensation. He
uses his concepts: global hunger and minute specific hungers. He said that
hunger as a global phenomenon is a statistical effect. Of what is hunger
composed as a global substance? Of thousands of minute hungers: salt hunger,
protein substance hunger, grease hunger, mineral salts hunger, etc. . . . When I
say, "Im hungry," I am literally undertaking, says Turro, the integral or the
integration of these thousands of minute specific hungers. The minute
differentials are differentials of conscious perception; conscious perception is
the integration of minute perceptions. Fine. You see that the thousand minute
appetitions are the thousand specific hungers. And Turro continues since there
is still something strange on the animal level: how does an animal know what it
has to have? The animal sees sensible qualities , it leaps forward and eats it,
they all eat minute qualities. The cow eats green, not grass, although it does
not eat just any green since it recognizes the grass green and only eats grass
green. The carnivore does not eat proteins, it eats something it saw, without
seeing the proteins. The problem of instinct on the simplest level is: how does
one explain that animals eat more or less anything that suits them? In fact,
animals eat during a meal the quantity of fat, of salt, of proteins necessary for
the balance of their internal milieu. And their internal milieu is what? Its the
milieu of all the minute perceptions and minute appetitions.
What a strange communication between consciousness and the unconscious.
Each species eats more or less what it needs, except for tragic or comic errors
that enemies of instinct always invoke: cats, for example, who go eat precisely
what will poison them, but quite rarely. Thats what the problem of instinct is.
This Leibnizian psychology invokes minute appetitions that invest minute
perceptions; the minute appetition makes the psychic investment of the minute
perception, and what world does that create? We never cease passing from one
minute perception to another, even without knowing it. Our consciousness
remains there at global perceptions and gross appetites, "I am hungry," but
when I say "I am hungry," there are all sorts of passages, metamorphoses. My
minute salt hunger that passes into another hunger, a minute protein hunger; a
minute protein hunger that passes into a minute fat hunger, or everything

mixed up, quite heterogeneously. What causes children to be dirt eaters? By

what miracle do they eat dirt when they need the vitamin that the earth
contains? It has to be instinct! These are monsters! But God even made
monsters in harmony.
So what is the status of psychic unconscious life? It happened that Leibniz
encountered Lockes thought, and Locke had written a book called An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding. Leibniz had been very interested in Locke,
especially when he discovered that Locke was wrong in everything. Leibniz had
fun preparing a huge book that he called New Essays on Human Understanding
in which, chapter by chapter, he showed that Locke was an idiot . He was
wrong, but it was a great critique. And then he didnt publish it. He had a very
honest moral reaction, because Locke had died in the meantime. His huge book
was completely finished, and he put it aside, he sent it to some friends. I
mention all this because Locke, in his best pages, constructs a concept for
which I will use the English word, "uneasiness." To summarize, its unease , a
state of unease. And Locke tries to explain that its the great principle of
psychic life. You see that its very interesting because this removes us from the
banalities about the search for pleasure or for happiness. Overall, Locke says
that its quite possible to seek ones pleasure, ones happiness, perhaps its
possible, but thats not all; there is a kind of anxiety for a living person. This
anxiety is not distress . He proposes the psychological concept of anxiety. One
is neither thirsting for pleasure, nor for happiness, nor distressed; he seems to
feel that we are, above all, anxious. We cant sit still. And Leibniz, in a
wonderful text, says that we can always try to translate this concept, but that
finally, its very difficult to translate. This word works well in English, and an
Englishman immediately sees what it is. For us, wed say that someone is
nervous. You see how he borrows it from Locke and how he is going to
transform it: this unease of the living, what is it? Its not at all the unhappiness
of the living. Rather, its when he is immobile, when he has his conscious
perception well framed, it all swarms: minute perceptions and minute
appetitions invest the fluid minute perceptions, fluid perceptions and fluid
appetites ceaselessly move, and thats it. So, if there is a God, and Leibniz is
persuaded that God exists, this uneasiness is so little a kind of unhappiness
that it is just the same as the tendency to develop the maximum perception.
And the development of the maximum perception will define a kind of psychic
continuity. We again find the theme of continuity, that is, an indefinite progress
of consciousness.
How is unhappiness possible? There can always be unfortunate encounters. Its
like when a stone is likely to fall: it is likely to fall along a path that is the right
path , for example, and then it can meet a rock that crumbles it or splits it
apart. Its really an accident connected to the law of the greatest slope. That
doesnt prevent the law of the greatest slope from being the best. We can see
what he means.

So there is an unconscious defined by minute perceptions, and minute

perceptions are at once infinitely small perceptions and the differentials of
conscious perception. And minute appetites are at once unconscious appetites
and differentials of conscious appetition. There is a genesis of psychic life
starting from differentials of consciousness.
Following from this, the Leibnizian unconscious is the set of differentials of
consciousness. Its the infinite totality of differentials of consciousness. There is
a genesis of consciousness. The idea of differentials of consciousness is
fundamental. The drop of water and the appetite for the drop of water, specific
minute hungers, the world of fainting. All of that makes for a very funny world.
I am going to open a very quick parenthesis. That unconscious has a very long
history in philosophy. Overall, we can say that in fact, its the discovery and the
theorizing of a properly differential unconscious. You see that this unconscious
has many links to infinitesimal analysis, and thats why I said a psychomathematical domain. Just as there are differentials for a curve, there are
differentials for consciousness. The two domains, the psychic domain and the
mathematical domain, project symbols . If I look for the lineage, its Leibniz who
proposed this great idea, the first great theory of this differential unconscious,
and from there it never stopped. There is a very long tradition of this
differential conception of the unconscious based on minute perceptions and
minute appetitions. It culminates in a very great author who, strangely, has
always been poorly understood in France, a German post-Romantic named
Fechner. Hes a disciple of Leibniz who developed the conception of differential
unconscious.
What was Freuds contribution? Certainly not the unconscious, which already
had a strong theoretical tradition. Its not that, for Freud, there were no
unconscious perceptions, [but] there were also unconscious desires. You recall
that for Freud, there is the idea that representation can be unconscious, and in
another sense, affect also can be unconscious. That corresponds to perception
and appetition. But Freuds innovation is that he conceived the unconscious ?
and here, I am saying something very elementary to underscore a huge
difference -- he conceived the unconscious in a conflictual or oppositional
relationship with consciousness, and not in a differential relationship. This is
completely different from conceiving an unconscious that expresses
differentials of consciousness or conceiving an unconscious that expresses a
force that is opposed to consciousness and that enters into conflict with it. In
other words, for Leibniz, there is a relationship between consciousness and the
unconscious, a relation of difference to vanishing differences, whereas for
Freud, there is a relation of opposition of forces. I could say that the
unconscious attracts representations, it tears them from consciousness, and
its really two antagonistic forces. I could say that, philosophically, Freud
depends on Kant and Hegel, thats obvious. The ones who explicitly oriented

the unconscious in the direction of a conflict of will, and no longer of differential

of perception, were from the school of Schopenhauer that Freud knew very well
and that descended from Kant. So we must safeguard Freuds originality,
except that in fact, he received his preparation in certain philosophies of the
unconscious, but certainly not in the Leibnizian strain.
Thus our conscious perception is composed of an infinity of minute perceptions.
Our conscious appetite is composed of an infinity of minute appetites. Leibniz is
in the process of preparing a strange operation, and were we not to restrain
ourselves, we might want to protest immediately. We could say to him, fine,
perception has causes, for example, my perception of green, or of any color,
that implies all sorts of physical vibrations. And these physical vibrations are
not themselves perceived. Even though there might be an infinity of
elementary causes in a conscious perception, by what right does Leibniz
conclude from this that these elementary causes are themselves objects of
infinitely minute perceptions? Why? And what does he mean when he says that
our conscious perception is composed of an infinity of minute perceptions,
exactly like perception of the sound of the sea is composed of the perception of
every drop of water?
If you look at his texts closely, its very odd because these texts say two
different things, one of which is manifestly expressed by simplification and the
other expresses Leibnizs true thought. There are two headings: some are
under the Part-Whole heading, and in that case, it means that conscious
perception is always one of a whole, this perception of a whole assuming not
only infinitely minute parts, but assuming that these infinitely small parts are
perceived. Hence the formula: conscious perception is made of minute
perceptions, and I say that, in this case, "is made of" is the same as "to be
composed of." Leibniz expresses himself in this way quite often. I select a text:
"Otherwise we would not sense the whole at all". . . if there were none of these
minute perceptions, we would have no consciousness at all. The organs of
sense operate a totalization of minute perceptions. The eye is what totalizes an
infinity of minute vibrations, and henceforth composes with these minute
vibrations a global quality that I call green, or that I call red, etc. . . . The text is
clear, its a question of the Whole-Parts relationship. When Leibniz wants to
move rapidly, he has every interest in speaking like that, but when he really
wants to explain things, he says something else, he says that conscious
perception is derived from minute perceptions. Its not the same thing, "is
composed of" and "is derived from". In one case, you have the Whole-Parts
relationship, in the other, you have a relationship of a completely different
nature. What different nature? The relation of derivation, what we call a
derivative. That also brings us back to infinitesimal calculus: conscious
perception derives from the infinity of minute perceptions. At that point, I would
no longer say that the organs of sense totalize. Notice that the mathematical
notion of integral links the two: the integral is what derives from and is also

what operates an integration, a kind of totalization, but its a very special

totalization, not a totalization through additions. We can say without risk of
error that although Leibniz doesnt indicate it, its even the second texts that
have the final word. When Leibniz tells us that conscious perception is
composed of minute perceptions, this is not his true thinking. On the contrary,
his true thinking is that conscious perception derives from minute perceptions.
What does "derive from" mean?
Here is another of Leibnizs texts: "Perception of light or of color that we
perceive, that is, conscious perception ? is composed of a quantity of minute
perceptions that we do not perceive, and a noise that we do not perceive, and
a noise that we do perceive but to which we give no attention becomes aperceptible, i.e. passes into the state of conscious perception, through a minute
addition or augmentation."
We no longer pass minute perceptions into conscious perception via totalization
as the first version of the text suggested; we pass minute perceptions into
global conscious perception via a minute addition. We thought we understood,
and suddenly, we no longer understand a thing. A minute addition is the
addition of a minute perception; so we pass minute perceptions into global
conscious perception via a minute perception? We tell ourselves that this isnt
right. Suddenly, we tend to fall back on the other version of the text, at least
that was more clear. More clear, but insufficient. Sufficient texts are sufficient,
but we no longer understand anything in them. A wonderful situation, except if
we chance to encounter an adjoining text in which Leibniz tells us: "We must
consider that we think a quantity of things all at once. But we pay attention
only to thoughts that are the most distinct . . ."
For what is "remarkable" must be composed of parts that are not remarkable ?
there, Leibniz is in the process of mixing up everything, but on purpose. We
who are no longer innocent can situate the word "remarkable," and we know
that each time that he uses "notable", "remarkable", "distinct", its in a very
technical sense, and at the same time, he creates a muddle everywhere. For
the idea that there is something clear and distinct, since Descartes, was an
idea that circulated all over. Leibniz slides in his little "distinct" , the most
distinct thoughts. Understand "the distinct," "the remarkable," "the singular."
So what does that mean? We pass from minute unconscious perception to
global conscious perception through a minute addition. So obviously, this is not
just any minute addition. This is neither another conscious perception, nor one
more minute unconscious perception. So what does it mean? It means that
your minute perceptions form a series of ordinaries, a series called regular: all
the minute drops of water, elementary perceptions, infinitesimal perceptions.
How do you pass into the global perception of the sound of the sea?

First answer: via globalization-totalization. Commentators answer: Fine, its

easy to say. One would never thinking of raising an objection. You have to like
an author just enough to know that hes not mistaken, that he speaks this way
in order to proceed quickly.
Second answer: I pass via a minute addition. This cannot be the addition of a
minute ordinary or regular perception, nor can it be the addition of a conscious
perception since at that point, consciousness would be presupposed. The
answer is that I reach a neighborhood of a remarkable point, so I do not
operate a totalization, but rather a singularization. Its when the series of
minute perceived drops of water approaches or enters into the neighborhood of
a singular point, a remarkable point, that perception becomes conscious.
Its a completely different vision because at that moment, a great part of the
objections made to the idea of a differential unconscious falls away. What does
that mean? Here appear the texts by Leibniz that seem the most complete.
From the start, we have dragged along the idea that with minute elements, its
a manner of speaking because what is differential are not elements, not dx in
relation to an x, because dx in relation to an x is nothing. What is differential is
not a dy in relation to a y because dy in relation to a y is nothing.
What is differential is dy/dx, this is the relation.
Thats what is at work in the infinitely minute.
You recall that on the level of singular points, the differential relation changes
its sign. You recall that on the level of singular points, the differential relation
changes its sign. Leibniz is in the process of impregnating Freud without
knowing it. On the level of the singularity of increases or decreases, the
differential relation changes it sign, that is, the sign is inverted. In this case of
perception, which is the differential relation? Why is it that these are not
elements, but indeed relations? What determines a relation is precisely a
relationship between physical elements and my body. So you have dy and dx.
Its the relation of physical excitation to my biological body. You understand
that on this level, we can no longer speak exactly of minute perceptions. We
will speak of the differential relation between physical excitation and the
physical state by assimilating it frankly to dy/dx, it matters little. And
perception becomes conscious when the differential relation corresponds to a
singularity, that is, changes its sign.
For example, when excitation gets sufficiently closer.
Its the molecule of water closest to my body that is going to define the minute
increase through which the infinity of minute perceptions becomes conscious
perception. Its no longer a relation of parts at all, its a relation of derivation.
Its the differential relation between that which excites and my biological body

that is going to permit the definition of the singularitys neighborhood. Notice in

which sense Leibniz could say that inversions of signs, that is, passages from
consciousness to the unconscious and from the unconscious to consciousness,
the inversions of signs refer to a differential unconscious and not to an
unconscious of opposition.
When I alluded to Freuds posterity, in Jung, for example, there is an entire
Leibnizian side, and what he reintroduces, to Freuds greatest anger, and its in
this that Freud judges that Jung absolutely betrayed psychoanalysis, is an
unconscious of the differential type. And he owes that to the tradition of
German Romanticism which is closely linked also to the unconscious of Leibniz.
So we pass from minute perceptions to unconscious perception via addition of
something notable, that is, when the series of ordinaries reaches the
neighborhood of the following singularity, such that psychic life, just like the
mathematical curve, will be subject to a law which is that of the composition of
the continuous.
There is composition of the continuous since the continuous is a product: the
product of the act by which a singularity is extended into the neighborhood of
another singularity. And that this works not only upon the universe of the
mathematical symbol, but also upon the universe of perception, of
consciousness, and of the unconscious.
From this point onward, we have but one question: what are the compossible
and incompossible? These derive directly from the former. We possess the
formula for compossibility. I return to my example of the square with its four
singularities. You take a singularity, its a point; you take it as the center of a
circle. Which circle? All the way into the neighborhood of the other singularity.
In other words, in the square abcd, you take *a* as center of a circle that stops
or whose periphery is in the neighborhood of singularity *b*. You do the same
thing with *b*: you trace a circle that stops in the neighborhood of the
singularity *a* and you trace another circle that stops in the neighborhood of
singularity *c*. These circles intersect. You go on like that constructing, from
one singularity to the next, what you will be able to call a continuity. The
simplest case of a continuity is a straight line, but there is also precisely a
continuity of non-straight lines. With your system of circles that intersect, you
will say that there is continuity when the values of two ordinary series, those of
*a* to *b*, those of *b* to *a*, coincide. When there is a coincidence of values
of two ordinary series encompassed in the two circles, you have a continuity.
Thus you can construct a continuity made from continuity. You can construct a
continuity of continuity, for example, the square. If the series of ordinaries that
derive from singularities diverge, then you have a discontinuity. You will say
that a world is constituted by a continuity of continuity. Its the composition of
the continuous. A discontinuity is defined when the series of ordinaries or

regulars that derive from two points diverge. Third definition: the existing world
is the best? Why? Because its the world that assures the maximum of
continuity. Fourth definition: what is the compossible? An set of composed
continuities. Final definition: what is the incompossible? When the series
diverge, when you can no longer compose the continuity of this world with the
continuity of this other world. Divergence in the series of ordinaries that
depend on singularities: at that moment, it can no longer belong to the same
world.
You have a law of composition of the continuous that is psycho-mathematical.
Why isnt that evident? Why is all this exploration of the unconscious
necessary? Because, yet again, God is perverse. Gods perversity lies in having
chosen the world that implicates the maximum of continuity, in composing the
chosen world in this form, only by dispersing the continuities since these are
continuities of continuities. God dispersed them. What does that mean? It
seems, says Leibniz, that there are discontinuities in our world, leaps, ruptures.
Using an admirable term, he says that it seems that there are musical descents
. But in fact, there are none. To some among us, it seems that there is a gap
between man and animal, a rupture. This is necessary because God, with
extreme malice, conceived the world to be chosen in the form of the maximum
of continuity, so there are all sorts of intermediary degrees between animal and
man, but God held back from making these visible to us. If the need arose, God
placed them on other planets of our world. Why? Because finally, it was good, it
was good for us to be able to believe in the excellence of our domination of
nature. If we had seen all the transitions between the worst animal and us, we
would have been less vain, so this vanity is still quite good because it allows
man to establish his power over nature. Finally its not a perversity of God, but
that God did not stop breaking continuities that God had constructed in order
to introduce variety in the chosen world, in order to hide the whole system of
minute differences, of vanishing differences. So God proposed to our organs of
sense and to our stupid thinking, presented on the contrary a very divided
world . We spend our time saying that animals have no soul (Descartes), or else
that they do not speak. But not at all: there are all sorts of transitions, all sorts
of minute definitions. In this, we grasp a specific relation that is compossibility
or incompossibility. I would say yet again that compossibility is when series of
ordinaries converge, series of regular points that derive from two singularities
and when their values coincide, otherwise there is discontinuity. In one case,
you have the definition of compossibility, in the other case, the definition of
incompossibility.

Why did God choose this world rather than another, when another was
possible? Leibnizs answer becomes splendid: its because it is the world that
mathematically implicates the maximum of continuity, and its uniquely in this

sense that it is the best of all possible worlds. A concept is always something
very complex. We can situate todays meeting under the sign of the concept of
singularity. And the concept of singularity has all sorts of languages that
intersect within it. A concept is always necessarily polyvocal. You can grasp the
concept of singularity only through a minimum of mathematical apparatus:
singular points in opposition to ordinary or regular points, on the level of
thought experiences of a psychological type: what is dizziness, what is a
murmur, what is a hum , etc. And on the level of philosophy, in Leibnizs case,
the construction of this relation of compossibility. Its not a mathematical
philosophy, no more than mathematics becomes philosophy, but in a
philosophical concept, there are all sorts of different orders that necessarily
symbolize. It has a philosophical heading, it has a mathematical heading, and it
has a heading for thought experience. And its true of all concepts. It was a
great day for philosophy when someone brought this odd couple to general
attention, and thats what I call a creation in philosophy. When Leibniz proposed
this topic, the singular, there precisely is the act of creation; when Leibniz tells
us that there is no reason for you simply to oppose the singular to the
universal. Its much more interesting if you listen to what mathematicians say,
who for their own reasons think of "singular" not in relation to "universal," but
in relation to "ordinary" or "regular." Leibniz isnt doing mathematics at that
point. I would say that his inspiration is mathematical, and he goes on to create
a philosophical theory, notably a whole conception of truth that is radically new
since its going to consist in saying: dont pay too much attention to the matter
of true and false, dont ask in your thinking what is true and what is false,
because what is true and what is false in your thinking always results from
something that is much deeper.
What counts in thinking are the remarkable points and the ordinary points.
Both are necessary: if you only have singular points in thinking, you have no
method of extension , its worthless; if you have only ordinary points, its in
your interest to think something else. And the more you believe yourself [to be]
remarkable (special), the less you think of remarkable points. In other words,
the thought of the singular is the most modest thought in the world. Its there
that the thinker necessarily becomes modest, because the thinker is the
extension onto the series of ordinaries, and thought itself explodes in the
element of singularity, and the element of singularity is the concept.

The last time, we ended with the question: what is compossibility and what is
incompossibility? What are these two relationships, the relationship of
compossibility and incompossibility? How do we define them?

We saw that these questions created all kinds of problems and led us
necessarily to the exercise, however cursory, of infinitesimal analysis. Today, I
would like to create a third major rubric that would consist in showing the
extent to which Leibniz organizes in a new way and even creates some genuine
principles. Creating principles is not a fashionable task of late. This third major
introductory chapter for a possible reading of Leibniz is one I will call:
Deduction of principles, precisely because principles are objects of a special
kind of deduction, a philosophical deduction, which does not go without saying.
There is such a rich abundance of principles in Leibniz's work. He constantly
invokes principles while giving them, when necessary, names that did not
previously exist. In order to situate oneself within his principles, one has to
discover the progression [cheminement] of Leibnizian deduction.

The first principle that Leibniz creates with a rapid justification is the principle
of identity. It is the minimum, the very least that he provides. What is the
principle of identity? Every principle is a reason. A is A. A thing, it's a thing, that
is what a thing is. I have already made some progress. A thing is what it is is
better than A is A. Why? Because it shows what is the region governed by the
principle of identity. If the principle of identity can be expressed in the form: a
thing is what it is, this is because identity consists in manifesting the proper
identity between the thing and what the thing is.
If identity governs the relationship between the thing and what the thing is,
namely what thing is identical to the thing, and the thing is identical to what it
is, I can say: what is the thing? What the thing is, everyone has called it the
essence of the thing. I would say that the principle of identity is the rule of
essences or, what comes down to the same thing, the rule of the possible. In
fact, the impossible is contradictory. The possible is the identical so that, to the
extent that the principle of identity is a reason, a ratio, then which ratio? It is
the ratio of essence or, as the Latins used to say, or the Middle Age
terminology long before: ratio essendi. I choose that as a typical example
because I think that it is very difficult to do philosophy if you do not have a kind
of terminological certainty. Never tell yourself that you can do without it, but
also never tell yourself that it is difficult to acquire. It is exactly the same as
scales on the piano. If you do not know rather precisely the rigour of concepts,

that is, the sense of major notions, then it is very difficult. One has to approach
that like an exercise. It is normal for philosophers to have their own scales, it is
their mental piano. One must change the tune of the categories. The history of
philosophy can only be created by philosophers, yet alas, it has fallen into the
hands of philosophy professors, and that's not good because they have turned
philosophy into examination material and not material for study, or for scales.

Each time that I speak of a principle according to Lebiniz, I am going to give it

two formulations: a vulgar formulation and a scholarly one. This is a beautiful
procedure on the level of principles, the necessary relation between prephilosophy and philosophy, this relationship of exteriority in which philosophy
needs a pre-philosophy. The vulgar formulation of the principle of identity: the
thing is what the thing is, the identity of the thing and of its essence. You see
that, in the vulgar formulation, there are lots of things already implied.

The scholarly formulation of the principle of identity: every analytical

proposition is true. What is an analytical proposition? It is a proposition in which
the predicate and the subject are identical. An analytical proposition is true, A
is A, is true. By going into the detail of Leibniz's formulae, one can even
complete the scholarly formulation: every analytical proposition is true in two
cases: either by reciprocity or by inclusion.

An example of a proposition of reciprocity: the triangle has three angles. Having

three angles is what the triangle is. Second case: inclusion: the triangle has
three sides. In fact, a closed figure having three angles envelopes, includes,
implies having three sides.
We will say that analytical propositions of reciprocity are objects of intuition,
and we will say that analytical propositions of inclusion are objects of
demonstration.
Therefore, the principle of identity, the rule of essences, or of the possible, ratio
essendi: what question does it answer? What cry does the principle of identity
answer? The pathetic cry that constantly appears in Leibniz's works,
corresponding to the principle of identity, why is there something rather than
nothing? It is the cry of the ratio essendi, of the reason for being [raison d'tre].
If there were no identity, no identity conceived as identity of the thing and
what the thing is, then there would be nothing.

Second principle: principle of sufficient reason.

This refers us back to the whole domain that we located as being the domain of
existences. The ratio corresponding to the principle of sufficient reason is no
longer the ratio essendi, the reason of essences or the reason for being, it is
now the ratio existendi, the reason for existing. It is no longer the question:
why something rather than nothing, since the principle of identity assured us
that there was something, namely the identical. It is no longer: why something
rather than nothing, but rather it is why this rather than that? What would its
vulgar formulation be? We saw that every thing has a reason. Indeed, every
thing must have a reason. What would the scholarly formulation be? You see
that we apparently are completely outside the principle of identity. Why?
Because the principle of identity concerns the identity of the thing and what it
is, but it does not state whether the thing exists. The fact that the thing exists
or does not exist is completely different from what it is. I can always define
what a thing is independently of the question of knowing if it exists or not. For
example, I know that the unicorn does not exist, but I can state what a unicorn
is. Thus, a principle is indeed necessary that makes us think of the existent
[lexistant]. So just how does a principle, that appears to us as vague as
"everything has a reason," make us think of the existent? It is precisely the
scholarly formulation that will explain it to us. We find this scholarly formulation
in Leibniz's works in the following statement: every predication (predication
means the activity of judgment that attributes something to a subject; when I
say "the sky is blue," I attribute blue to sky, and I operate a predication), every
predication has a basis [fondement] in the nature of things. It is the ratio
existendi.

Let us try to understand better how every predication has a basis in the nature
of things. This means: everything said about a thing, the entirety of what is
said about a thing, is the predication concerning this thing. Everything said
about a thing is encompassed, contained, included in the notion of the thing.
This is the principle of sufficient reason. You see that the formula which
appeared innocent a short while ago - every predication has a basis in the
nature of things, taking it literally - becomes much stranger: everything said
about a thing must be encompassed, contained, included in the notion of the
thing. So, what is everything said about a thing? First, it is the essence. In fact,
the essence is said about the thing. Only one finds at that level that there
would be no difference between sufficient reason and identity. And this is
normal since sufficient reason includes all the properties [tout l'acquis] of the
principle of identity, but is going to add something to it: what is said about a
thing is not only the essence of the thing, it is the entirety of the affections, of
the events that refer or belong to the thing.

Thus, not only will the essence be contained in the notion of the thing, but the
slightest of events, of affections concerning the thing as well, that is, what is
attributed truthfully to the thing is going to be contained in the notion of the
thing.
We have seen this: crossing the Rubicon, whether one likes it or not, must be
contained in the notion of Caesar. Events, affections of the type "loving" and
"hating" must be contained in the notion of that subject feeling these
affections.
In other words, each individual notion -- and the existent is precisely the object,
the correlate of an individual notion -- each individual notion expresses the
world. That is what the principle of sufficient reason is.
"Everything has a reason" means that everything that happens to something
must be contained forever in the individual notion of the thing.
The definitive formulation of the principle of sufficient reason is quite simple:
every true proposition is analytical, every true proposition, for example, every
proposition that consists in attributing to something an event that really
occurred and that concerns the something. So if it is indeed true, the event
must be encompassed in the notion of the thing.

What is this domain? It is the domain of infinite analysis whereas, on the

contrary, at the level of the principle of identity, we were only dealing with
finite analyses. There will be an infinite analytical relationship between the
event and the individual notion that encompasses the event. In short, the
principle of sufficient reason is the reciprocal of the principle of identity. Only,
what has occurred in the reciprocal? The reciprocal has taken over a radically
new domain, the domain of existences. It was sufficient merely to reciprocate,
to reverse the formula of identity in order to obtain the formula of sufficient
reason; it was enough to reciprocate the formula of identity that concerns
essences in order to obtain a new principle, the principle of sufficient reason
concerning existences. You will tell me that this was not complicated. Yet it was
enormously complicated, so why? The reciprocal, this reciprocation was only
possible if one were able to extend the analysis to infinity. So the notion, the
concept of infinite analysis is an absolutely original notion. Does that consist in
saying that this takes place uniquely in the understanding [l'entendement] of
God, which is infinite? Certainly not. This implies an entire technique, the
technique of differential analysis or infinitesimal calculus.

Third principle: is it true that the reciprocal of the reciprocal would yield the
first? It is not certain. Everything depends, there are so many viewpoints. Let
us try to vary the formulation of the principle of sufficient reason. For sufficient
reason, I left things off by saying that everything that happens to a thing must
be encompassed, included in the notion of the thing, which implies infinite
analysis. In other words, for everything that happens or for every thing there is
a concept. I insisted earlier that what matters is not at all a way for Leibniz to
recover a famous principle. On the contrary, he does not want that at all; this
would be the principle of causality. When Leibniz says that everything has a
reason, that does not at all mean that everything has a cause. Saying
everything has a cause signifies A refers to B, B refers to C, etc. ... Everything
has a reason means that one must account for reason in causality itself,
namely that everything has a reason means that the relationship that A
maintains with B must be encompassed in one way or another in the notion of
A. Just like the relationship that B maintains with C must be encompassed one
way or another in the notion of B. Thus, the principle of sufficient reason goes
beyond the principle of causality. It is in this sense that the principle of
causality states only the necessary cause, but not the sufficient reason. Causes
are only necessities that themselves refer to and presuppose sufficient reasons.

Thus, I can state the principle of sufficient reason in the following way: for
every thing there is a concept that takes account both of the thing and of its
relations with other things, including its causes and its effects.
For every thing, there is a concept, and that does not go without saying. Lots of
people will think that not having a concept is the peculiarity [le propre] of
existence. For every thing there is a concept, so what would the reciprocal be?
Understand that the reciprocal does not at all have the same meaning. In
Aristotle's work, there is a treatise of ancient logic that deals solely with the
table of opposites. What is the contradictory, the contrary, the subaltern,
etc. ... You cannot say the contradictory when it is the contrary, you cannot just
say anything. Here I use the word reciprocal without specifying. When I say for
every thing there is a concept (yet again, this is not at all certain), assume that
you grant me that. There I cannot escape the reciprocal. What is the
reciprocal ?

For a theory of the concept, we would have to start again from the bird song
[chant doiseaux]. The great difference between cries and songs. The cries of
alarm, of hunger, and then the bird songs. And we can explain acoustically
what the difference is between cries and songs. In the same way, on the level
of thought, there are cries of thought and songs of thought [chants de pense].

How to distinguish these cries and these songs? One cannot understand how a
philosophy as song or a philosophical song develops if one does not refer it to
coordinates that are kinds of cries, continuous cries. These cries and songs are
complex. If I return to music, the example that I recall again and again is the
two great operas of [Alban] Berg; there are two great death cries, the cry of
Marie and the cry of Lulu. [TN: cf. "N as in Neurology" in LAbcdaire de Gilles
Deleuze] When one dies, one does not sing, and yet there is someone who
sings around death, the mourner. The one who loses the loved one sings. Or
cries, I do not know. In Wozzeck, it is a si-, it is a siren. When you put sirens into
music, you are placing a cry there. It is strange. And the two cries are not the
same type, even acoustically: there is a cry that flits upward and there is a cry
that skims along the earth. And then there is the song [chant]. Lulus great
woman friend sings death. It is fantastic. It is signed Berg. I would say that the
signature of a great philosopher is the same. When a philosopher is great,
although he writes very abstract pages, these are abstract only because you
did not know how to locate the moment in which he cries. There is a cry
underneath, a cry that is horrible.

Let us return to the song of sufficient reason. Everything has a reason is a song.
It is a melody, we could harmonize. A harmony of concepts. But underneath
there would be rhythmic cries: no, no, no. I return to my sung formulation of
the principle of sufficient reason. One can sing off key in philosophy. People
who sing off key in philosophy know it very well, but it [philosophy] is
completely dead. They can talk interminably. The song of sufficient reason: for
every thing there is a concept. What is the reciprocal ? In music, one would
speak of retrograde series. Let us look for the reciprocal of "every thing has a
concept." The reciprocal is: for every concept there is one thing alone.

Why is this the reciprocal of "for every thing a concept"? Suppose that a
concept had two things that corresponded to it. There is a thing that has no
concept and, in that case, sufficient reason is screwed [foutue]. I cannot say
"for every thing a concept". As soon as I have said "for every thing a concept," I
have necessarily said that a concept had necessarily one thing alone, since if a
concept has two things, there is something that has no concept, and therefore
already I could no longer say "for every thing a concept." Thus, the true
reciprocal of the principle of sufficient reason in Leibniz will be stated like this:
for every concept, one thing alone. It is a reciprocal in a very funny sense. But
in this case of reciprocation, sufficient reason and the other principle, notably
"for every thing, a concept" and "for every concept, one thing alone," I cannot
say one without saying the other. Reciprocation is absolutely necessary. If I do
not recognize the second, I destroy the first.

When I said that sufficient reason was the reciprocal of the principle of identity,
it was not in the same sense since, if you recall the statement [nonc] of the
principle of identity namely, every true proposition is analytical, there is in
this no necessity. I can say that every analytical proposition is true without
necessarily preventing any true proposition from being analytical. I could very
well say that there are true propositions that are something other than
analytical. Thus, when Leibniz created his reciprocation of identity, he made a
master stroke because he had the means to make this master stroke, that is,
he let out a cry. He had himself created an entire method of infinite analysis.
Otherwise, he could not have done so.

Whereas in the case of the passage from sufficient reason to the third principle
that I have not yet baptized, there reciprocation is absolutely necessary. It had
to be discovered. What does it mean that for every concept there is a thing and
only one thing? Here it gets strange, you have to understand. It means that
there are no two absolutely identical things, or every difference is conceptual in
the last instance. If you have two things, there must be two concepts,
otherwise there would not be two things. Does that mean that there are no two
absolutely identical things as far as the concept goes? It means that there are
no two identical drops of water, no two identical leaves. In this, Leibniz is
perfect, he gets delirious with this principle. He says that obviously you, you
believe that two drops of water are identical, but this is because you do not go
far enough in your analysis. They cannot have the same concept. Here this is
very odd because all of classical logic tends rather to tell us that the concept,
by its very nature, encompasses an infinite plurality of things.

The concept of drops of water is applicable to all drops of water. Leibniz says, of
course, if you have blocked off analysis of the concept at a certain point, at a
finite moment. But if you push the analysis forward, there will be a moment in
which the concepts are no longer the same. This is why the ewe recognizes its
lamb, one of Leibniz's examples: how does the ewe recognize its little lamb?
They [Eux] think it is via the concept. A little lamb does not have the same
concept as the same individual concept, it is in this manner that the concept
extends to the individual, another little lamb. What is this principle? There is
but a single thing; there is necessarily one thing per concept and only one.
Leibniz names it the principle of indiscernibles. We can state it this way: there
is one thing and only one thing per concept, or every difference is conceptual
in the final instance.

There is only conceptual difference. In other words, if you assign a difference

between two things, there is necessarily a difference in the concept. Leibniz
names this the principle of indiscernibles. And if I make it correspond to a ratio,
what is this? You sense correctly that it consists in saying that we only gain
knowledge through the concept. In other words, the principle of indiscernibles
seems to me to correspond to the third ratio, the ratio as ratio cognoscendi, the
reason as reason for knowing [raison de connaitre].

Let us look at the consequences of such a principle. If this principle of

indiscernibles were true, namely that every difference is conceptual, there
would be no difference except the conceptual. Here Leibniz asks us to accept
something that is quite huge. Let us proceed in order: what other kind of
difference is there other than conceptual? We see it immediately: there are
numerical differences. For example, I say a drop of water, two drops, three
drops. I distinguish the drops by the number alone [solo numero, that Deleuze
translates as par le nombre seulement]. I count the elements of a set
[ensemble], one two three four, I neglect their individuality, I distinguish them
by the number. This constitutes a first type of very classic distinction, the
numerical distinction. Second type of distinction: I say "take this chair"; some
obliging person takes a chair, and I say, "not that one, but this one." This time,
it is a spatio-temporal distinction of the here-now type. The thing that is here at
a particular moment, and this other thing that is there at a particular moment.
Finally, there are distinctions of figure and of movement: roof that has three
angles, or something else. I would say that these are distinctions by extension
and movement. Extension and movement.

Understand that this commits Leibniz to a strange undertaking, merely with his
principle of indiscernibles. He has to show that all these types of nonconceptual distinctions - and in fact, all of these distinctions are non-conceptual
since two things can be distinguished by the number even though they have
the same concept. You focus on the concept of a drop of water, and you say:
first drop, second drop. It is the same concept. There is the first and there is
the second. There is one that is here, and another that is there. There is one
that goes fast, and another that goes slowly. We have now nearly completed
the set of non-conceptual distinctions.

Leibniz arrives and calmly tells us, no no. These are pure appearances, that is,
these are only provisional ways of expressing a difference of another nature,
and this difference is always conceptual. If there are two drops of water, they
do not have the same concept. What of any great import does this mean? It is

very important in problems of individuation. It is very well known, for example,

that Descartes tells us that bodies are distinguished from one another by figure
and by movement. Lots of thinkers have appreciated that. Notice that in the
Cartesian formula, what is conserved in movement (mv) (the product of mass
times movement) depends strictly on a vision of the world in which bodies are
distinguished by the figure and movement. What does Leibniz commit himself
to when he tells us no? It is absolutely necessary that to all these nonconceptual differences there correspond conceptual differences; they only
cause it to be imperfectly translated. All non-conceptual differences only cause
a basic conceptual difference to be imperfectly translated. Leibniz commits
himself to a task of physics. He has to find a reason for which a body is either
in a particular number, or in a particular here and now, or has a particular
figure and a particular velocity. He will translate that quite well in his critique of
Descartes when he says that velocity is a pure relative. Descartes was wrong,
he took something that was purely relative for a principle. It is therefore
necessary that figure and movement be surpassed [se dpassent] toward
something deeper. This means something quite enormous for philosophy in the
seventeenth century.

Specifically, that there is no extended substance or that extension [l'tendue]

cannot be a substance. That extension is a pure phenomenon. That it refers to
something deeper. That there is no concept of extension, that the concept is of
another nature. It is therefore necessary that figure and movement find their
reason in something deeper. Henceforth, extension has no sufficiency. It is not
by chance that this is precisely what makes a new physics, he completely
recreates the physics of forces. He opposes force, on one hand, to figure and
extension, on the other, figure and extension being only manifestations of
force. It is force that is the true concept. There is no concept of extension
because the true concept is force.
Force is the reason of figure and movement in extension.
Hence the importance of this operation that appeared purely technical when he
said that what is conserved in movement is not mv, but mv2. Squaring velocity
is the translation of the concept of force, which is to say that everything
changes. It is physics that corresponds to the principle of indiscernibles. There
are no two similar or identical forces, and forces are the true concepts that
must take account of or justify everything that is figure or movement in
extension.

Force is not a movement, it is the reason for movement. Hence the complete
renewal of the physics of forces, and also of geometry, of kinematics [la

cinmatique]. Everything passes through this, merely by the squaring of

velocity. MV2 is a formula of forces, not a formula of movement. You see that
this is essential.

To sum up generally, I can also say that figure and movement must move
forward toward force. Number must move forward toward the concept. Space
and time must also move forward toward the concept.

But this is how a fourth principle develops quite slowly, one that Leibniz names
the law of continuity. Why did he say law? That is a problem. When Leibniz
speaks of continuity that he considers to be a fundamental principle and one of
his very own great discoveries, he no longer uses the term "principle," but uses
the term "law." We have to explain that. If I look for a vulgar formulation of the
law of continuity, it is quite simple: nature does not make a jump [la nature ne
fait pas de saut]. There is no discontinuity. But there are two scholarly
formulations. If two causes get as close as one would like, to the point of only
differing by a difference decreasing to infinity, the effects must differ in like
manner. I immediately say what Leibniz is thinking about because he has it in
for Descartes so much. What are we told in the laws of the communication of
movement? Here are two cases: two bodies of the same mass and velocity
meet each other; one of the two bodies has a greater mass or a greater
velocity, so it carries off the other. Leibniz says that this cannot be. Why? You
have two states of the cause. First state of the cause: two bodies of the same
mass and velocity. Second state of the cause: two bodies of different masses.
Leibniz says that you can cause difference to decrease to infinity, you can act
so these two states approach one another in the causes. And we are told that
the two effects are completely different: in one case, there is a repulsion
[rebondissement] of the two bodies, in the other case, the second body is
dragged off by the first, in the direction of the first. There is a discontinuity in
the effect whereas one can conceive of a continuity in the causes. It is in a
continuous manner that we can pass from different masses to equal masses.
Thus, it is not possible for there to be discontinuity in the facts/acts [faits] if
there is possible continuity in the cause. That leads him again into a whole,
very important physical study of movement that will be centered on the
substitution of a physics of forces for a physics of movement. I was citing this
to refresh our memory. But the other scholarly formulation of the same
principle, and you will understand that it is the same thing as the preceding
one: in a given case, the concept of the case ends in the opposite case.

This is the pure statement of continuity. Example: a given case is movement,

the concept of movement ends in the opposite case, that is in rest. Rest is
infinitely small movement. This is what we saw from the infinitesimal principle
of continuity. Or I might say that the last possible scholarly formulation of
continuity is: a given singularity extends itself [se prolonge] into a whole series
of ordinaries all the way to the neighborhood of the following singularity. This
time it is the law of the composition of the continuous. We worked on that the
last time. But right when we thought we had finished there arises a very
important problem. Something impels me to say that, between principle three
and principle four, there is a contradiction, that is between the principle of
indiscernibles and the principle of continuity, there is a contradiction. First
question: in what way is there a contradiction? Second question: the fact is that
Leibniz never considered there to be the slightest contradiction. Here we are in
that situation of liking and profoundly admiring a philosopher, yet of being
disturbed because some texts seem contradictory to us, and he did not even
see what we might tell him. Where would the contradiction be if there was one?
I return to the principle of indiscernibles, every difference is conceptual, there
are no two things having the same concept. At the limit I might say that to
every thing corresponds a determined difference, not only determined but
assignable in the concept. The difference is not only determined or
determinable, it is assignable in the very concept. There are no two drops of
water having the same concept, that is the difference one, two must be
encompassed in the concept. It must be assigned in the concept. Thus every
difference is an assignable difference in the concept. What does the principle of
continuity tell us? It tells us that things proceed by vanishing differences
[diffrences vanouissantes], infinitely small differences, that is unassignable
differences. That gets really awful. Can one say that every thing proceeds by
unassignable difference and say at the same time that every difference is
assigned and must be assigned in the concept? Ah! Doesn't Leibniz contradict
himself? We can move forward a small bit by looking at the ratio of the
principle of continuity since I found a ratio for each of the first three principles.
Identity is the reason of essence or ratio essendi, sufficient reason is the reason
of existence or the ratio existendi, the indiscernibles are the reason for knowing
or the ratio cognoscendi, and the principle of continuity is the ratio fiendi, that
is, the reason for becoming. Things become through continuity. Movement
becomes rest, rest becomes movement, etc. The polygon becomes a circle by
muliplying its sides, etc. This is a very different reason for becoming from the
reasons of being or of existing. The ratio fiendi needed a principle, and it is the
principle of continuity.

How do we reconcile continuity and indiscernibles? Moreover, we have to show

that the way in which we will reconcile them must take account of this at the
same time: that Leibniz was right to see no contradiction at all between them.

In this we have the experience of thought. I return to the proposition: each

individual notion expresses the whole world. Adam expresses the world, Caesar
expresses the world, each of you expresses the world. This formula is very
strange. Concepts in philosophy are not a single word. A great philosophical
concept is a complex, a proposition, or a prepositional function. One would
have to do exercises in philosophical grammar. Philosophical grammar would
consist of this: with a given concept, find the verb. If you have not found the
verb, you have not rendered the verb dynamic, you cannot live it. The concept
is always subject to a movement, a movement of thought. A single thing
counts: movement. When you do philosophy, you are looking only at
movement, only it is a particular kind of movement, the movement of thought.
What is the verb? Sometimes the philosopher states it explicitly, sometimes he
does not state it. Is Leibniz going to state it? In each individual notion that
expresses the world, there is a verb, this is expressing. But what does that
mean? It means two things at once, as if two movements coexisted.

Leibniz tells us at the same time: God does not create Adam the sinner, but
creates the world in which Adam sinned. God does not create Caesar crossing
the Rubicon, but creates the world in which Caesar crosses the Rubicon. Thus,
what God creates is the world and not the individual notions that express the
world. Second proposition by Leibniz: the world exists only in the individual
notions that express it. If you privilege one individual notion over the other . . .
If you accept that, what results is like two readings or two complementary and
simultaneous ways of understanding, but two understandings of what? You can
consider the world, but yet again the world does not exist in itself, it exists only
in the notions that express it. But you can make this abstraction, you consider
the world. How do you consider it? You consider it as a complex curve. A
complex curve has singular points and ordinary points. A singular point extends
itself into the ordinary points that depend on it all the way to the neighborhood
of another singularity, etc. etc. . . . and you compose the curve in a continuous
manner like that, by extending singularities into series of ordinaries. For
Leibniz, that is what the world is. The continuous world is the distribution of
singularities and regularities, or singularities and ordinaries that constitute
precisely the set chosen by God, that is the set that unites the maximum of
continuity. If you remain in this vision, the world is governed by the law of
continuity since continuity is precisely this composition of singulars insofar as
they extend into the series of ordinaries that depend on them. You have your
world that is literally laid out [dploy] in the form of a curve in which
singularities and regularities are distributed. This is the first point of view that
is completely subject to the law of continuity.

Only here we are, this world does not exist in itself, it exists only in the
individual notions that express this world. That means that an individual notion,
a monad, that each one encompasses a small determined number of
singularities. It encloses a small number of singularities. It is the small number
of singularities. You recall that individual notions or monads are points of view
on the world. It is not the subject that explains [explique] the point of view, it is
the point of view that explains the subject. Hence the need to ask oneself, what
is this point of view? A point of view is defined by this: a small number of
singularities drawn from the curve of the world. This is what is at the basis of
an individual notion. What makes the difference between you and me is that
you are, on this kind of fictional curve, you are constructed around such and
such singularities, and me around such and such singularities. And what you
call individuality is a complex of singularities insofar as they form a point of
view. There are two states of the world. It has a developed state . . .

I would like to finish these meetings on Leibniz by presenting the problem that I
wanted to consider. I return to this question that I asked from the start,
specifically: what does this image mean that good sense often creates about
philosophy, what does this image mean that good sense sometimes produces
about philosophy, like a kind of locus of discussion in which philosophers are
fundamentally not in agreement? A kind of philosophical atmosphere in which
people dispute, fight among themselves, whereas at least in science, they
know what they are talking about. We are told as well that all philosophers say
the same thing, they all agree or all hold opposite views. Its in relation to
Leibniz that I would like to select some very precise examples. What does it
mean that two philosophies do not agree? Polemics, like a certain state of
things that traverses certain disciplines, I do not find that there are more
polemics in philosophy than there are in science or in art. What is a philosopher
who critiques another philosopher? What is the function of critique? Leibniz
offers us this example: what does the opposition between Kant and Leibniz
mean, once we have said that it was a fundamental opposition in the history of
philosophy? What does it mean for Kant to undertake a critique of Leibniz? I
would like to number what I want to tell you. An initial task: to localize the
oppositions. There are two fundamental oppositions from the point of view of

knowledge. They function like thesis and antithesis. When we manage to trace
the great philosophical oppositions, on the level of the concepts used by one
philosopher or another, we also have to evaluate their relations to these
oppositions. They [the oppositions] are not of equal value. Perhaps one does
happen to have greater weight than another, to be more decisive. If you fail to
organize the oppositions, I think that you are no longer able to understand
what the subject is in a polemic.

First opposition between Leibniz and Kant, from the point of view of knowledge.
I will let Leibniz speak. A Leibnizian proposition: all propositions are analytical,
and knowledge can proceed only by analytical propositions. You recall that we
call analytical proposition a proposition in which one of the two terms of the
proposition is contained in the concept of the other. Its a philosophical formula.
We can already sense that there is no point in arguing at this level. Why?
Because there is already something implied, specifically that there is a certain
model of knowledge. What is presupposed, but in science as well, there are
also presuppositions; what is presupposed is a certain ideal of knowledge,
specifically knowing is discovering what is included in the concept. Its a
definition of knowledge. We are pleased to have a definition of knowledge, but
why this one rather that something else?
From the other side, Kant arises and says: there are synthetic propositions. You
see what a synthetic proposition is: its a proposition in which one of the terms
is not contained in the concept of the other. Is this a cry? Is this a proposition?
Against Leibniz, he says, no; he says that there are synthetic propositions and
that knowledge exists only through synthetic propositions. The opposition
seems perfect. At this point, a thousand questions assail me: What would that
mean to argue, to argue about who is right, who is right about what? Is this
provable, are we in the domain of decidable propositions? I say simply that the
Kantian definition must interest you because, if you consider it closely, it also
implies a certain conception of knowledge, and it happens that this conception
of knowledge is very different from Leibnizs. When one says that knowledge
proceeds only through synthetic propositions, that is, a proposition such that
one of its terms is not contained in the concept of the other, there is therefore
a synthesis between the two terms. Someone who says this can no longer base
knowledge on the Leibnizian conception.
He will tell us, on the contrary, that to know is not at all to discover what is
included in a concept, that knowledge necessarily means leaving behind one
concept in order to affirm something else. We call synthesis the act through
which one leaves a concept behind in order to attribute to it or to affirm
something else. In other words, to know is always to go beyond the concept.
Knowing is to go beyond [connatre cest dpasser]. Understand all that is in

play here. In the first conception, to know is to have a concept and discover
what is contained in the concept. I would say about that knowledge that it is
based on a particular model which is one of passion or of perception. To know is
finally to perceive something, to know is to apprehend, a passive model of
knowledge, even if many activities depend on it. In the other case, to the
contrary, it means leaving the concept behind in order to affirm something, and
is a model of the knowledge-act [un modle de la connaissance acte].

I return to my two propositions. Let us suppose that we are referees. We find

ourselves faced with these two propositions, and we say: what do I choose?
First when I say: is it decidable? What would that mean? It could mean that its
a question of fact. One has to find the facts that allow one to say that one or
the other is right. Obviously, its not that. Philosophical propositions, to some
extent, arent justifiable on the basis of a verification of facts. That is why
philosophy has always distinguished two questions, and Kant especially will
take this distinction up again. This distinction was formulated in Latin: quid
facti, what is derived from fact [qu'en est-il du fait], and quid juris, what is
derived from principle [qu'en est-il du droit]. And if philosophy is concerned
with principle, it is precisely because it poses questions that are called de jure
questions [questions de droit]. What does it mean that my two paradoxical
propositions, Leibnizs and Kants, are not justifiable on the basis of a factual
response? It means that in fact, there is no problem because all the time we
encounter phenomena that are synthetic phenomena. Indeed, in my simplest
judgments, I pass my time operating syntheses. I say, for example, that this
straight line is white.

It is quite obvious that with this, I am affirming about a straight line something
that is not contained in the concept of straight line. Why? Every straight line is
not white. That this straight line is white is obviously an encounter in
experience; I could not have made such a statement beforehand. I therefore
encounter in experience straight lines that are white. Its a synthesis, and we
call this kind of synthesis *a posteriori*, that is, given in experience. Thus,
there are syntheses of fact, but that does not resolve the problem. Why? For a
very simple reason: this straight line [that] is white does not constitute
knowledge. Its a protocol of experience. Knowledge is something other than
tracing protocols of experience.
When does one know? One knows when a proposition appeals to a principle [se
rclame dun droit]. What defines a propositions principle is the universal and
the necessary. When I say that a straight line is the shortest path from one
point to another, I maintain a proposition in principle (une proposition de droit).

Why? Because I dont need to measure each straight line to know that, if its
straight, its the shortest path. Every straight line, beforehand, a priori, that is,
independently of experience, is the shortest path from one point to another,
otherwise it would not be a straight line. Thus, I would say that the proposition
a straight line is the shortest path constitutes indeed a proposition of
knowledge. I do not await experience to discover that a straight line is the
shortest path; to the contrary, I determine the experience since the shortest
path from one point to another is my way of tracing a straight line
experientially. Any straight line is necessarily the shortest path from one point
to another. This is a proposition of knowledge and not a protocol proposition.
Let us take this proposition, its an a priori proposition. In this, are we going to
be able finally to pose the question of separation between Leibniz and Kant,
specifically is it an analytical proposition or is it a synthetic proposition?

Kant says something very simple: its necessarily, a priori, a synthetic

proposition. Why? Because when you say that the straight line is the shortest
path from one point to another, you are leaving behind the concept straight
line. Isnt it the content in a straight line to be the shortest path from one
point to another? It goes without saying that Leibniz would say that it is the
content in straight line. Kant says no, the concept straight line, according
to the Euclidian definition is: line ex aequo in all of its points. You wont draw
from this the shortest path between one point and another. You have to leave
the concept behind to affirm something else about it. Were not convinced. Why
does Kant say that? Kant would answer, I suppose, that the shortest path to
another is a concept that implies a comparison, the comparison of the shortest
line with other lines that are either broken lines or curvilinear lines, that is,
curves. I cannot say that the straight line is the shortest path from one point to
another without implying a comparison, the relation of the straight line to
curved lines. For Kant this suffices to say that a synthesis lies therein; you are
forced to leave the straight line concept in order to reach the curved line
concept, and its in the relation of straight lines to curved lines that you say the
straight line is the shortest path from one point to another. . . Its a synthesis,
thus knowledge is a synthetic operation. Would Leibniz be disturbed by that?
No, he would say that obviously you have to keep in mind the curved line
concept when you say that the straight line is the shortest path from one point
to another, but Leibniz is the creator of a differential calculus through which the
straight line is going to be considered as the limit of curves. There is a process
to the limit. Hence Leibnizs theme: its an analytical relation, only its an
infinite analysis. The straight line is the limit of the curve, just as rest is the
limit of movement. Does this advance us? So either one can no longer resolve
this, or they mean the same thing. [If] they say the same thing, what would this
be? It would mean that what Leibniz calls infinite analysis is the same thing as
what Kant calls finite synthesis. Henceforth, its only a question of words. In this

perspective, at that point, we would say that they agree in order to establish a
difference in nature, one of them between finite analysis and infinite analysis,
the other between analysis and synthesis. It comes down to the same thing:
what Leibniz calls infinite analysis, Kant will call finite synthesis.

You see the good sense idea that, simultaneously, a philosophical dispute is
inextricable since we cannot decide who is right, and at the same time,
knowing who is right is without any importance since they both say the same
thing. Good sense can conclude just as well: the only good philosophy is me.
Tragic situation. Because if good sense achieves the goals of philosophy, better
than philosophy itself does it, then there is no reason to wear yourself out
doing philosophy. So?
Lets look for a kind of bifurcation since this first great opposition between
Leibniz and Kant, even if it now seems obvious too us, isnt this because, in
fact, this opposition moves well beyond itself toward a deeper opposition, and
if we dont see the deeper opposition, we can understand nothing. What would
this second, deeper opposition be?
We saw that there was a great Leibnizian proposition, called the principle of
indiscernibles, notably that any difference, in the final instance, is conceptual.
Any difference is in the concept. If two things differ, they cannot simply differ
by number, by figure, by movement, but rather their concept must not be the
same. Every difference is conceptual. See how this proposition is truly the
presupposition of Leibnizs preceding proposition. If he is right on this point, if
every difference is conceptual, it is quite obvious that its by analyzing
concepts that we know, since knowing is knowing through differences. Thus, if
every difference, in the final instance, is conceptual, the analysis of the concept
will make us know the difference, and will therefore cause us quite simply to
know. We see into which quite advanced mathematical task this drew Leibniz,
[a task] which consisted in showing the differences between figures, the
differences between numbers, referring to differences in the concepts. Ok,
what is Kants proposition in opposition to the second Leibnizian proposition?
Here again, this is going to be pretty odd [un drle de truc]. Kant maintains a
very strange proposition: if you look closely at the world presented to you, you
will see that it is composed of two sorts of irreducible determinations: you have
conceptual determinations that always correspond to what a thing is, I can
even say that a concept is the representation of what the thing is. You have
determinations of this sort, for example, the lion is an animal that roars; thats
a conceptual determination. And then you have another kind of determination
altogether. Kant proposes his great thing [son grand truc]: he says that its no
longer conceptual determinations, but spatio-temporal determinations. What
are these spatio-temporal determinations? Its the fact that the thing is here

and now, that it is to the right or to the left, that it occupies one kind of space
or another, that it describes a space, that it lasts a certain time. And so,
however far you push the analysis of concepts, you will never arrive at this
domain of spatio-temporal determinations by analyzing concepts. Although you
might push your analysis of the concept to infinity, you will never find a
determination in the concept that takes this into account for you: that this thing
is on the right or on the left.

What does he mean? He selects examples for himself that initially seem very
convincing. Consider two hands. Everyone knows that two hands dont have
exactly the same traits, nor the same distribution of pores. In fact, there are no
two hands that are identical. And this is a point for Leibniz: if there are two
things, they must differ through the concept, its his principle of indiscernibles.
Kant says that, in fact, it is indeed possible, but thats not important. He says
that its without interest. Discussions never pass through the true and the false,
they pass through: does it have any interest whatsoever, or is it a platitude? A
madman is not a question of fact, hes also a question quid juris. Its not
someone who says things that are false. There are loads of mathematicians
who completely invent absolutely crazy theories. Why are they crazy? Because
they are false or contradictory? No, they are determined by the fact that they
manipulate an enormous conceptual and mathematical apparatus
[appareillage], for example, for propositions stripped of all interest.
Kant would dare to tell Leibniz that what you are saying about the two hands
with their different skin features [diffrences de pores] has no interest since
you can conceive quid juris, in principle but not in fact, you can conceive of two
hands belonging to the same person, having exactly the same distribution of
pores, the same outline of traits. This is not logically contradictory, even if it
does not exist in fact. But, says Kant, there is something nonetheless that is
very odd: however far you push your analysis, these two hands are identical,
but admire the fact that they cannot be superposed. You have your two
absolutely identical hands, you cut them in order to have a radical degree of
mobility. You cannot cause them to coincide; you cannot superpose them. Why?
You cannot superpose them, says Kant, because there is a right and a left. They
can be absolutely identical in everything else, there is still one that is the right
hand and the other the left hand. That means that there is a spatial
determination irreducible to the order of the concept. The concept of your two
hands can be strictly identical, however far you push the analysis, there will
still be one of them that is my right hand and one that is my left hand. You
cannot cause them to be superposed. Under what condition can you cause two
figures to be superposed? On the condition of having access to a dimension
supplementary to that of the figures . . . Its because there is a third dimension

of space that you can cause two flat figures to be superposed. You could cause
two volumes to be superposed if you have access to a fourth dimension. There
is an irreducibility in the order of space. The same thing holds for time: there is
an irreducibility in the order of time. Thus, however far you push the analysis of
conceptual differences, an order of difference will always remain outside of the
concepts and the conceptual differences. This will be spatio-temporal
differences.

Does Kant again gain the stronger position? Lets go back to the straight line.
[Regarding] the idea of synthesis, we are going to recognize that it was not a
matter of mere words for Leibniz. If we stopped at the analysis-synthesis
difference, we didnt have the means of finding [more]. We are in the process
of discovering the extent to which this is something more than a matter of
words. Kant is saying: as far as you go in your analysis, you will have an
irreducible order of time and space, irreducible to the order of the concept. In
other words, space and time are not concepts. There are two sorts of
determinations: determinations of concepts and spatio-temporal
determinations. What does Kant mean when he says that the straight line is the
shortest path from one point to another, that its a synthetic proposition? What
he means is this: [the] straight line is indeed a conceptual determination, but
the shortest path from one point to another is not a conceptual determination,
but a spatio-temporal determination. The two are irreducible. You will never be
able to deduce one from the other. There is a synthesis between them.
And what is knowing? Knowing is creating the synthesis of conceptual
determinations and spatio-temporal determinations. And so he is in the process
of tearing space and time from the concept, from the logical concept. Is it by
chance that he himself will name this operation Aesthetics? Even on the most
vulgar level of aesthetics, the best known word the theory of art --, wont this
liberation of space and time in relation to logical concepts be the basis of any
discipline called aesthetics?
You see now how it is that, at this second level, Kant would define synthesis. He
would say that synthesis is the act through which I leave behind all concepts in
order to affirm something irreducible to concepts. Knowing is creating a
synthesis because it necessarily means leaving behind all concepts in order to
affirm something extra-conceptual in it. The straight line, concept, I leave it
behind, its the shortest path from one point to another, a spatio-temporal,
extra-conceptual determination. What is the difference between this second
Kantian proposition and the first? Just admire the progress Kant made. Kants
first definition when he was saying that knowing means operating through
synthesis this is issuing synthetic propositions, Kants first proposition
amounted to this: knowing means leaving behind a concept in order to affirm

about it something that was not contained in it. But at this level, I could not
know if he was right. Leibniz arrived and said that, in the name of an infinite
analysis, what I affirm about a concept will always be contained in the concept.
A second, deeper level: Kant no longer tells us that knowing means leaving a
concept behind in order to affirm something that would be like another
concept. Rather [he says that] knowing means leaving one concept in order to
leave behind all concepts, and to affirm something about it that is irreducible to
the order of the concept in general. This is a much more interesting
proposition.

Yet again, they react [on rebondit]. Is this decidable? One of them tells us that
every difference is conceptual in the last instance, and therefore you can affirm
nothing about a concept that might go outside the order of the concept in
general; the other one tells us that there are two kinds of differences,
conceptual differences and spatio-temporal differences such that knowing
necessarily means leaving behind the concept in order to affirm something
about it that is irreducible to all concepts in general, specifically something that
concerns space and time.
At this point, we realize that we havent left all that behind because we realize
that Kant, quietly and he wasnt obligated to say it, even since he could say it
a hundred pages later Kant can only maintain the proposition he just
suggested about the irreducibility of spatio-temporal determinations in relation
to conceptual determination, he can only affirm this irreducibility because he
dealt a master stroke [coup de force]. For his proposition to make sense, he
had to change radically the traditional definition of space and time. I hope that
you are becoming more sensitive [to this]. He gives a completely innovative
determination of space and time. What does that mean?
We arrive at a third level of the Kant-Leibniz opposition. This opposition is
stripped of any interest if we do not see that the Leibnizian propositions and
the Kantian propositions are distributed in two completely different spacetimes. In other words, its not even the same space-time about which Leibniz
said: all of these determinations of space and time are reducible to conceptual
determinations; and this other one about which Kant told us that the
determinations [of space-time] are absolutely irreducible to the order of the
concept. This is what we have to show in a simple way; take note that this is a
moment in which thought reels. For a very, very long time, space was defined
as, to some extent, the order of coexistences, or the order of simultaneities.
And time was defined as the order of successions. So, is it by chance that
Leibniz is the one who pushes this very ancient conception to its limit, all the
way to a kind of absolute formulation? Leibniz adds and states it formally:
space is the order of possible coexistences and time is the order of possible

successions. By adding possible, why does he push this to the absolute?

Because it refers to his theory of compossibility and of the world. Thus, he
captures in this way the old conception of space and time, and he uses it for his
own system. At first glance, that seems rather good. In fact, its always delicate
when someone tells me: define space, define time; if I dont say by reflex that
space is the order of successions and space is the order of coexistences, at
least thats something [cest quand mme un petit quelque chose]. What
bothers Kant can be found in his most beautiful pages

On Spinoza
Today we pause in our work on continuous variation to return temporarily, for
one session, to the history of philosophy, on a very precise point. It's like a
break, at the request of some of you. This very precise point concerns the
following: what is an idea and what is an affect in Spinoza? Idea and affect in
Spinoza. During March, at the request of some of you, we will also take a break
to consider the problem of synthesis and the problem of time in Kant.
For me, this produces a curious effect of returning to history. I would almost like
for you to take this bit of history of philosophy as a history tout court. After all,
a philosopher is not only someone who invents notions, he also perhaps invents
ways of perceiving. I will proceed largely by enumeration. I will begin chiefly
with terminological remarks. I assume that the room is relatively mixed. I
believe that, of all the philosophers of whom the history of philosophy speaks
to us, Spinoza is in a quite exceptional situation: the way he touches those who
enter into his books has no equivalent.
It matters little whether you've read him or not, for I'm telling a story. I begin
with some terminological cautions. In Spinoza's principal book, which is called
the Ethics and which is written in Latin, one finds two words: AFFECTIO and
AFFECTUS. Some translators, quite strangely, translate both in the same way.
This is a disaster. They translate both terms, affectio and affectus, by
affection. I call this a disaster because when a philosopher employs two
words, it's because in principle he has reason to, especially when French easily
gives us two words which correspond rigorously to affectio and affectus, that is
affection for affectio and affect for affectus. Some translators translate
affectio as affection and affectus as feeling [sentiment], which is better
than translating both by the same word, but I don't see the necessity of having
recourse to the word feeling since French offers the word affect. Thus when
I use the word affect it refers to Spinoza's affectus, and when I say the word
affection, it refers to affectio.
First point: what is an idea? What must an idea be, in order for us to
comprehend even Spinoza's simplest propositions? On this point Spinoza is not

original, he is going to take the word idea in the sense in which everyone has
always taken it. What is called an idea, in the sense in which everyone has
always taken it in the history of philosophy, is a mode of thought which
represents something. A representational mode of thought. For example, the
idea of a triangle is the mode of thought which represents the triangle. Still
from the terminological point of view, it's quite useful to know that since the
Middle Ages this aspect of the idea has been termed its objective reality. In
texts from the 17th century and earlier, when you encounter the objective
reality of the idea this always means the idea envisioned as representation of
something. The idea, insofar as it represents something, is said to have an
objective reality. It is the relation of the idea to the object that it represents.
Thus we start from a quite simple thing: the idea is a mode of thought defined
by its representational character. This already gives us a first point of departure
for distinguishing idea and affect (affectus) because we call affect any mode of
thought which doesn't represent anything. So what does that mean? Take at
random what anybody would call affect or feeling, a hope for example, a pain,
a love, this is not representational. There is an idea of the loved thing, to be
sure, there is an idea of something hoped for, but hope as such or love as such
represents nothing, strictly nothing.
Every mode of thought insofar as it is non-representational will be termed
affect. A volition, a will implies, in all rigor, that I will something, and what I will
is an object of representation, what I will is given in an idea, but the fact of
willing is not an idea, it is an affect because it is a non-representational mode
of thought. That works, it's not complicated.
He thereby immediately infers a primacy of the idea over the affect, and this is
common to the whole 17th century, so we have not yet entered into what is
specific to Spinoza. There is a primacy of the idea over the affect for the very
simple reason that in order to love it's necessary to have an idea, however
confused it may be, however indeterminate it may be, of what is loved.
In order to will it's necessary to have an idea, however confused or
indeterminate it may be, of what is willed. Even when one says I don't know
what I feel, there is a representation, confused though it may be, of the object.
There is a confused idea. There is thus a primacy, which is chronological and
logical at the same time, of the idea over the affect, which is to say a primacy
of representational modes of thought over non-representational modes. It
would be a completely disastrous reversal of meaning if the reader were to
transform this logical primacy through reduction. That the affect presupposes
the idea above all does not mean that it is reduced to the idea or to a
combination of ideas. We must proceed from the following point, that idea and
affect are two kinds of modes of thought which differ in nature, which are

irreducible to one another but simply taken up in a relation such that affect
presupposes an idea, however confused it may be. This is the first point.
Now a second, less superficial way of presenting the idea-affect relation. You
will recall that we started from a very simple characteristic of the idea. The
idea is a thought insofar as it is representational, a mode of thought insofar as
it is representational, and in this sense we will speak of the objective reality of
an idea. Yet an idea not only has an objective reality but, following the hallowed
terminology, it also has a formal reality. What is the formal reality of the idea?
Once we say that the objective reality is the reality of the idea insofar as it
represents something, the formal reality of the idea, shall we say, isbut then
in one blow it becomes much more complicated and much more interesting
the reality of the idea insofar as it is itself something.
The objective reality of the idea of the triangle is the idea of the triangle insofar
as it represents the triangle as thing, but the idea of the triangle is itself
something; moreover, insofar as it is something, I can form an idea of this
thing, I can always form an idea of the idea. I would say therefore that not only
is every idea somethingto say that every idea is the idea of something is to
say that every idea has an objective reality, it represents somethingbut I
would also say that the idea has a formal reality since it is itself something
insofar as it is an idea.
What does this mean, the formal reality of the idea? We will not be able to
continue very much further at this level, we are going to have to put this aside.
It's necessary just to add that this formal reality of the idea will be what
Spinoza very often terms a certain degree of reality or of perfection that the
idea has as such. As such, every idea has a certain degree of reality or
perfection. Undoubtedly this degree of reality or perfection is connected to the
object that it represents, but it is not to be confused with the object: that is, the
formal reality of the idea, the thing the idea is or the degree of reality or
perfection it possesses in itself, is its intrinsic character. The objective reality of
the idea, that is the relation of the idea to the object it represents, is its
extrinsic character; the extrinsic character and the intrinsic character may be
fundamentally connected, but they are not the same thing. The idea of God
and the idea of a frog have different objective realities, that is they do not
represent the same thing, but at the same time they do not have the same
intrinsic reality, they do not have the same formal reality, that is one of them
you sense this quite wellhas a degree of reality infinitely greater than the
other's. The idea of God has a formal reality, a degree of reality or intrinsic
perfection infinitely greater than the idea of a frog, which is the idea of a finite
thing.
If you understood that, you've understood almost everything. There is thus a
formal reality of the idea, which is to say the idea is something in itself; this

formal reality is its intrinsic character and is the degree of reality or perfection
that it envelopes in itself.
Just now, when I defined the idea by its objective reality or its representational
character, I opposed the idea immediately to the affect by saying that affect is
precisely a mode of thought which has no representational character. Now I
come to define the idea by the following: every idea is something, not only is it
the idea of something but it is something, that is to say it has a degree of
reality which is proper to it. Thus at this second level I must discover a
fundamental difference between idea and affect. What happens concretely in
life? Two things happen... And here, it's curious how Spinoza employs a
geometrical method, you know that the Ethics is presented in the form of
propositions, demonstrations, etc.... and yet at the same time, the more
mathematical it is, the more extraordinarily concrete.
Everything I am saying and all these commentaries on the idea and the affect
refer to books two and three of the Ethics. In books two and three, he makes for
us a kind of geometrical portrait of our life which, it seems to me, is very very
convincing. This geometrical portrait consists largely in telling us that our ideas
succeed each other constantly: one idea chases another, one idea replaces
another idea for example, in an instant. A perception is a certain type of idea,
we will see why shortly. Just now I had my head turned there, I saw that corner
of the room, I turn...it's another idea; I walk down a street where I know people,
I say Hello Pierre and then I turn and say Hello Paul. Or else things change:
I look at the sun, and the sun little by little disappears and I find myself in the
dark of night; it is thus a series of successions, of coexistences of ideas,
successions of ideas. But what also happens? Our everyday life is not made up
solely of ideas which succeed each other. Spinoza employs the term
automaton: we are, he says, spiritual automata, that is to say it is less we
who have the ideas than the ideas which are affirmed in us. What also
happens, apart from this succession of ideas? There is something else, that is,
something in me never ceases to vary. There is a regime of variation which is
not the same thing as the succession of ideas themselves.
Variations must serve us for what we want to do, the trouble is that he
doesn't employ the word... What is this variation? I take up my example again:
in the street I run into Pierre, for whom I feel hostility, I pass by and say hello to
Pierre, or perhaps I am afraid of him, and then I suddenly see Paul who is very
very charming, and I say hello to Paul reassuredly and contentedly. Well. What
is it? In part, succession of two ideas, the idea of Pierre and the idea of Paul;
but there is something else: a variation also operates in meon this point,
Spinoza's words are very precise and I cite them: (variation) of my force of
existing, or another word he employs as a synonym: vis existendi, the force of
existing, or potentia agendi, the power [puissance] of acting, and these
variations are perpetual.

I would say that for Spinoza there is a continuous variationand this is what it
means to existof the force of existing or of the power of acting.
How is this linked to my stupid example, which comes, however, from Spinoza,
Hello Pierre, hello Paul? When I see Pierre who displeases me, an idea, the
idea of Pierre, is given to me; when I see Paul who pleases me, the idea of Paul
is given to me. Each one of these ideas in relation to me has a certain degree
of reality or perfection. I would say that the idea of Paul, in relation to me, has
more intrinsic perfection than the idea of Pierre since the idea of Paul contents
me and the idea of Pierre upsets me. When the idea of Paul succeeds the idea
of Pierre, it is agreeable to say that my force of existing or my power of acting
is increased or improved; when, on the contrary, the situation is reversed,
when after having seen someone who made me joyful I then see someone who
makes me sad, I say that my power of acting is inhibited or obstructed. At this
level we don't even know anymore if we are still working within terminological
conventions or if we are already moving into something much more concrete.
I would say that, to the extent that ideas succeed each other in us, each one
having its own degree of perfection, its degree of reality or intrinsic perfection,
the one who has these ideas, in this case me, never stops passing from one
degree of perfection to another. In other words there is a continuous variation
in the form of an increase-diminution-increase-diminution of the power of
acting or the force of existing of someone according to the ideas which s/he
has. Feel how beauty shines through this difficult exercise. This representation
of existence already isn't bad, it really is existence in the street, it's necessary
to imagine Spinoza strolling about, and he truly lives existence as this kind of
continuous variation: to the extent that an idea replaces another, I never cease
to pass from one degree of perfection to another, however miniscule the
difference, and this kind of melodic line of continuous variation will define
affect (affectus) in its correlation with ideas and at the same time in its
difference in nature from ideas. We account for this difference in nature and
this correlation. It's up to you to say whether it agrees with you or not. We have
got an entirely more solid definition of affectus; affectus in Spinoza is variation
(he is speaking through my mouth; he didn't say it this way because he died
too young...), continuous variation of the force of existing, insofar as this
variation is determined by the ideas one has.
Consequently, in a very important text at the end of book three, which bears
the title general definition of affectus, Spinoza tells us: above all do not
believe that affectus as I conceive it depends upon a comparison of ideas. He
means that the idea indeed has to be primary in relation to the affect, the idea
and the affect are two things which differ in nature, the affect is not reducible
to an intellectual comparison of ideas, affect is constituted by the lived
transition or lived passage from one degree of perfection to another, insofar as
this passage is determined by ideas; but in itself it does not consist in an idea,

but rather constitutes affect. When I pass from the idea of Pierre to the idea of
Paul, I say that my power of acting is increased; when I pass from the idea of
Paul to the idea of Pierre, I say that my power of acting is diminished. Which
comes down to saying that when I see Pierre, I am affected with sadness; when
I see Paul, I am affected with joy. And on this melodic line of continuous
variation constituted by the affect, Spinoza will assign two poles: joy-sadness,
which for him will be the fundamental passions. Sadness will be any passion
whatsoever which involves a diminution of my power of acting, and joy will be
any passion involving an increase in my power of acting. This conception will
allow Spinoza to become aware, for example, of a quite fundamental moral and
political problem which will be his way of posing the political problem to
himself: how does it happen that people who have power [pouvoir], in whatever
domain, need to affect us in a sad way? The sad passions as necessary.
Inspiring sad passions is necessary for the exercise of power. And Spinoza says,
in the Theological-Political Treatise, that this is a profound point of connection
between the despot and the priestthey both need the sadness of their
subjects. Here you understand well that he does not take sadness in a vague
sense, he takes sadness in the rigorous sense he knew to give it: sadness is the
affect insofar as it involves the diminution of my power of acting.
When I said, in my first attempt to differentiate idea and affect (that the idea is
the mode of thought which represents nothing [?]), that the affect is the mode
of thought which represents nothing, I said in technical terms that this is not
only a simple nominal definition, nor, if you prefer, only an external or extrinsic
one.
In the second attempt, when I say on the other hand that the idea is that which
has in itself an intrinsic reality, and the affect is the continuous variation or
passage from one degree of reality to another or from one degree of perfection
to another, we are no longer in the domain of so-called nominal definitions,
here we already acquire a real definition, that is a definition which, at the same
time as it defines the thing, also shows the very possibility of this thing. What is
important is that you see how, according to Spinoza, we are fabricated as such
spiritual automata. As such spiritual automata, within us there is the whole
time of ideas which succeed one another, and in according with this succession
of ideas, our power of acting or force of existing is increased or diminished in a
continuous manner, on a continuous line, and this is what we call affectus, it's
what we call existing.
Affectus is thus the continuous variation of someone's force of existing, insofar
as this variation is determined by the ideas that s/he has. But once again,
determined does not mean that the variation is reducible to the ideas that
one has, since the idea that I have does not account for its consequence, that
is the fact that it increases my power of acting or on the contrary diminishes it
in relation to the idea that I had at the time, and it's not a question of

comparison, it's a question of a kind of slide, a fall or rise in the power of

acting. No problem, no question.
For Spinoza there will be three sorts of ideas. For the moment, we will no longer
speak of affectus, of affect, since in effect the affect is determined by the ideas
which one has, it's not reducible to the ideas one has, it is determined by the
ideas one has; thus what is essential is to see which ideas are the ones which
determine the affects, always keeping in mind the fact that the affect is not
reducible to the ideas one has, it's absolutely irreducible. It's of another order.
The three kinds of ideas that Spinoza distinguishes are affection (affectio)
ideas; we'll see that affectio, as opposed to affectus, is a certain kind of idea.
There would thus have been in the first place affectio ideas, secondly we arrive
at the ideas that Spinoza calls notions, and thirdly, for a small number of us
because it's very difficult, we come to have essence ideas. Before everything
else there are these three sorts of ideas.
What is an affection (affectio)? I see your faces literally fall... yet this is all
rather amusing. At first sight, and to stick to the letter of Spinoza's text, this
has nothing to do with an idea, but it has nothing to do with an affect either.
Affectus was determined as the continuous variation of the power of acting. An
affection is what? In a first determination, an affection is the following: it's a
state of a body insofar as it is subject to the action of another body. What does
this mean? I feel the sun on me, or else A ray of sunlight falls upon you; it's
an affection of your body. What is an affection of your body? Not the sun, but
the action of the sun or the effect of the sun on you. In other words an effect,
or the action that one body produces on another, once it's noted that Spinoza,
on the basis of reasons from his Physics, does not believe in action at a
distance, action always implies a contact, and is even a mixture of bodies.
Affectio is a mixture of two bodies, one body which is said to act on another,
and the other receives the trace of the first. Every mixture of bodies will be
termed an affection. Spinoza infers from this that affectio, being defined as a
mixture of bodies, indicates the nature of the modified body, the nature of the
affectionate or affected body, the affection indicates the nature of the affected
body much more than it does the nature of the affecting body. He analyses his
famous example, I see the sun as a flat disk situated at a distance of three
hundred feet. That's an affectio, or at very least the perception of an affectio.
It's clear that my perception of the sun indicates much more fully the
constitution of my body, the way in which my body is constituted, than it does
the way in which the sun is constituted. I perceive the sun in this fashion by
virtue of the state of my visual perceptions. A fly will perceive the sun in
another fashion.
In order to preserve the rigor of his terminology, Spinoza will say that an
affectio indicates the nature of the modified body rather than the nature of the
modifying body, and it envelopes the nature of the modifying body. I would say

that the first sort of ideas for Spinoza is every mode of thought which
represents an affection of the body...which is to say the mixture of one body
with another body, or the trace of another body on my body will be termed an
idea of affection. It's in this sense that one could say that it is an affection-idea,
the first type of ideas. And this first type of ideas answers to what Spinoza
terms the first kind of knowledge [connaissance], the lowest.
Why is it the lowest? It's obvious that it's the lowest because these ideas of
affection know [connaissent] things only by their effects: I feel the affection of
the sun on me, the trace of the sun on me. It's the effect of the sun on my
body. But the causes, that is, that which is my body, that which is the body of
the sun, and the relation between these two bodies such that the one produces
a particular effect on the other rather than something else, of these things I
know [sais] absolutely nothing. Let's take another example: The sun melts
wax and hardens clay. These points are not nothing. They're ideas of affectio. I
see the wax which flows, and right beside it I see the clay which hardens; this is
an affection of the wax and an affection of the clay, and I have an idea of these
affections, I perceive effects. By virtue of what corporeal constitution does the
clay harden under the sun's action? As long as I remain in the perception of
affection, I know nothing of it. One could say that affection-ideas are
representations of effects without their causes, and it's precisely these that
Spinoza calls inadequate ideas. These are ideas of mixture separated from the
causes of the mixture.
And in effect, the fact that, at the level of affection-ideas, we have only
inadequate and confused ideas is well understood for what are affection-ideas
in the order of life? And doubtless, alas, many among us who have not done
enough philosophy live only like that. Once, only once, Spinoza employs a Latin
word which is quite strange but very important: occursus. Literally this is the
encounter. To the extent that I have affection-ideas I live chance encounters: I
walk in the street, I see Pierre who does not please me, it's the function of the
constitution of his body and his soul and the constitution of my body and my
soul. Someone who displeases me, body and soul, what does that mean? I
would like to make you understand why Spinoza has had such a strong
reputation for materialism even though he never ceases to speak of the mind
and the soul, a reputation for atheism even though he never ceases to speak of
God, it's quite curious. One sees quite well why people have said that this is
purely materialist. When I say This one does not please me, that means,
literally, that the effect of his body on mine, the effect of his soul on mine
affects me disagreeably, it is the mixture of bodies or mixture of souls. There is
a noxious mixture or a good mixture, as much at the level of the body as at
that of the soul.
It's exactly like this: I don't like cheese. What does that mean, I don't like
cheese? That means that it mixes with my body in a manner by which I am

modified disagreeably, it cannot mean anything else. Thus there isn't any
reason to make up differences between spiritual sympathies and bodily
relations. In I don't like cheese there is also an affair of the soul, but in Pierre
or Paul does not please me there is also an affair of the body, all this is
tantamount to the same thing. To put it simply, why is this a confused idea, this
affection-idea, this mixtureit is inevitably confused and inadequate since I
don't know absolutely, at this level, by virtue of what and how the body or the
soul of Pierre is constituted, in what way it does not agree with mine, or in what
way his body does not agree with mine. I can merely say that it does not agree
with me, but by virtue of what constitution of the two bodies, of the affecting
body and the affected body, of the body which acts and the body which is
subjected, I can at this level know nothing. As Spinoza says, these are
consequences separated from their premises or, if you prefer, it is a knowledge
[connaissance] of effects independent of the knowledge of causes. Thus they
are chance encounters. What can happen in chance encounters?
But what is a body? I'm not going to develop that, that may be the object of a
special course. The theory of what a body or even a soul is, which comes down
to the same thing, is found in book two of the Ethics. For Spinoza, the
individuality of a body is defined by the following: it's when a certain composite
or complex relation (I insist on that point, quite composite, very complex) of
movement and rest is preserved through all the changes which affect the parts
of the body. It's the permanence of a relation of movement and rest through all
the changes which affect all the parts, taken to infinity, of the body under
consideration. You understand that a body is necessarily composite to infinity.
My eye, for example, my eye and the relative constancy of my eye are defined
by a certain relation of movement and rest through all the modifications of the
diverse parts of my eye; but my eye itself, which already has an infinity of
parts, is one part among the parts of my body, the eye in its turn is a part of
the face and the face, in its turn, is a part of my body, etc....thus you have all
sorts of relations which will be combined with one another to form an
individuality of such and such degree. But at each one of these levels or
degrees, individuality will be defined by a certain relation composed of
movement and rest.
What can happen if my body is made this way, a certain relation of movement
and rest which subsumes an infinity of parts? Two things can happen: I eat
something that I like, or else another example, I eat something and collapse,
poisoned. Literally speaking, in the one case I had a good encounter and in the
other I had a bad one. All this is in the category of occursus. When I have a bad
encounter, this means that the body which is mixed with mine destroys my
constituent relation, or tends to destroy one of my subordinate relations. For
example, I eat something and get a stomach ache which does not kill me; this
has destroyed or inhibited, compromised one of my sub-relations, one of the
relations that compose me. Then I eat something and I die. This has

decomposed my composite relation, it has decomposed the complex relation

which defined my individuality. It hasn't simply destroyed one of my
subordinate relations which composed one of my sub-individualities, it has
destroyed the characteristic relation of my body. And the opposite happens
when I eat something that agrees with me.
Spinoza asks, what is evil? We find this in his correspondence, in the letters he
sent to a young Dutchman who was as evil as can be. This Dutchman didn't like
Spinoza and attacked him constantly, demanding of him, Tell me what you
think evil is. You know that at that time, letters were very important and
philosophers sent many of them. Spinoza, who is very very good-natured,
believes at first that this is a young man who wants to be taught and, little by
little, he comes to understand that this is not the case at all, that the
Dutchman wants his skin. From letter to letter, the good Christian Blyenberg's
anger swells and he ends by saying to Spinoza, But you are the devil!
Spinoza says that evil is not difficult, evil is a bad encounter. Encountering a
body which mixes badly with your own. Mixing badly means mixing in
conditions such that one of your subordinate or constituent relations is either
threatened, compromised or even destroyed.
More and more gay, wanting to show that he is right, Spinoza analyzes the
example of Adam in his own way. In the conditions in which we live, we seem
absolutely condemned to have only one sort of idea, affection-ideas. By means
of what miracle could one move away from these actions of bodies that do not
wait for us in order to exist, how could one rise to a knowledge [connaissance]
of causes? For the moment we see clearly that all that is given to us is ideas of
affection, ideas of mixture. For the moment we see clearly that since birth we
have been condemned to chance encounters, so things aren't going well. What
does this imply? It already implies a fanatical reaction against Descartes since
Spinoza will affirm strongly, in book two, that we can only know [connatre]
ourselves and we can only know external bodies by the affections that the
external bodies produce on our own. For those who can recall a little Descartes,
this is the basic anti-cartesian proposition since it excludes every apprehension
of the thinking thing by itself, that is it excludes all possibility of the cogito. I
only ever know the mixtures of bodies and I only know myself by way of the
action of other bodies on me and by way of mixtures.
This is not only anti-cartesianism but also anti-Christianity, and why? Because
one of the fundamental points of theology is the immediate perfection of the
first created man, which is what's called in theology the theory of Adamic
perfection. Before he sinned, Adam was created as perfect as he could be, so
then the story of his sin is precisely the story of the Fall, but the Fall
presupposes an Adam who is perfect insofar as he is a created thing. Spinoza
finds this idea very amusing. His idea is that this isn't possible; supposing that
one is given the idea of a first man, one can only be given this idea as that of

the most powerless being, the most imperfect there could be since the first
man can only exist in chance encounters and in the action of other bodies on
his own. Thus, in supposing that Adam exists, he exists in a mode of absolute
imperfection and inadequacy, he exists in the mode of a little baby who is
given over to chance encounters, unless he is in a protected milieubut I've
said too much. What would that be, a protected milieu?
Evil is a bad encounter, which means what? Spinoza, in his correspondence
with the Dutchman, tells him, You always relate to me the example of God
who forbade Adam from eating the apple, and you cite this as the example of a
moral law. The first prohibition. Spinoza tells him, But this is not at all what
happens, and then Spinoza relates the entire story of Adam in the form of a
poisoning and an intoxication. What happened in reality? God never forbade
whatever it might be to Adam, He granted him a revelation. Adam foresaw the
noxious effect that the body of the apple would have on the constitution of his
own body. In other words the apple is a poison for Adam. The body of the apple
exists under such a characteristic relation, such is its constitution, that it can
only act on Adam's body by decomposing the relation of Adam's body. And if he
was wrong not to listen to God, this is not in the sense that he disobeyed in this
matter, but that he didn't comprehend anything. This situation also exists
among animals, certain of which have an instinct that turns them away from
what is poisonous to them, but there are others which don't have this instinct.
When I have an encounter such that the relation of the body which modifies
me, which acts on me, is combined with my own relation, with the
characteristic relation of my own body, what happens? I would say that my
power of acting is increased; at least it is increased with regard to this
particular relation. When on the contrary I have an encounter such that the
characteristic relation of the body which modifies me compromises or destroys
one of my relations, or my characteristic relation, I would say that my power of
acting is diminished or even destroyed. We rediscover here our two
fundamental affects or affectus: sadness and joy. To recapitulate everything at
this level, as a function of ideas of affection which I have, there are two sorts of
ideas of affection: the idea of an effect which benefits or favors my own
characteristic relation, and second, the idea of an effect which compromises or
destroys my own characteristic relation. To these two types of ideas of affection
will correspond the two movements of variation in the affectus, the two poles of
variation: in one case my power of acting is increased and I undergo [prouve]
an affectus of joy, and in the other case my power of acting is diminished and I
undergo an affectus of sadness.
Spinoza will engender all the passions, in their details, on the basis of these
two fundamental affects: joy as an increase in the power of acting, sadness as
a diminution or destruction of the power of acting. This comes down to saying
that each thing, body or soul, is defined by a certain characteristic, complex
relation, but I would also say that each thing, body or soul, is defined by a

certain power [pouvoir] of being affected. Everything happens as if each one of

us had a certain power of being affected. If you consider beasts, Spinoza will be
firm in telling us that what counts among animals is not at all the genera or
species; genera and species are absolutely confused notions, abstract ideas.
What counts is the question, of what is a body capable? And thereby he sets
out one of the most fundamental questions in his whole philosophy (before him
there had been Hobbes and others) by saying that the only question is that we
don't even know [savons] what a body is capable of, we prattle on about the
soul and the mind and we don't know what a body can do. But a body must be
defined by the ensemble of relations which compose it, or, what amounts to
exactly the same thing, by its power of being affected. As long as you don't
know what power a body has to be affected, as long as you learn like that, in
chance encounters, you will not have the wise life, you will not have wisdom.
Knowing what you are capable of. This is not at all a moral question, but above
all a physical question, as a question to the body and to the soul. A body has
something fundamentally hidden: we could speak of the human species, the
human genera, but this won't tell us what is capable of affecting our body,
what is capable of destroying it. The only question is the power of being
affected. What distinguishes a frog from an ape? It's not the specific or generic
characteristics, Spinoza says, rather it's the fact that they are not capable of
the same affections. Thus it will be necessary to make, for each animal,
veritable charts of affects, the affects of which a beast is capable. And likewise
for men: the affects of which man is capable. We should notice at this moment
that, depending on the culture, depending on the society, men are not all
capable of the same affects.
It's well known that one method by which certain governments exterminated
the Indians of South America was to have left, on trails the Indians traveled,
clothing from influenza victims, clothing gathered in the infirmaries, because
the Indians couldn't stand the affect influenza. No need even of machine guns,
they dropped like flies. It's the same with us, in the conditions of forest life we
risk not living very long. Thus the human genera, species or even race hasn't
any importance, Spinoza will say, as long as you haven't made the list of
affects of which someone is capable, in the strongest sense of the word
capable, comprising the maladies of which s/he is capable as well. It's
obvious that the racehorse and the draft horse are the same species, two
varieties of the same species, yet their affects are very different, their maladies
are absolutely different, their capacities of being affected are completely
different and, from this point of view, we must say that a draft horse is closer to
an ox than to a racehorse. Thus an ethological chart of affects is quite different
from a generic or specific determination of animals.
You see that the power of being affected can be fulfilled in two ways. When I
am poisoned, my power of being affected is absolutely fulfilled, but it's fulfilled

in such a way that my power of acting tends toward zero, which is to say it's
inhibited. Inversely, when I undergo joy, that is to say when I encounter a body
which combines its relation with my own, my power of being affected is equally
fulfilled and my power of acting increases and tends toward...what?
In the case of a bad encounter, all my force of existing (vis existendi) is
concentrated, tending toward the following goal: to invest the trace of the body
which affected me in order to reject the effect of this body, so much so that my
power of acting is diminished accordingly. These are very concrete things: you
have a headache and you say, I can't even read anymore; this means that
your force of existing invests the trace of the migraine so fully, it implies
changes in one of your subordinate relations, it invests the trace of your
migraine so fully that your power of acting is diminished accordingly. On the
contrary, when you say, I feel really good, and you are content, you are also
content because bodies are mixed with you in proportions and under conditions
which are favorable to your relation; at that moment the power of the body
which affects you is combined with your own in such a way that your power of
acting is increased. So although in the two cases your power of being affected
will be completely actualized [effectu], it can be actualized in such a way that
the power of acting diminishes to infinity or alternatively the power of acting
increases to infinity.
To infinity? Is this true? Evidently not, since at our level the forces of existing,
the powers [pouvoirs] of being affected and the powers [puissances] of acting
are inevitably finite. Only God has an absolutely infinite power [puissance].
Right, but within certain limits I will not cease to pass via these variations of
the power of acting as a function of the ideas I have, I will not cease to follow
the line of continuous variation of the affectus as a function of affection-ideas
that I have and the encounters that I have, in such a way that, at each instant,
my power of being affected is completely actualized, completely fulfilled.
Fulfilled, simply, in the mode of sadness or the mode of joy. Of course also both
at once, since it's well understood that, in the sub-relations which compose us,
a part of ourselves can be composed of sadness and another part of ourselves
can be composed of joy. There are local sadnesses and local joys. For example,
Spinoza gives the following definition of tickling: a local joy; this does not mean
that everything is joy in the tickling, it can be a joy of a nature that implies a
coexistant irritation of another nature, an irritation which is sadness: my power
of being affected tends to be exceeded [dpass]. Nothing that exceeds his/her
power of being affected is good for a person. A power of being affected is really
an intensity or threshold of intensity.
What Spinoza really wants to do is to define the essence of someone in an
intensive fashion as an intensive quantity. As long as you don't know your
intensities you risk the bad encounter and you will have to say, it's beautiful,
both the excess and the immoderation..no immoderation at all, there's only

failure, nothing other than failure. Advice for overdoses. This is precisely the
phenomenon of the power of being affected which is exceeded in a total
destruction.
Certainly in my generation, on average, we were much more cultured or
trained in philosophy, when we used to do it, and on the other hand we had a
very striking kind of lack of culture in other domains, in music, painting,
cinema.
I have the impression that for many among you the relation has changed, that
is to say that you know absolutely nothing, nothing in philosophy and you
know, or rather you have a concrete grasp of things like a color, you know what
a sound is or what an image is. A philosophy is a kind of synthesizer of
concepts, creating a concept is not at all ideological. A concept is a created
thing.
What I've defined up to now is solely the increase and diminution of the power
of acting, and whether the power of acting increases or diminishes, the
corresponding affect (affectus) is always a passion. Whether it be a joy which
increases my power of acting or a sadnesss which diminishes my power of
acting, in both cases these are passions: joyful passions or sad passions. Yet
again Spinoza denounces a plot in the universe of those who are interested in
affecting us with sad passions. The priest has need of the sadness of his
subjects, he needs these subjects to feel themselves guilty. The auto-affections
or active affects assume that we possess our power of acting and that, on such
and such a point, we have left the domain of the passions in order to enter the
domain of actions. This is what remains for us to see.
How could we leave behind affection-ideas, how could we leave behind the
passive affects which consist in increase or diminution of our power of acting,
how could we leave behind the world of inadequate ideas once we're told that
our condition seems to condemn us strictly to this world. On that score we
must read the Ethics as preparing a kind of dramatic turn. It's going to speak to
us of active affects where there are no longer passions, where the power of
acting is conquered instead of passing by all these continuous variations. Here,
there's a very strict point. There's a fundamental difference between Ethics and
Morality. Spinoza doesn't make up a morality, for a very simply reason: he
never asks what we must do, he always asks what we are capable of, what's in
our power, ethics is a problem of power, never a problem of duty. In this sense
Spinoza is profoundly immoral. Regarding the moral problem, good and evil, he
has a happy nature because he doesn't even comprehend what this means.
What he comprehends are good encounters, bad encounters, increases and
diminutions of power. Thus he makes an ethics and not at all a morality. This is
why he so struck Nietzsche.

We are completely enclosed in this world of affection-ideas and these affective

continuous variations of joy and sadness, so sometimes my power of acting
increases, okay, sometimes it diminishes; but whether it increases or
diminishes I remain within passion because, in both cases, I do not possess it:
I'm still separated from my power of acting. So when my power of acting
increases, it means that I am then relatively less separated, and inversely, but I
am still formally separated from my power of acting, I do not possess it. In
other words, I am not the cause of my own affects, and since I'm not the cause
of my own affects, they are produced in me by something else: I am therefore
passive, I'm in the world of passion.
But there are notion-ideas and essence-ideas. Already at the level of notionideas a kind of escape from this world is going to appear. One is completely
smothered, enclosed in a world of absolute impotence, even when my power of
acting increases it's on a segment of variation, nothing guarantees me that, at
the street corner, I'm not going to receive a great blow to the head and that my
power of acting is going to fall again.
You recall that an affection-idea is a mixture, that is to say the idea of an effect
of a body on mine. A notion-idea no longer concerns the effect of another body
on mine, it's an idea which concerns and which has for its object the agreement
or disagreement of the characteristic relations between two bodies. If there is
such an ideawe don't know yet if there is one, but we can always define
something even if it means concluding that it can't existit's what we will call
a nominal definition. I would say that the nominal definition of the notion is that
it's an idea which, instead of representing the effect of a body on another, that
is to say the mixture of two bodies, represents the internal agreement or
disagreement of the characteristic relations of the two bodies.
An example: if I knew enough about the characteristic relation of the body
named arsenic and the characteristic relation of the human body, I could form
a notion of the disagreement of these two relations to the point that the
arsenic, under its characteristic relation, destroys the characteristic relation of
my body. I am poisoned, I die.
You see that the notion, differing from the idea of affection, instead of being the
seizure of the extrinsic relation of one body with another or the effect of one
body on another, the notion is raised to the comprehension of the cause, that is
if the mixture has such and such effect, this is by virtue of the nature of the
relation of the two bodies considered and of the manner in which the relation of
one of the bodies is combined with the relation of the other body. There is
always a composition of relations. When I am poisoned, the body of arsenic has
induced the parts of my body to enter into a relation other than the one which
characterizes me. At that moment, the parts of my body enter into a new
relation induced by the arsenic, which is perfectly combined with the arsenic;

the arsenic is happy since it feeds on me. The arsenic undergoes a joyful
passion because, as Spinoza says so well, each body has a soul. Thus the
arsenic is joyful, but me, evidently I'm not. It has induced the parts of my body
to enter into a relation which is combined with its own, the arsenic's. Me, I'm
sad, I'm heading toward death. You see that the notion, if one can reach it, is a
formidable thing.
We are not far from an analytical geometry. A notion is not at all abstract, it's
quite concrete: this body here, that body there. If I had the characteristic
relation of the soul and of the body of that which I say displeases me, in
relation to my characteristic relation in myself, I would comprehend everything,
I would know by causes instead of knowing only by effects separated from their
causes. At that moment I would have an adequate idea. Just as if I understood
why someone pleases me. I took as an example digestive relations, but we
wouldn't have to change a line for amorous relations. It's not at all that Spinoza
conceived love like he conceived digestion, he conceived digestion like love as
well. Take a couple la Strindberg, this kind of decomposition of relations and
then they are recombined in order to begin again. What is this continuous
variation of the affectus, and how does a certain disagreement agree with
certain people? Why can certain people live only in a certain indefinitely
repeated domestic quarrel? They emerge from it as if it had been a bath of cool
water for them.
You understand the difference between a notion-idea and an affection-idea. A
notion-idea is inevitably adequate since it's a knowledge [connaissance] by
causes. Spinoza not only uses the term notion here to qualify this second sort
of idea, but he also uses the term common notion. The word is quite
ambiguous: does it mean common to all minds? Yes and no, it's very
meticulous in Spinoza. In any case, don't ever confuse a common notion and an
abstraction. He always defines a common notion like this: it's the idea of
something which is common to all bodies or to several bodiesat least two
and which is common to the whole and to the part. Therefore there surely are
common notions which are common to all minds, but they're common to all
minds only to the extent that they are first the idea of something which is
common to all bodies. Therefore these are not at all abstract notions. What is
common to all bodies? For example, being in movement or at rest. Movement
and rest will be objects of notions said to be common to all bodies. Therefore
there are common notions which designate something common to all bodies.
There are also common notions which designate something common to two
bodies or to two souls, for example, someone I love. Once again the common
notion is not abstract, it has nothing to do with species or genera, it's actually
the statement [nonc] of what is common to several bodies or to all bodies;
or, since there's no single body which is not itself made up of several, one can
say that there are common things or common notions in each body. Hence we

fall back upon the question: how can one leave this situation which condemned
us to mixtures?
Here Spinoza's texts are very complicated. One can only conceive this
departure in the following manner: broadly speaking, when I am affected in
chance encounters, either I am affected with sadness or with joy. When I am
affected with sadness, my power of acting diminishes, which is to say that I am
further separated from this power. When I am affected with joy, it increases,
which is to say that I am less separated from this power. Good. If you consider
yourself as affected with sadness, I believe that everything is wretched, there is
no longer an exit for one simple reason: nothing in sadness, which diminishes
your power of acting, can induce you from within sadness to form a notion
common to something which would be common to the bodies which affect you
with sadness and to your own. For one very simple reason, that the body which
affects you with sadness only affects you with sadness to the extent that it
affects you in a relation which does not agree with your own. Spinoza means
something very simple, that sadness makes no one intelligent. In sadness one
is wretched. It's for this reason that the powers-that-be [pouvoirs] need
subjects to be sad. Agony has never been a cultural game of intelligence or
vivacity. As long as you have a sad affect, a body acts on yours, a soul acts on
yours in conditions and in a relation which do not agree with yours. At that
point, nothing in sadness can induce you to form the common notion, that is to
say the idea of a something in common between two bodies and two souls.
What he's saying is full of wisdom. This is why thinking of death is the most
base thing. He is opposed to the whole philosophical tradition which is a
meditation on death. His formula is that philosophy is a meditation on life and
not on death. Obviously, because death is always a bad encounter.
Another case. You are affected with joy. Your power of acting is increased, this
doesn't mean that you possess it yet, but the fact that you are affected with joy
signifies and indicates that the body or soul which affects you thus affects you
in a relation which is combined with your own and which is combined with your
own, and that goes for the formula of love and the digestive formula. In an
affect of joy, therefore, the body which affects you is indicated as combining its
relation with your own and not as its relation decomposing your own. At that
point, something induces you to form a notion of what is common to the body
which affects you and to your own body, to the soul which affects you and to
your own soul. In this sense joy makes one intelligent. There we feel that it's a
curious thing, because, geometrical method or not, we grant him everything,
he can demonstrate it; but there is an obvious appeal to a kind of lived
experience. There's an obvious appeal to way of perceiving, and even more, to
a way of living. It's necessary to already have such a hatred of sad passions,
the list of sad passions in Spinoza is infinite, he goes so far as to say that every
idea of reward envelopes a sad passion, every idea of security envelopes a sad
passion, every idea of pride, guilt. It's one of the most marvelous moments in

the Ethics. The affects of joy are like a springboard, they make us pass through
something that we would never have been able to pass if there had only been
sadnesses. He solicits us to form the idea of what is common to the affecting
body and the affected body. This can fail, but it can also succeed and I become
intelligent.
Someone who becomes good in Latin at the same time that he becomes a
lover...this is seen in the classroom. What's it connected to? How does someone
make progress? One never makes progress on a homogeneous line, something
here makes us make progress down there, as if a small joy here had released a
trigger. Anew, the necessity of a map: what happened there that unblocked this
here? A small joy precipitates us into a world of concrete ideas which sweeps
out the sad affects or which is in the process of struggling, all of this makes up
part of the continuous variation. But at the same time, this joy propels us
somehow beyond the continuous variation, it makes us acquire at least the
potentiality of a common notion. It's necessary to conceive this very
concretely, these are quite local things. If you succeed in forming a common
notion, at whatever point you yourself have a relation with such a person or
such an animal, you say: I've finally understood something, I am less stupid
than yesterday. The I've understood that one says is sometimes the moment
in which you formed a common notion. You formed it quite locally, it didn't give
you all the common notions. Spinoza doesn't think at all like a rationalist,
among the rationalists there is the world of reason and there are the ideas. If
you have one, obviously you have all of them: you are reasonable. Spinoza
thinks that being reasonable, or being wise, is a problem of becoming, which
changes in a singular fashion the contents of the concept of reason. It's
necessary to know the encounters which agree with you. No one could ever say
that it's good for her/him when something exceeds her/his power of being
affected. The most beautiful thing is to live on the edges, at the limit of her/his
own power of being affected, on the condition that this be the joyful limit since
there is the limit of joy and the limit of sadness; but everything which exceeds
your power of being affected is ugly. Relatively ugly: what's good for flies is not
inevitably good for you... There is no longer any abstract notion, there isn't any
formula which is good for man in general. What counts is what your power is
for you. Lawrence said a directly Spinozist thing: an intensity which exceeds
your power of being affected is bad (posthumous writings). It's inevitable: a
blue that is too intense for my eyes will not make me say it's beautiful, it will
perhaps be beautiful for someone else. There's good for all, you tell me...Yes,
because the powers of being affected are combined.
To assume that there was a power of being affected which defined the power of
being affected of the whole universe is quite possible since all relations are
combined to infinity, but not in just any order. My relation doesn't combine with
that of arsenic, but what can this do? Obviously it does a lot to me, but at this
moment the parts of my body enter again into a new relation which is

combined with that of the arsenic. It's necessary to know in what order the
relations are combined. But if we knew in what order the relations of the whole
universe are combined, we could define a power of being affected of the whole
universe, which would be the cosmos, the world insofar as it's a body or a soul.
At this moment the whole world is only one single body following the order of
relations which are combined. At this moment you have, to speak precisely, a
universal power of being affected: God, who is the whole universe insofar as He
is its cause, has by nature a universal power of being affected. It's useless to
say that he's in the process of using the idea of God in a strange manner.
You undergo a joy, you feel that this joy concerns you, that it concerns
something important regarding your principal relations, your characteristic
relations. Here then it must serve you as a springboard, you form the notionidea: in what do the body which affects me and my own body agree? In what
do the soul which affects me and my own soul agree, from the point of view of
the composition of their relations, and no longer from the point of view of their
chance encounters. You do the opposite operation from what is generally done.
Generally people tend to summarize their unhappinesses, this is where
neurosis or depression begins, when we set out to figure the totals; oh shit,
there's this and there's that. Spinoza proposes the opposite: instead of
summarizing of our sadnesses, taking a local point of departure on a joy on the
condition that we feel that it truly concerns us. On that point one forms the
common notion, on that point one tries to win locally, to open up this joy. It's
the labor of life. One tries to diminish the respective share of sadnesses in
relation to the respective share of a joy, and one attempts the following
tremendous coup: one is sufficiently assured of common notions which refer to
relations of agreement between such and such body and my own, one will
attempt then to apply the same method to sadness, but one cannot do it on
the basis of sadness, that is to say one will attempt to form common notions by
which one will arrive at a comprehension of the vital manner in which such and
such body disagrees and no longer agrees. That becomes, no longer a
continuous variation, that becomes a bell curve.
You leave joyful passions, the increase in the power of acting; you make use of
them to form common notions of a first type, the notion of what there was in
common between the body which affected me with joy and my own body, you
open up to a maximum your living common notions and you descend once
again toward sadness, this time with common notions that you form in order to
comprehend in what way such a body disagrees with your own, such a soul
disagrees with your own.
At this moment you can already say that you are within the adequate idea
since, in effect, you have passed into the knowledge of causes. You can already
say that you are within philosophy. One single thing counts, the way of living.
One single thing counts, the meditation on life, and far from being a meditation

on death it's rather the operation which consists in making death only finally
affect the proportion that is relatively the smallest in me, that is, living it as a
bad encounter. It's simply well known that, to the extent that a body is tired,
the probabilities of bad encounters increase. It's a common notion, a common
notion of disagreement. As long as I'm young, death is truly something which
comes from outside, it's truly an extrinsic accident, except in the case of an
internal malady. There is no common notion, on the other hand it's true that
when a body ages, its power of acting diminishes: I can no longer do what I
could still do yesterday; this, this fascinates me in aging, this kind of diminution
of the power of acting. What is a clown, vitally speaking? It's precisely the type
that does not accept aging, he doesn't know how to age quickly enough. It's
not necessary to age too quickly because there's also another way of being a
clown: acting the old man. The more one ages the less one wants to have bad
encounters, but when one is young one leaps into the risk of the bad
encounter. The type which, to the extent that his power of acting diminishes as
a function of aging, his power of being affected varies, doesn't do it, continues
to act the young man, is fascinating. It's very sad. There's a fascinating
passage in one of Fitzgerald's novels (the water-ski episode [in Tender is the
Night]), there are ten pages of total beauty on not knowing how to age...You
know the spectacles which are not uncomfortable for the spectators
themselves.
Knowing how to age is arriving at the moment when the common notions must
make you comprehend in what way things and other bodies disagree with your
own. Then inevitably it will be necessary to find a new grace which will be that
of your age, above all not clinging to youth. It's a kind of wisdom. It's not the
good health which makes one say Live life as you please, it's no longer the
will to cling to life. Spinoza knew admirably well how to die, but he knew very
well what he was capable of, he knew how to say Piss off [merde] to the
other philosophers. Leibniz came to him to steal bits of manuscript in order to
say afterward that they were his own. There are very curious stories about this,
he was a dangerous man, Leibniz. I end by saying that at this second level, one
attains the notion-idea where relations are combined, and once again this is not
abstract since I've tried to say that it's an extraordinarily vital enterprise. One
has left the passions behind. One has acquired formal possession of the power
of acting. The formation of notions, which are not abstract ideas, which are
literally rules of life, gives me possession of the power of acting. The common
notions are the second kind of knowledge [connaissance]. In order to
understand the third it's necessary already to understand the second. Only
Spinoza has entered into the third kind. Above the common notions... You've
noticed that while the common notions are not abstract, they are collective,
they always refer to a multiplicity, but they're no less individual for that. They
are the ways in which such and such bodies agree, at the limit they are the

ways in which all bodies agree, but at that moment it's the whole world which
is an individuality. Thus the common notions are always individual.
Beyond even the compositions of relations, beyond the internal agreements
which define the common notions, there are the singular essences. What's the
difference? It would be necessary to say that, at the limit, the relation and
relations which characterize me express my singular essence, but nevertheless
it's not the same thing. Why? Because the relation which characterizes
me...what I'm saying here is not entirely in the text, but it's practically there...
The common notions or the relations which characterize me still concern the
extensive parts of my body. My body is composed of an infinity of parts
extended to the infinite, and these parts enter into such and such relations
which correspond to my essence but are not confused with my essence, for the
relations which characterize me are still rules under which are associated, in
movement and at rest, the extended parts of my body. Whereas the singular
essence is a degree of power [puissance], that is to say these are my
thresholds of intensity.
Between the lowest and the highest, between my birth and my death, these
are my intensive thresholds. What Spinoza calls singular essence, it seems to
me, is an intensive quality, as if each one of us were defined by a kind of
complex of intensities which refers to her/his essence, and also of relations
which regulate the extended parts, the extensive parts. So that, when I have
knowledge [connaissance] of notions, that is to say of relations of movement
and rest which regulate the agreement or disagreement of bodies from the
point of view of their extended parts, from the point of view of their extension, I
don't yet have full possession of my essence to the extent that it is intensity.
And God, what's that? When Spinoza defines God as absolutely infinite power
[puissance], he expresses himself well. All the terms that he explicitly employs:
degree, which in Latin is gradus, refers to a long tradition in medieval
philosophy. Gradus is the intensive quantity, in opposition to or differing from
the extensive parts. Thus it would be necessary to conceive the singular
essence of each one as this kind of intensity, or limit of intensity. It's singular
because, whether it be our community of genera or species, we are all human
for example, yet none of us has the same threshold.

It's quite curious to what extent philosophy, up to the end of the 17th century,
ultimately speaks to us, all the time, of God. And after all, Spinoza,

excommunicated Jew, is not the last to speak to us of God. And the first book of
his great work The Ethics is called Of God. And from all of them, whether it's
Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, we get the impression that the boundary
between philosophy and theology is extremely vague.
Why is philosophy so compromised with God? And right up to the revolutionary
coup of the 18th century philosophers. Is it a dishonest compromise
[compromission] or something a little purer? We could say that thought, until
the end of the 17th century, must take considerable account of the demands of
the Church, thus it's clearly forced to take many religious themes into account.
But one feels quite strongly that this is much too easy; we could just as well
say that, until this era, thought's lot is somewhat linked to that of a religious
feeling.
I'm going back to an analogy with painting because it's true that painting is full
of images of God. My question is: is it sufficient to say that this is an inevitable
constraint in this era? There are two possible answers. The first is yes, this is an
inevitable constraint of the era which refers to the conditions of art in this era.
Or to say, a bit more positively, that it's because there's a religious feeling from
which the painter, and even more painting, do not escape. The philosopher and
philosophy don't escape either. Is this sufficient? Could we not make up another
hypothesis, namely that painting in this era has so much need of God that the
divine, far from being a constraint for the painter, is the site of his maximum
emancipation. In other words, with God, he can do anything whatsoever, he
can do what he couldn't do with humans, with creatures. So much so that God
is directly invested by painting, by a kind of flow of painting, and at this level
painting will find a kind of freedom for itself that it would never have found
otherwise. At the limit, the most pious painter and the one who does painting
and who, in a certain way, is the most impious, are not opposed to each other
because the way painting invests the divine is a way which is nothing but
pictorial, where the painter finds nothing but the conditions of his radical
emancipation.
I give three examples: ...el Greco... This creation could only be achieved on
the basis of Christian figures. Then it's true that, at a certain level, constraints
operated on them, and at another level the artist is the one who?Bergson said
this about the living thing [vivant], he said that the living thing is what turns
obstacles into means?this would be a good definition of the artist. It's true that
there are constraints from the Church which operate on the painter, but there is
a transformation of constraints into means of creation. They make use of God
in order to achieve a liberation of forms, to push the forms to the point where
the forms have nothing to do with an illustration. The forms are unleashed [se
dchanent]. They embark upon a kind of Sabbath, a very pure dance, the lines
and colors lose all necessity to be verisimilar [vraisemblables], to be exact, to
resemble something. It's the great enfranchisement of lines and colors which is

done thanks to this outward show [apparence]: the subordination of painting to

the demands of Christianity.
Another example...a creation of the world... The Old Testament sets up for them
a kind of liberation of movements, a liberation of forms, lines and colors. So
much so that, in a sense, atheism has never been external to religion: atheism
is the artistic power [puissance] at work on [travaille] religion. With God,
everything is permitted. I have the distinct feeling that for philosophy it's been
exactly the same thing, and if philosophers have spoken to us so much of God?
and they could well be Christians or believers?this hasn't been lacking an
intense sense of jest [rigolade]. It wasn't an incredulous jesting, but a joy
arising from the labor they were involved in.
Just as I said that God and Christ offered an extraordinary opportunity for
painting to free lines, colors and movements from the constraints of
resemblance, so God and the theme of God offered the irreplacable opportunity
for philosophy to free the object of creation in philosophy?that is to say
concepts?from the constraints that had been imposed on them...the simple
representation of things.
The concept is freed at the level of God because it no longer has the task of
representing something; at that moment it becomes the sign of a presence. To
speak by analogy, it takes on lines, colors, movements that it would never have
had without this detour through God. It's true that philosophers are subject to
the constraints of theology, but in conditions such that they make this
constraint into a means of fantastic creation, that is they will extract from it [lui
arracher] a liberation of the concept without anyone even questioning it.
Except in the case where a philosopher goes too fast or too far. Is this perhaps
the case with Spinoza? From the start, Spinoza was placed in conditions in
which what he said to us no longer had anything to represent. That's why what
Spinoza is going to name God, in the first book of The Ethics, is going to be the
strangest thing in the world. It's going to be the concept insofar as it brings
together the set [ensemble] of all these possibilities... Via the philosophical
concept of God is made?and it could only have been made at this level?is made
the strangest creation of philosophy as a system of concepts.
What painters and philosophers subjected God to represents either painting as
passion or philosophy as passion. Painters subjected the body of Christ to a
new passion: they condense [ramassent] him, they make him contract...
Perspective is freed from every constraint to represent whatever it may be, and
it's the same thing for philosophers.
I take the example of Leibniz. Leibniz begins the creation of the world anew. He
asks how it is that God creates the world. He goes back to the classical

problem: what is the role of God's understanding and God's will in the creation
of the world.
Let's suppose that Leibniz tells us the following: God has an understanding, an
infinite understanding of course. It does not resemble ours. The word
understanding itself would be equivocal. It would not have only a single
meaning [sens] since the infinite understanding is absolutely not the same
thing as our own understanding, which is a finite understanding. What happens
in the infinite understanding? Before God creates the world, there was indeed
an understanding, but there wasn't anything else, there was no world. No, says
Leibniz, but there are possibles. There are possibles in God's understanding,
and all these possibles tend toward existence. That's why essence, for Leibniz,
is a tendency to exist, a possibility which tends toward existence. All these
possibles have weight according to their quantity of perfection. God's
understanding becomes like a kind of envelope in which all the possibles
descend and collide. All want to pass into existence. But Leibniz tells us that
this is not possible, all cannot pass into existence. Why? Because each one on
its own could pass into existence, but not all of them form compatible
combinations. There are incompatibilities from the point of view of existence.
One such possible cannot be compossible with another such possible.
There's the second stage: he is in the process of creating a logical relation of a
completely new type: there are not only possibilities, there are also problems of
compossibility. Is a possible compossible with another such possible?
So then which set of possibles will pass into existence? Only that set of
possibles that, on its own, has the greatest quantity of perfection will pass into
existence. The others will be repressed [refouls].
It's God's will that chooses the best of all possible worlds. It's an extraordinary
descent for the creation of the world, and, thanks to this descent, Leibniz
creates all sorts of concepts. We cannot even say of these concepts that they
are representational since they precede the things to be represented. And
Leibniz issues [lance] his famous metaphor: God creates the world like we play
chess, it involves choosing the best combination.
And the calculus of chess will dominate the Leibnizian vision of the divine
understanding. It's an extraordinary creation of concepts that finds in the
theme of God the very condition of its freedom and its liberation. Once again,
just as the painter had to make use of God so that lines, colors and movements
would no longer be obliged to represent some existing thing, so the philosopher
sets up God, in this era, so that concepts would no longer be obliged to
represent some prior thing, something given and ready-made. It's not a matter
of asking oneself what a concept represents. It's necessary to ask oneself what
its place is in a set of other concepts. In the majority of great philosophers, the

concepts they create are inseparable, and are taken in veritable sequences.
And if you don't understand the sequence of which a concept is part, you
cannot understand the concept. I use this term sequence because I'm making
a kind of parallel [rapprochement] with painting. If it's true that the constituent
unity of cinema is the sequence, I believe that, all things being equal, we could
also say it about the concept and about philosophy.
At the level of the problem of Being and the One, it's true that philosophers in
their endeavor at conceptual creation about the relations of Being and the One
are going to re-establish a sequence. In my view, the first great sequences in
philosophy, at the level of concepts, are those Plato constructs in the second
part of the Parmenides. There are actually two sequences. The second part of
the Parmenides is made up of seven hypotheses. These seven hypotheses are
divided into two groups: three hypotheses at first, four hypotheses following.
These are two sequences.
First time [temps]: let us assume that the One is superior to Being, the One is
above Being. Second time: the One is equal to Being.
Third time: the One is inferior to Being, and derived from Being.
You never say that a philosopher contradicts himself; you will ask such-andsuch page, in what sequence to put it, at what level of the sequence? And it's
obvious that the One about which Plato speaks to us is not the same according
to whether it's situated at the level of the first, the second or the third
hypothesis.
One of Plato's disciples, Plotinus, speaks to us at a certain level of the One as
the radical origin of Being. Here, Being comes out of [sort de] the One. The One
makes Being, therefore it is not, it is superior to Being. This will be the
language of pure emanation: the One emanates Being. That is to say the One
does not come out of itself in order to produce Being, because if it came out of
itself it would become Two, but Being comes out of the One. This is the very
formula of the emanative cause. But when we establish ourselves at the level
of Being, this same Plotinus will speak to us in splendid and lyrical terms of the
Being that contains all beings, the Being that comprehends all beings. And he
issues a whole series of formulae which will have very great importance for the
whole philosophy of the Renaissance. He will say Being complicates all beings.
It's an admirable formula. Why does Being complicate all beings? Because each
being explicates Being. There will be a linguistic doublet here: complicate,
explicate.
Each thing explicates Being, but Being complicates all things, that is,
comprehends them in itself. But these pages of Plotinus are no longer about
emanation. You tell yourself that the sequence has evolved: he's in the process
of speaking to us of an immanent cause. And indeed, Being behaves like an

immanent cause in relation to beings, but at the same time the One behaves in
relation to Being like an emanative cause. And if we descend even further, we
will see in Plotinus, who nevertheless is not Christian, something which closely
resembles a creative cause.
In a certain way, if you don't take sequences into account, you will no longer
know exactly what he's talking to us about. Unless there were philosophers
who destroy sequences because they want to make something else. A
conceptual sequence would be the equivalent of shades [nuances] in painting.
A concept changes tone or, at the limit, a concept changes timbre. It would
have something like timbres, tonalities. Until Spinoza philosophy proceeded
essentially by way of sequences. And on this road the shades concerning
causality were very important. Is original causality or the first cause emanative,
immanent, creative or something else again? So the immanent cause was
present at all times in philosophy, but always as a theme that was never
pushed to its own limit [jusqu'au bout de soi-mme].
Why? Because this was undoubtedly the most dangerous theme. Treating God
as an emanative cause can fit because there is still the distinction between
cause and effect. But as immanent cause, such that we no longer know very
well how to distinguish cause and effect, that is to say treating God and the
creature the same, that becomes much more difficult. Immanence was above
all danger. So much so that the idea of an immanent cause appears constantly
in the history of philosophy, but as [something] held in check, kept at such-andsuch a level of the sequence, not having value, and faced with being corrected
by other moments of the sequence and the accusation of immanentism was,
for every story of heresies, the fundamental accusation: you confuse God and
the creature. That's the fatal accusation. Therefore the immanent cause was
constantly there, but it didn't manage to gain a status [statut]. It had only a
small place in the sequence of concepts.
Spinoza arrives. He was preceded no doubt by all those who had been more or
less audacious concerning the immanent cause, that is to say this cause that's
quite bizarre in that, not only does it remain in itself in order to produce, but
what it produces remains in it. God is in the world, the world is in God. In The
Ethics, I think The Ethics is constructed upon an initial great proposition that
could be called the speculative or theoretical proposition. Spinoza's speculative
proposition is: there is only one single absolutely infinite substance, that is one
possessing all attributes, and what are called creatures are not creatures but
modes or manners [manires] of being of this substance. Therefore one single
substance having all attributes and whose products are the modes, the ways of
being. Hence if these are the manners of being of the substance having all
attributes, these modes exist in the attributes of the substance. They are
contained [pris] in the attributes.

All the consequences immediately appear. There isn't any hierarchy in the
attributes of God, of substance. Why? If substance possesses equally all
attributes, there is no hierarchy among the attributes, one is not worth more
than another. In other words, if thought is an attribute of God and if extension
is an attribute of God or of substance, between thought and extension there
won't be any hierarchy. All the attributes will have the same value from the
moment that they are attributes of substance. We are still in the abstract. This
is the speculative figure of immanence.
I draw several conclusions from this. This is what Spinoza will call God. He calls
it God because it's absolutely infinite. What does it represent? It's quite curious.
Can one live like that? I draw two consequences from this. First consequence:
he's the one who dares to do what many had wanted to do, namely to free the
immanent cause completely of all subordination to other processes of causality.
There is only one cause, and it's immanent. And this influences practice.
Spinoza didn't entitle his book Ontology, he's too shrewd for that, he entitles it
Ethics. Which is a way of saying that, whatever the importance of my
speculative propositions may be, you can only judge them at the level of the
ethics that they envelope or imply [impliquer]. He completely frees the
immanent cause, with which Jews, Christians, heretics had so often played
around up until then, but he does it within very precise sequences of concepts.
Spinoza extracts it from a whole sequence and carries out a forced takeover
[coup de force] at the level of concepts. There is no longer a sequence. As a
result of his extraction [extraire] of immanent cauality from the sequence of
great causes, first causes, as a result of his flattening of everything onto an
absolutely infinite substance that comprehends all things as its modes, that
possesses all attributes and comprehends all things as its modes, he
substituted a veritable plane of immanence for the sequence. It's an
extraordinary conceptual revolution: in Spinoza everything happens as if on a
fixed plane. An extraordinary fixed plane which is not going to be a plane of
immobility at all since all things are going to move?and for Spinoza only the
movement of things counts?on this fixed plane. He invents a fixed plane.
Spinoza's speculative proposition is this: extract the concept from the state of
variations of sequences and project everything onto a fixed plane which is one
of immanence. This implies an extraordinary technique.
It's also a certain mode of life, living in a fixed plane. I no longer live according
to variable sequences. But then, what would living on a fixed plane be? Spinoza
is one who polishes glasses, who abandoned everything, his heritage, his
religion, every social success. He does nothing and before he had written
anything whatsoever, he is insulted, he is denounced. Spinoza is the atheist,
the abominable. He practically can't publish. He writes letters. He didn't want
to be a prof. In the Political Treatise he imagines that the teaching profession
would be a volunteer activity, and further, that it would be necessary to pay in

order to teach. Professors would teach at the risk of their fortunes and their
reputations. That would be a true public prof. Spinoza was involved with a large
study group, he sends them The Ethics as he writes it, and they explicate for
themselves Spinoza's texts, and they write to Spinoza, who replies. These are
very intelligent people. This correspondence is essential. He has his little
network. He gets out of trouble thanks to the protection of the De Witt
brothers, since he is denounced from all sides.
It's as if he invented the fixed plane at the level of concepts. In my view it's the
most fundamental attempt to give a status to the univocity of being, an
absolutely univocal being. Univocal being is precisely what Spinoza defines as
being the substance having all attributes equal, having all things as modes.
The modes of substance are beings [l'tant]. The absolutely infinite substance
is Being as Being, the attributes all equal to one another are the essence of
being, and here you have this kind of plane on which everything falls back and
where everything is inscribed.
Never has a philosopher been treated by his readers the way Spinoza has been,
thank God. Spinoza was one of the essential authors for German Romanticism,
for example. But even these most educated authors tell us a very curious thing.
They say at once that The Ethics is the work that presents us with the most
systematic totality, it's system pushed to the absolute, it's univocal being,
being that is said only in a single sense. It's the extreme point of the system.
It's the most absolute totality. And at the same time, when one reads The
Ethics, one always gets the feeling that one will never reach a comprehension
of the whole [ensemble]. The whole escapes us. We are not quick enough to
keep everything together. There is a very beautiful page where Goethe says
that he re-read the same thing ten times and he always fails to comprehend
the whole, and every time that I read it I comprehend another piece [bout].
He's a philosopher who has a conceptual apparatus that's among the most
systematic in all philosophy. And nevertheless, we always get the impression,
we readers, that the whole escapes us and we are reduced to being struck by
such and such bit. We are really struck by such and such part. At another level
he's the philosopher who pushes the system of concepts the furthest, therefore
one who demands a very extensive philosophical education [culture]. The start
of The Ethics begins with definitions: of substance, of essence, etc... This all
refers to Scholasticism, and at the same time there is no other philosopher who
can so easily be read without knowing anything at all. And the two
[approaches] must be upheld. Go on, then, and comprehend this mystery.
Delbos says of Spinoza that he is a great wind that carries us away. That goes
well with my story of the fixed plane. Few philosophers have had this quality
[mrite] of achieving the status of a great calm wind. And the miserable, the
poor sorts who read Spinoza compare it to the gusts that take us away. How do
we reconcile the fact that there was an illiterate reading and an illiterate
comprehension of Spinoza with this other fact, that Spinoza is one of the

philosophers who, once again, composes the most meticulous conceptual

apparatus in the world? There's a success at the level of language.
The Ethics is a book that Spinoza considers as finished. He does not publish his
book because he know that if he publishes it, he'll find himself in prison.
Everyone falls upon him, he no longer has a protector. Things go very badly for
him. He gives up on publication and, in a sense, this doesn't matter since the
study group already had the text. Leibniz knew the text. What is this text made
of. It begins with The Ethics demonstrated in a geometric manner. It's the use
of the geometric method. Many authors had already employed this method, but
generally on a sequence in which a philosophical proposition is demonstrated
in the manner of a geometrical proposition, a theorem. Spinoza extracts this
from the state of a moment in a sequence and he will make it the complete
method of exposition of The Ethics. With the result that The Ethics is divided
into five books. It begins with definitions, axioms, propositions or theorems,
demonstrations of the theorem, corollary of the theorem, that is to say the
propositions that flow [dcoulent] from the theorem, etc... That's the great
wind, it forms a kind of continuous layer [nappe]. Geometric exposition is no
longer the expression of a moment in a sequence at all, it can be completely
extricated since the geometric method is going to be the process which
consists in filling in the fixed plane of absolutely infinite substance. Thus a
great calm wind. And in all of this there is a continuous linkage [enchanement]
of concepts, each theorem refers to other theorems, each demonstration refers
to other demonstrations.

The problems of terminology, of the invention of words.

In order to designate a new concept, sometimes you will take a very common
word; it will be even there the best fit. Only implicitly will this very common
word take a completely new sense. Sometimes you will take a very special
sense of a common word, and you will build up this sense, and sometimes you
will need a new word. It is for this reason that, when one reproaches a
philosopher for not speaking like everyone else, it doesnt make any sense. It is
sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. Sometimes it is very well to use only
common words, sometimes it is necessary to mark the stroke, the moment of
the creation of concepts, by an unusual word.

I spoke to you the last time of this great philosopher who was important during
the Renaissance, Nicolas of Cusa. Nicolas of Cusa had to create a kind of
portmanteau word, he had contaminated two Latin words. Why? It is a good
verbal creation. At that moment one spoke Latin, so it passed by way of Latin,
he said: The being of things is the Possest. it means nothing if you havent
done Latin, I am going to explain. Possest: it doesn't exist as a word, it is an
inexistent word, he created it, this word, the Possest. It is a very pretty word, it
is a pretty word for Latin. It is an awful barbarism, this word is awful. But
philosophically is beautiful, it is a success. When one creates a word it is
necessary that [xxxx xxxx] there are disasters, nothing is determined in
advance.

Possest is made of two terms in Latin, posse which is the infinitive of the verb
to be able to(pouvoir), and est is the third person of the verb to be (tre) in the
present indicative, he is (il est). Posse and est, he contaminates the two and it
gives Possest. And what is the Possest ? The Possest is precisely the identity of
the power (puissance) and of the act by which I define [xxxx xxxx]. So I would
not define something by its essence, what it is, I would define it by this barbaric
definition, its Possest : what it can do. Literally: what it can actually do.

Power (puissance) or Possest

Good. What does this mean? It means that things are powers (puissances). It is
not only that they have power, it is that they come down to the power that they
have, as much in action as in passion. So if you compare two things, they cant
be the same thing, but power is a quantity. You will have, thanks to this very
special quantity, but you understand the problem that this causes, power is a
quantity, okay, but it is not a quantity like length. Is it a quantity like force?
Does this mean that the strongest wins? Very doubtful. First of all, it will be
necessary to define the quantities that we call forces. They are not quantities
as we know them, they are not quantities whose status is simple. I know that
they are not qualities, that I know. Power (puissance) is not a quality, but
neither are they so-called extensive quantities. Then even if they are intensive
quantities, it is a very special quantitative scale, an intensive scale. This would
mean: things have more or less intensity, it would be the intensity of the thing
which would be, which would replace its essence, which would define the thing
in itself, it would be its intensity. You understand perhaps the link to Ontology.
The more intense a thing is, [the] more precisely is that intensity its relation to
being: the intensity of the thing is its relation with being. Can we say all this? It
is going to occupy us for a long time.

Before getting into it, you see which misunderstanding we are trying to avoid.

Question: on intensity and the thing (inaudible).

Gilles: The question is not what we believe, the question is how we try to get by
in this world of powers. When I said intensity, if it is not that, it doesnt do
anything since it was already determined, this type of quantity. It is not that.
We are here once again to evaluate how it could be important to undertake a
discourse on power (puissance)? Given the misunderstandings that we are
trying to avoid in every way, it is to understand this as if Spinoza told us, and
Nietzsche afterwards, what things will is power. Evidently if the formula power
is essence doesnt even mean, if there is something that this formula doesn't
mean, one could translate it by the formula: what each wants is power. No
what each wants is power is a formula which doesn't have anything to do with
this. Firstly it is a triviality, secondly it is a thing which is evidently false, thirdly
this is surely not what Spinoza means. It is not what Spinoza means because it
is stupid and Spinoza does not want to say silly things. It is not: Ha!, everyone,
from stones to men, by way of the animals, they want more and more power
(puissance), they want power (pouvoir). No it is not that! We know that it is not
that since it doesn't mean that power (puissance) is the object of the will. No.
So we know this at least, it is consoling. But I would like to insist, once again I
appeal to your feeling of the evaluation of importance, in what the philosophers
have said to us. I would like to try to develop why this history is very very
important, this conversion where things (?) are no longer defined by a
qualitative essence, man as reasonable animal, but are defined by a
quantifiable power (puissance). I am far from knowing what this quantifiable
power is, but I will just try to arrive there by passing via this kind of dreaming
of what is important, practically. Practically, does that change something? Yes,
you must already feel that practically it changes a lot of things. If Im interested
in what something can do, in what the thing can do, it is very different from
those who are interested in what is the essence of the thing. I don't regard, it is
not really the same manner of being in the world. But I would like to try to show
it by, precisely, a precise moment in the history of the thought.

Classical Natural Right

There I open a parenthesis, but always in this vision: what is this history of
power (puissance) and of defining things by power (puissance). I say: there was

a very important moment, a very important tradition, where it is very difficult,

historically, to get ones bearings, if you don't have some schemas and
reference marks, some points of recognition. It is a history which concerns
natural right, and this history concerning natural right, it is necessary that you
understand this: today this appears to us at first glance very out of date, as
much juridically as politically. The theories of natural right, in the manuals of
law, or in the manuals of sociology, we always see a chapter on natural right,
and we treat it as a theory which lasted until Rousseau, including Rousseau, up
until the 18th century, but today no one is interested in it, in the problem of
natural right. This is not false, but at the same time I would like you to feel that
it was too scholarly a vision, it is terrible we bypass things and that is why
people are really battered theoretically, we bypass everything that is important
in an historic question.

I am saying this, and you are going to see why I am saying it now and how it is
really at the heart of the stage where I am. I am saying: for a very long time
there has been a theory of natural right, which consists of what? Finally it
seems important to me historically because it was the compilation of most of
the traditions of Antiquity and the point of confrontation of Christianity with the
traditions of Antiquity. In this respect there are two important names in relation
to the classical conception of natural right: on the one hand Cicero who
recorded in antiquity all the traditions on the subject: Platonic, Aristotelian and
Stoic. He gives a kind of presentation of natural right in Antiquity which is going
to have an extreme importance. It is in Cicero that the Christian philosophers,
the Christian jurists, will take (more than other authors), it is above all in Cicero
that this kind of adaptation to Christianity of natural right, notably in Saint
Thomas, will be made. So there we will have a kind of historical lineage that I
am going to call for convenience, so that you will find it again there, the lineage
of classical natural right, Antiquity-Christianity.

Now, what do they call natural right?

On the whole, I would say that, in this whole conception, natural right, that
which constitutes natural right is that which conforms to the essence. I would
almost say that there are several propositions, in this classical theory of natural
right. I would just like you to retain them, because when I return to
power(puissance) I would like you to have in mind these four propositions. Four
basic propositions which are the basis of this conception of classical natural
right.

First proposition: a thing is defined by its essence. Natural right is therefore

that which conforms to the essence of something. The essence of man is:
reasonable animal. This has defined his natural right. Whats more, in effect, to
be reasonable is the law of his nature. The law of nature intervenes here.
There is the first proposition; thus preference is given to the essences.

Second proposition, in this classical theory: from now on, you understand,
natural right can not refer, and it is striking that for most of the authors of
Antiquity it is very much like this, natural right doesn't refer to a state which
would be supposed to precede society. The state of nature is not a pre-social
state, certainly not, it could not be. The state of nature is the state that
conforms to the essence in a good society. What do we call a good society? We
will call a good society, a society where man can realise his essence. So the
state of nature is not before the social state, the state of nature it is the state
that conforms to the essence in the best possible society, that is the most apt
to realise the essence. There is the second proposition of classical natural right.

Third proposition of classical natural right, they emanate from it: what is first is
duty: we have rights only insofar as we have duties. It is very politically
practical, all this. It is duties. Indeed, what is duty? Here, there is a term, there
is a concept of Cicero in Latin, which is very difficult to translate and which
indicates this idea of functional duty, the duties of function. It is the term
officium. One of the most important books of Cicero from the point of view of
natural right is a book entitled De officiis On the Subject of the functional
duties.

And why is it this that is first, duty in existence? It is because duty is precisely
the conditions under which I can best realise the essence, i.e. to have a life in
conformity with the essence, in the best possible society.

Fourth proposition: there follows a practical rule which will have a great political
importance. We could summarize it under the title: the competence of the
sage. What is the sage? It is somebody who is singularly competent in the
research that relates to the essence, and all that follows from it. The sage is the
one who knows what the essence is. Thus there is a principle of competence of
the sage because it is the sage who tells us what our essence is, what is the
best society, i.e. the society most capable of realizing the essence, and what

are our functional duties, our officia, i.e. under which conditions we can realise
the essence. All this is the competence of the sage. And to the question: to
what does the classical sage lay claim? One must reply that the classical sage
claims to determine what the essence is, and consequently all kinds of
practical tasks follow from this. Hence the political claims of the sage.
Therefore, if I summarize this classical conception of natural right, as a result
you understand why Christianity will be very interested by this ancient
conception of natural right. It will integrate it into what it will call natural
theology, making it one of its fundamental parts.

The four propositions are immediately reconciled with Christianity. First

proposition: things are defined and define their rights according to their
essence. Second proposition: the law of nature is not pre-social, it is in the best
possible society. It is life in conformity with the essence in the best possible
society. Third proposition: what is first are duties over rights, because duties
are the conditions under which you realise the essence. Fourth proposition:
consequently, there is the competence of somebody superior, whether this is
the church, the prince or the sage. There is a knowledge (savoir) of the
essences. Thus the man who knows the essences will be capable of telling us at
the same time how to conduct ourselves in life. Conducting oneself in life will
be answerable to a knowledge, in the name of which I could say if it is good or
bad. There will be thus a man of good, in whatever way it is determined, as
man of God or man of wisdom, who will have a competence.

Remember these four propositions well.

Imagine a kind of thunder clap, a guy arrives and says: no, no, no, and in a
sense it is the very opposite. Only the spirit of contradiction never works. It is
necessary to have reasons, even secret ones, it is necessary to have the most
important reasons in order to reverse a theory. One day somebody comes along
who is going to make a scandal in the domain of thought. It is Hobbes. He had
a very bad reputation. Spinoza read him a lot.

Natural Right according to Hobbes

And here is what Hobbes tells us: first proposition of Hobbes: it is not that. He
says that things are not defined by an essence, they are defined by a power
(puissance). Thus natural right is not what is in conformity with the essence of
the thing, it is everything that the thing can do. And in the right of something,

animal or man, everything that it can do. And in its right everything that it can
do. It is at this time that the great propositions of the type, but the large fish
eat the small ones start. It is its right of nature. You come across a proposition
of this type, you see that it is signed Hobbes, it is in natural right that large fish
eat small ones. You risk bypassing it, but you can understand nothing if you
say: Ah Good! it is like that. By saying that it is in the natural right of large fish
to eat small ones, Hobbes launches a kind of provocation that is enormous
since what weve just called natural right was in conformity with the essence,
and thus the set of actions that were permitted in the name of the essence.
Here, permit takes on a very different sense: Hobbes announces to us that
everything that we can do is permitted. Everything that you can do is
permitted, this is natural right. It is a simple idea, but it is an idea that is
overwhelming. From where is it coming? He calls that natural right. Everyone
from time immemorial knew that large fish ate small ones, never has anybody
called that natural right, Why? Because we reserved the word natural right for
a completely different thing: moral action that conforms to the essence.
Hobbes comes along and says: natural right equals power, therefore what you
can do is your natural right. In my natural right is everything that I can do.

Second proposition: consequently, the state of nature is distinguished from the

social state, and theoretically precedes it. Why? Hobbes hastens to say it: in
the social state, there are prohibitions, there are defenses, there are things that
I can do but it is defended. That means that it is not natural right, it is social
right. It is in your natural right to kill your neighbor, but it is not in your social
right. In other words, the natural right which is identical to power (puissance) is
necessarily, and refers to, a state which is not the social state. Hence, at that
moment, the promotion of the idea that a state of nature is distinguished from
the social state. In the state of nature, everything that I can do is permitted.
The natural law is that there is nothing to defend from what I can do. The state
of nature thus precedes the social state. Already at the level of this second
proposition, we understand nothing at all. We believe to have settled all that by
saying is there a state of nature; they believed that there was a state of nature,
those who said that. Nothing at all, they believe nothing in this respect. They
say that logically, the concept of the state of nature is prior to the social state.
They do not say that this state existed. If the right of nature is everything that
there is in the power (puissance) of a being, we will define the state of nature
as being the zone of this power. It is its natural right. It is thus instinct of the
social state since the social state comprises and is defined by the defenses that
bear upon something that I can do. Much more, if I am defended it is because I
can do it. It is in this that you recognize a social defense. Therefore, the state of
nature is first compared to the social state from the conceptual point of view.
What does this mean? Nobody is born social. Social by agreement, perhaps we
become it. And the problem of politics will be: how to make it so that men

become social? But nobody is born social. That means that you can only think
society as a product of becoming. And right is the operation of becoming social.

And in the same way, nobody is born reasonable. For this reason these authors
are so opposed to a Christian theme to which Christianity equally held, namely
the theme that is known in Christianity under the name of the Adamic tradition.
The Adamic tradition is the tradition according to which Adam was perfect
before sin. The first man was perfect and sin makes him lose perfection. This
Adamic tradition is philosophically significant: Christian natural right is very
well reconciled with the Adamic tradition. Adam, before sin, is man in
conformity with the essence, he is reasonable. It is sin, i.e. the adventures of
existence, that make him lose the essence, his first perfection. All of this is in
conformity with the theory of classical natural right. Just as nobody is born
social, nobody is born reasonable. Reasonable is like social, it is a becoming.
And the problem of ethics will perhaps be how to make it so that man becomes
reasonable, but not at all how to make it so that a mans essence, which would
be reasonable, is realised. It is very different if you pose the question like this
or like that, you go in very different directions. Hobbes second proposition will
be: the state of nature is pre-social, i.e. man is not born social, he becomes it.

Third proposition: if what is first is the state of nature, or if what is first is right,
this is similar since in the state of nature, everything that I can do is my right.
Consequently, what is first is right. Consequently, duties will only be secondary
obligations tending to limit the rights for the becoming social of man. It will be
necessary to limit rights so that man becomes social, but what is first is right.
Duty is relative to right, whereas, in the classical theory of natural right, it is
just the opposite, right was just relative to duty. What was first was the
officium.

Fourth proposition: if my right is my power, if rights are first in relation to

duties, if duties are only the operation by which rights are induced to limit
themselves so that men become social, all kinds of questions are put between
brackets. Why do they have to become social? Is it interesting to become
social? All kinds of questions that did not arise at all.

From the point of view of natural right, Hobbes says, and Spinoza will take all of
this up again but from the point of view of natural right, the most reasonable
man in the world and the most complete madman are strictly the same. Why is

there an absolute equality of the sage and the fool? It is a funny idea. It is a
very baroque world. The point of the view of natural right is: my right equals
my power, the madman is the one who does what is in his power, exactly as
the reasonable man is the one who does what is in his. They are not saying
idiotic things, they are not saying that the madman and the reasonable man
are similar, they are saying that there is no difference between the reasonable
man and the madman from the point of view of natural right. Why? Because
each one does everything that he can. The identity of right and power ensures
the equality, the identity of all beings on the quantitative scale. Of course,
there will be a difference between the reasonable man and the madman, but in
the civil state, in the social state, not from the point of view of natural right.
They are in the process of wearing down, of undermining the whole principle of
the competent sage or the competence of somebody superior. And that,
politically, is very important.

Nobody is competent for me. There it is. There is the great idea that will
animate the Ethics as the anti-system of Judgement. In a certain manner
nobody can do anything for me, but nobody can be competent for me. Feel!
What does this mean? It would be necessary to put it all in this sentence
nobody is competent for me! They so much wanted to judge in my place.
There is also a discovery filled with wonder: Ha, it is fantastic, but nobody can
know, nobody can know for me. Is this completely true? In a certain way it is
not completely true! Perhaps there are competences. But, feel finally what
there could be that is strange in these propositions... Indeed, this whole new
theory of natural right, equally powerful natural right , what is first is right, it is
not duty, leads to something: there is no competence of the wise, nobody is
competent for myself. Consequently if the society is formed, it can only be, in
one way or another, by the consent of those which take part in it, and not
because the wise one would tell me the best way of realising the essence. Now,
evidently, the substitution of a principle of consent for the principle of
competence, has a fundamental importance for all of politics. Therefore, you
see, what I tried to make is just a table of propositions, four propositions
against four propositions, and I am simply saying that, in the propositions of
the classical theory of natural right, Cicro-Saint Thomas, you have the juridical
development of a moral vision of the world, and, in the other case, the
conception which finds its starting point with Hobbes, you have the
development and all the seeds of a juridical conception of Ethics: beings are
defined by their power.

If Ive made this whole long parentheses, it has been to show that the formula
beings are defined by their power and not by an essence had political, juridical

, consequences which we are just in the process of anticipating. Now, I just add,
to finish with this theme, that Spinoza takes up this whole conception of natural
Right in Hobbes. He will change things, he will change relatively significant
things, he will not have the same political conceptions as those of Hobbes. But
on this same point of natural right he declares himself to be draw ing from and
to be a disciple of Hobbes. You see that, there, in Hobbes, he found the juridical
confirmation of an idea that he himself formed on the other hand , him Spinoza,
namely an astonishing confirmation of the idea according to which the essence
of things was nothing other than their power, and it is that which is interesting
in the idea of natural right. And I add, to be completely honest historically, that
never does it emerge like that in one blow, it would be possible to seek,
already, in antiquity, a current, but a very partial, very timid current, where a
conception like this of natural right equals power would be formed already in
antiquity, but it will be stifled . You find it in certain sophists and certain
philosophers called Cynics , but its modern explosion will be with Hobbes and
Spinoza.

For the moment I have not even explained, I specified what could well be called
existing things distinguishing themselves from a quantitative point of view.
That means exactly that existing things are not defined by an essence, but by
power and they have more or less power. Their right will be the power of each
one, the right of each one will be the power of each one, they have more or
less power. There is thus a quantitative scale of beings from the point of view of
power.

The qualitative polarity of modes of existence

It will now be necessary to pass to the second thing, namely the qualitative
polarity of modes of existence and to see if the one follows from the others.
The ensemble will give us a coherent vision, or will give us the beginnings of a
coherent vision of what is called an Ethics.

So you see why you are not beings from the point of view of Spinoza, you are
ways of being, which is understood: if each one is defined by what it can do. It
is very curious: you are not defined by an essence, or rather your essence is
identical to that which you can do, i.e. you are a degree on a scale of powers
(puissances). If each one among us is a degree on a scale of power, then you
will say to me: there are some who are better, or not. Lets leave that to the
side. For the moment we dont know. But if it is like this, you dont have an
essence or you only have an essence identical to your power, i.e. you are a

degree on this scale. Consequently you are indeed ways of being. The ways of
being will be, precisely, this kind of existing thing, existence quantified
according to power, according to the degree of power which defines it. You are
quantifiers. You are not quantities, or rather you are very special quantities,
each one of us is a quantity, but of what type? It is a very very curious vision of
the world, very new: to see people as quantities, as packages of power, it is
necessary to live it. It is necessary to live it if that says anything to you.

Hence the other question: but at the same time, these same authors, for
example Spinoza, will not cease telling us that there are on the whole two
modes of existence. And no matter what you do you are led to choose between
the two modes of existence. You exist in such a way that you exist sometimes
in one such mode, sometimes in another such mode, and the Ethics will be the
expos of these modes of existence. There this is no longer the quantitative
scale of power, it is the polarity of distinct modes of existence. How does he
pass from the first idea to the second, and what is it he wants to say to us with
the second? There are modes of existence which are distinguished as poles of
existence. Could you open the windows a little.... You dont ask what it is
worth , to do something or to undergo something is to exist in a certain way.
You dont ask what it is worth , but you ask what mode of existence it implies.

It is what Nietzsche also said with his story of the Eternal return, he said: it is
not difficult to know if something is good or not, this question is not very
complicated; it is not an affair of morals. He said make the following test, which
would only be in your head. Do you see yourselves doing it an infinite number
of times. It is a good criterion. You see it is the criterion of the mode of
existence. Whatever I do, whatever I say, could I make of it a mode of
existence? If I couldnt it is ugly, it is evil , it is bad . If I can, then yes! You see
that everything changes, it is not morality . In what sense? I say to the
alcoholic, for example, I say to him: you like to drink? You want to drink? Good,
very well. If you drink, drink in such a way that with each time you drink, you
would be ready to drink, redrink, redrink an infinite number of times. Of course
at your own rhythm. It is not necessary to rush : at your own rhythm! At that
moment there, at least, you agree with yourself. So people are much less shitty
to you when they agree with themselves. What it is necessary to fear above all
in the life, are the people who do not agree with themselves, this Spinoza said
admirably. The venom of neurosis, thats it! The propagation of neurosis, I
propagate to you my evil , it is terrible, terrible, it is above all those who are
not in agreement with themselves. They are vampires. Whereas the alcoholic
who drinks, on the perpetual mode of: ha, it is the last time, it is the last glass!
One more time, or once again. That is a bad mode of existence. If you do

something, do it as if you must do it a million times. If you are not able to do it

like that, do something else. It is Nietzsche who said this, it is not me, all
objections are to be addressed to Nietzsche. That can work, that can not work. I
do not know why we are discussing all this, what I said. All that is not an affair
of truth, it touches on what it can touch on, it is an affair of the practice of
living. There are people who live like that.

What does Spinoza try to say to us? It is very curious, I would say that the
whole of part four of the Ethics develops above all the idea of the polar modes
of existence. And in what do you recognize it in Spinoza. What do you
recognize it in ? For the moment Im saying things extremely simply for the
moment, what do you recognize it in . You recognize it in a certain tone of
Spinozas , when he speaks, from time to time, of the strong, he says in Latin:
the strong man, or the free man. Or, on the contrary, he says the slave or the
impotent. There you recognize a style which belongs to the Ethics. He does not
speak about the malicious or the good man. The malicious and the good man is
the man related to values according to his essence. But the way in which
Spinoza speaks, you feel that it is another tone. It is like for musical
instruments. It is necessary to feel the tone of people. It is another tone; he
tells you: there is what makes the strong man, there is what you recognize as a
strong and free man. Does that mean a sturdy type of man. Of course not! A
strong man can be far from strong from a certain point of view, he can even be
sick, he can be whatever you want. So, what is this trick of the strong man? It is
a way of life, it is a mode of existence that is opposed to the mode of existence
which he calls the slave or the impotent. What do they mean, these styles of
life? It is a life style (style de vie). There will be a life style: to live as a slave, to
live as impotent. And then another type of life. Once again, what is it? Once
again this polarity of the modes, under the form, and under the two poles: the
strong or the powerful, and the impotent or the slave, that must say something
to us.

Lets continue to go into the night, there, and examine according to the texts
what Spinoza calls the slave or the impotent. It is curious. One realizes that
what he calls the slave or the impotent, it is there that the resemblances and
I dont believe Im forcing the texts the resemblances to Nietzsche are
fundamental, because Nietzsche will not do anything other than to distinguish
these two polar modes of existence and to distribute them in very much the
same manner. Because we realise with astonishment that what Spinoza calls
the impotent ... a mode of existence, what is it? The impotent are the slaves.
Good. But what does the slaves mean? Slaves of social conditions? We feel,
well, that the answer is no! It is a way of life. There are thus people who are not

at all socially slaves, but they live like slaves! Slavery as a way of life and not
as social status. Thus there are slaves. But on the same side, the impotent or
the slaves, he puts who ? It will become more significant for us: he puts tyrants.
Tyrants! And oddly, there will be plenty of stories, the priests. The tyrant, the
priest and the slave. Nietzsche will not say more. In his more violent texts,
Nietzsche will not say more, Nietzsche will make the trinity: the tyrant, the
priest and the slave. Its Odd that it is already literally so in Spinoza. And what
is there in common between a tyrant who has power (pouvoir), a slave who
does not have power, and a priest who seems only to have spiritual power. And
what is there in common? And how are they impotent since, on the contrary,
they seem to be, at least for the tyrant and the priest, men of power. One
political power, and the other spiritual power. If we feel, it is that which I call to
sort things out by feelings.

We feel that there is quite a common point. And when we read Spinoza, text
after text, we are confirmed on this common point. It is almost like a riddle: for
Spinoza what is there in common between a tyrant who has political power, a
slave, and a priest who exercises a spiritual power? This something in common
is what is going to make Spinoza say: but they are impotent; it is that, in a
certain way , they need to sadden life! Curious, this idea. Nietzsche will also
say things like this: they need to make sadness reign! He feels it, he feels it
very deeply: they need to make sadness reign because the power that they
have can only be founded on sadness. And Spinoza makes a very strange
portrait of the tyrant, by explaining that the tyrant is someone who needs,
above all, the sadness of his subjects, because there is no terror that doesnt
have as its basis a kind of collective sadness. The priest, perhaps for
completely other reasons, has need of the sadness of man on his own
condition. And when he laughs, it is not more reassuring. The tyrant could
laugh, and the favourites, the counselors of the tyrant could also laugh too. It is
a bad laugh, and why is it a bad laugh? Not because of its quality, Spinoza
would not say that, it is precisely a laughter which has for its object only
sadness and the communication of sadness. What does this mean? It is bizarre.
The priest, according to Spinoza, essentially needs an action motivated by
remorse. Introducing remorse. It is a culture of sadness. Whatever the ends,
Spinoza will say that at that moment the ends are equal to us. He judges only
that: cultivating sadness. The tyrant for his political power needs to cultivate
sadness, the priest needs to cultivate sadness as far as Spinoza can see, who
has the experience of the Jewish priest, the Catholic priest and the Protestant
priest.

Now Nietzsche throws out a grand sentence by saying: I am the first to do a

psychology of the priest, he said in some pages which are very comical, and to
introduce this topic into philosophy, he will define the operation of the priest
precisely by what he will call the bad conscience, that is, this same culture of
sadness. He will say that it is saddening life, it is always about saddening life!,
somewhere. And, indeed why? Because it involves judging life. Now, you will
not judge life.You wont submit it to judgment. Life is not the object of
judgment, life is not able to be judged, the only way in which you could pass
judgment on it is first of all to inject it with sadness. And of course we laugh, I
mean that the tyrant can laugh, the priest laughs, but, Spinoza said, in a page
that I find very beautiful, his laughter is that of the satyr, and the laughter of
the satyr is a bad laugh, why? Because it is laughter which communicates
sadness; One can mock nature, the laughter of the satyr is when I mock men.
Im being ironic. The kind of intoxicating irony, I mock men. The satyr is
another way of saying that human nature is miserable. Ha see, what misery,
human nature! It is the proposition of moral judgment: Ha, what misery is
human nature. It could be the object of a sermon or the object of a satyr. And
Spinoza, in some very beautiful texts, said: what Ive just called an Ethics is the
opposite of the satyr.

And yet there are some very comical pages in Spinozas Ethics, but it is not at
all the same laughter. When Spinoza laughs, it is in the mode: Ho, look at this
here, of what is he capable! Ho ho, and this, weve never seen that! It could be
an atrocious villainy, was it necessary to do it, to go that far. It is never the
Satyrs laughter, it is never: see how miserable our nature is! It is not the
laughter of irony. It is a completely different type of laughter. I would say that it
is much more Jewish humor. It is very Spinozist, it is go on, yet another step, I
would never have believed that one could have done it! It is a very particular
kind of laughter and Spinoza is one of the most cheerful authors in the world. I
believe, indeed, that all this that he hates is what religion has conceived as the
satyr of human nature. The tyrant, the man of religion, they are satyrs, that is
to say that, above all they denounce human nature as miserable since this
involves , above all, passing judgment on it. And, consequently, there is a
complicity, and this is Spinozas intuition: there is a complicity of the tyrant, the
slave, and the priest. Why? Because the slave is the one who feels better the
more things go badly. The worse it goes , the happier he is. This is the mode of
existence of the slave! For the slave, whatever the situation, it is always
necessary that he sees the awful side. The nasty stuff there. There are people
who have a genius for this: these are the slaves. It could be a painting, it could
be a scene in the street, there are people who have a genius for it. There is a
genius of the slave and at the same time, it is the buffoon. The slave and the
buffoon. Dostoyevsky wrote some very profound pages on the unity of the
slave and the buffoon, and of the tyrant, these are tyrannical types, they cling,

they do not let you go. They don't stop shoving your nose into whatever shit.
They are not happy, they always have to degrade things. It is not that the
things are necessarily high, but it is always necessary that they degrade, it is
always too high. They must always find a small disgrace, a disgrace in the
disgrace, there they become roses of joy, the more repulsive it is the happier
they are. They live only like this; this is the slave!

And it is also the man of remorse and it is also the satyr man, it is all that and it
is to this that Spinoza opposes the conception of a strong man a powerful man,
whose laughter is not the same. It is a kind of very benevolent laughter, the
laughter of the man said to be free or strong. He says : if this is what you want,
then go on, it is funny, yes it is funny! It is the opposite of the satyr. It is Ethical
laughter!

Intervention of Comtesse: (inaudible on the cassette).

Gilles: I feel coming between you and me still a difference. You tend very
quickly to stress an authentically Spinozist concept, that of the tendency to
persevere in being. The last time, you spoke to me about the conatus, i.e. the
tendency to persevere in being, and you asked me: what don't you do it? I
responded that for the moment I cannot introduce it because, in my reading, I
am stressing other Spinozist concepts, and the tendency to persevere in being,
I will derive it from other concepts which are for me the essential concepts,
those of power (puissance) and affect. Today, you return to the same theme.
There is not even room for a discussion, you would propose another reading,
i.e. a differently accentuated reading. As for the problem of the reasonable man
and the insane man, I will respond exactly thus: what distinguishes the insane
person and the reasonable one according to Spinoza, and conversely at the
same time, there is: what doesn't distinguish them? From which point of view
can they not be distinguished, from which point of view do they have to be
distinguished? I would say, for my reading, that Spinozas response is very
rigorous. If I summarize Spinozas response, it seems to me that this summary
would be this: from a certain point of view, there is no reason to make a
distinction between the reasonable man and the insane person. From another
point of view, there is a reason to make a distinction.

Firstly, from the point of view of power, there is no reason to introduce a

distinction between the reasonable man and the insane man. What does that
mean? Does that mean that they have the same power? No, it doesnt mean
that they have the same power, but it means that each one, as much as there
is in him, realises or exercises his power. I.e. each one, as much as there is in
him, endeavours [sefforce] to persevere in his being. Therefore, from the point
of view of power, insofar as each, according to natural right, endeavours to
persevere in his being, i.e. exercise his power you see I always put
effort between brackets it is not that he tries to persevere, in any way, he
perseveres in his being as much as there is in him, this is why I do not like the
idea of conatus, the idea of effort, which does not translate Spinozas thought
because what it calls an effort to persevere in being is the fact that I exercise
my power at each moment, as much as there is in me. It is not an effort, but
from the point of view of power, therefore, I can not at all say what each one is
worth, because each one would have the same power, in effect the power of
the insane man is not the same as that of the reasonable one, but what there is
in common between the two is that, whatever the power, each exercises his
own. Therefore, from this point of view, I would not say that the reasonable
man is better than the insane one. I cannot, I have no way of saying that: each
has a power, each exercises as much power as there is in him. It is natural
right, it is the world of nature. From this point of view, I could not establish any
difference in quality between the reasonable man and the insane one.

But from another point of view, I know very well that the reasonable man is
better than the insane one. Better, what does that mean? More powerful, in
the Spinozist sense of the word. Therefore, from this second point of view, I
must make and I do make a distinction between the reasonable man and the
insane one. What is this point of view? My response, according to Spinoza,
would be exactly this: from the point of view of power, you have no reason to
distinguish the reasonable man and the insane one, but from the other point of
view, namely that of the affects, you distinguish the reasonable man and the
insane one. From where does this other point of view come? You remember that
power is always actual, it is always exercised. It is the affects that exercise
them. The affects are the exercises of power, what I experience in action or
passion, it is this which exercises my power, at every moment. If the
reasonable man and the insane one are distinguished, it is not by means of
power, each one realises his power, it is by means of the affects. The affects of
the reasonable man are not the same as those of the insane one. Hence the
whole problem of reason will be converted by Spinoza into a special case of the
more general problem of the affects. Reason indicates a certain type of affect.
That is very new.

To say that reason is not going to be defined by ideas, of course, it will also be
defined by ideas. There is a practical reason that consists in a certain type of
affect, in a certain way of being affected. That poses a very practical problem
of reason. What does it mean to be reasonable, at that moment? Inevitably
reason is an ensemble of affects, for the simple reason that it is precisely the
forms under which power is exercised in such and such conditions. Therefore,
to the question that has just been posed by Comtesse, my response is
relatively strict; in effect, what difference is there between a reasonable man
and the insane one? From a certain point of view, none, that is the point of view
of power. From another point of view, enormous difference, from the point of
view of the affects which exercise power.

Intervention of Comtesse.

Gilles: You note a difference between Spinoza and Hobbes and you are quite
right. If I summarize it, the difference is this: for the one as for the other,
Spinoza and Hobbes, one is careful to leave the state of nature by a contract.
But in the case of Hobbes, it is in effect a contract by which I give up my right
of nature. Ill specify because it is more complicated: if it is true that I give up
my natural right, then on the other hand, the sovereign himself does not also
give up his. Therefore, in a certain way, the right of nature is preserved.
For Spinoza, on the contrary, in the contract I do not give up my right of nature,
and there is Spinozas famous formula given in a letter: I preserve the right of
nature even in the civil state. This famous formula of Spinoza clearly means, for
any reader of the era, that on this point, I break with Hobbes. In a certain way,
he also preserved natural right in the civil state, but only to the advantage of
the sovereign. I say that too quickly.
Spinoza, on the whole, is a disciple of Hobbes. Why? Because on two general
but fundamental points, he entirely follows the Hobbesian revolution, and I
believe that Spinozas political philosophy would have been impossible without
the kind of intervention that Hobbes had introduced into political philosophy.
What is this very, very important double intervention, this extraordinary
innovation?
It is, first innovation, to have conceived the state of nature and natural right in
a way that broke entirely with the Ciceronian tradition. Now, on this point,
Spinoza entirely ratifies Hobbes revolution. Second point: consequently, to
have substituted the idea of a pact of consent as the foundation of the civil
state for the relation of competence such as it was in traditional philosophy,
from Plato to Saint Thomas. Now, on these two fundamental points, the civil

state can only refer to a pact of consent and not to a relation of competence
where there would be a superiority of the sage, and the whole conception, in
addition, of the state of nature and of natural right as power and exercise of
power, these two fundamental points belong to Hobbes. It is according to these
two fundamental points that I would say that the obvious difference that
Comtesse has just signaled between Spinoza and Hobbes, presumes and can
only be inscribed in one preliminary resemblance, a resemblance by which
Spinoza follows the two fundamental principles of Hobbes. This then becomes a
balancing of accounts between them, but within these new presuppositions
introduced into political philosophy by Hobbes.
We will be led to speak about Spinozas political conception this year from the
point of view of research that we are doing on Ontology: in what sense can
Ontology entail or must it entail a political philosophy? Do not forget that there
is a whole political path of Spinoza, Im going very quickly. A very fascinating
political path because we cannot even read one political book of Spinozas
philosophy without understanding what problems it poses, and what political
problems he lived through. The Netherlands in the era of Spinoza was not
simple and all Spinozas political writings are very connected to this situation. It
is not by chance that Spinoza wrote two books on political philosophy, one the
Theologico-Political Treatise the other the Political Treatise, and that, between
the two, enough things happened such that Spinoza evolved. The Netherlands
in that era was torn between two tendencies. There was the tendency of the
House of Orange, and then there was the liberal tendency of the De Witt
brothers. Now the De Witt brothers, under very obscure conditions, had won at
one moment. The House of Orange was not nothing: this put into play the
relations of foreign policy, relations with Spain, war or peace. The De Witt
brothers were basically pacifists. This put into play the economic structure, the
House of Orange supported the large companies, the brothers were very hostile
to the large companies. This opposition stirred everything up. Now the De Witt
brothers were assassinated in absolutely horrible circumstances. Spinoza felt
this as really the last moment in which he could no longer write, this could also
happen to him. The De Witt brothers entourage protected Spinoza. This dealt
him a blow. The difference in political tone between the Theologico-Political
Treatise and the Political Treatise is explained because, between the two, there
was the assassination, and Spinoza no longer believed in what he had said
before, in the liberal monarchy.
His political problem arises in a very beautiful, still very current, way; yes, there
is only a political problem that it would be necessary to try to understand, to
make ethics into politics. To understand what? To understand why people fight
for their slavery. They seem to be so content to be slaves, that they will do
anything to remain slaves. How to explain such a thing? It fascinates him.
Literally, how to explain that people don't revolt? But at the same time, revolt
or revolution, you will never find that in Spinoza. Were saying very silly things.

At the same time, he made drawings. There is a reproduction of a drawing of

his that is a very obscure thing. He had drawn himself in the form of a
Neapolitan revolutionary who was well-known in that era. He had included his
own head. It is odd. Why does he never speak about revolt or revolution? Is it
because he is a moderate? Undoubtedly, he must be a moderate; but let us
suppose that he is a moderate. But at that time, even the extremists hesitated
to speak of revolution, even the leftists of the era. And Collegians who were
against the church, these Catholics were near enough to what we would call
today the Catholics of the extreme left. Why isnt revolution discussed? There is
a silly thing that is said, even in the handbooks of history, that there was no
English revolution. Everyone knows perfectly well that there was an English
revolution, the formidable revolution of Cromwell. And Cromwells revolution is
an almost pure case of a revolution that was betrayed as soon as it was done.
The whole of the seventeenth century is full of reflections on how a revolution
can not be betrayed. Revolution was always thought by revolutionaries in terms
of how it is that such things are always betrayed. Now, the recent example for
Spinozas contemporaries is the revolution of Cromwell, who was the most
fantastic traitor to the revolution that Cromwell himself had imposed. If you
take, well after English Romanticism, it is a fantastic poetic and literary
movement, but it is an intense political movement. The whole of English
Romanticism is centered on the theme of the betrayed revolution. How to live
on when the revolution has been betrayed and seems destined to be betrayed?
The model that obsessed the great English Romantics was always Cromwell.
Cromwell lived in that era as Stalin did today. Nobody speaks about revolution,
not at all because they do not have an equivalent in mind, it is for a very
different reason. They wont call that revolution because the revolution is
Cromwell. Now, at the time of the Theologico-Political Treatise, Spinoza still
believed in a liberal monarchy, on the whole. This is no longer true from the
Political Treatise. The De Witt brothers were assassinated, compromise is no
longer possible. Spinoza gives up publishing the Ethics, he knows that its
screwed. At that moment, it seems that Spinoza would have tended much more
to think about the chances of a democracy. But the theme of democracy
appears much more in the Political Treatise than in the Theologico-Political
Treatise, which remained in the perspective of a liberal monarchy.
What would a democracy be at the level of the Netherlands? It is what was
liquidated with the assassination of the De Witt brothers. Spinoza dies, as if
symbolically, when he is at the chapter democracy. We will never know what
he would have said.
There is a fundamental relation between Ontology and a certain style of
politics. What this relation consists of, we dont yet know. What does a political
philosophy which is placed in an ontological perspective consist of? Is it defined
by the problem of the state? Not especially, because the others too. A

philosophy of the One will also pass by way of the problem of the state. The
real difference does not appear elsewhere between pure ontologies and
philosophies of the One. Philosophies of the One are philosophies that
fundamentally imply a hierarchy of existing things, hence the principle of
consequence, hence the principle of emanation: from the One emanates Being,
from Being emanates other things, etc. the hierarchies of the Neo-Platonists.
Therefore, the problem of the state, they will encounter it when they encounter
themselves? at the level of this problem: the institution of a political hierarchy.
Among Neo-Platonists, there are hierarchies everywhere, there is a celestial
hierarchy, a terrestrial hierarchy, and what the Neo-Platonists call hypostases
are precisely the terms in the institution of a hierarchy.
What appears to me striking in a pure ontology is the point at which it
repudiates the hierarchies. In effect, if there is no One superior to being, if
being is said of everything that is and is said of everything that is in one and
the same sense, this is what appeared to me to be the key ontological
proposition: there is no unity superior to being and, consequently, being is said
of everything that of which it is said, i.e. is said of everything that is, is said of
all being [tant], in one and the same sense. It is the world of immanence. This
world of ontological immanence is an essentially anti-hierarchical world. Of
course, it is necessary to correct: these philosophers of ontology, we will say
that evidently a practical hierarchy is needed, ontology does not lead to
formulas which would be those of nihilism or non-being, of the type where
everything is the same [tout se vaut]. And yet, in certain regards, everything is
the same, from the point of view of an ontology, i.e. the point of view of being.
All being [tant] exercises as much being [tre] as there is in it. Thats all there
is to it. It is anti-hierarchical thought. It is almost a kind of anarchy. There is an
anarchy of beings in being. It is the basic intuition of ontology: all beings are
the same [se valent]. The stone, the insane, the reasonable, the animal, from a
certain point of view, from the point of view of Being [tre], they are the same.
Each is as much as there is in it, and being is said in one and the same sense of
the stone, of the man, of the insane, of the reasonable. It is a very beautiful
idea. It is a very savage kind of world.
With that, they encounter the political domain, but the way in which they will
encounter the political domain depends precisely on this kind of intuition of
equal being, of anti-hierarchical being. And the way in which they think the
state is no longer the relation of somebody who commands and others who
obey. In Hobbes, the political relation is the relation of somebody who
commands and of somebody who obeys. This is the pure political relation. From
the point of view of an ontology, it is not that. There, Spinoza did not go along
with Hobbes at all. The problem of an ontology is, consequently, according to
this: being is said of everything that is, this is how to be free. I.e. how to
exercise its power under the best conditions. And the state, even more the civil

state, i.e. the entire society is thought like this: the ensemble of conditions
under which man can exercise his power in the best way. Thus it is not at all a
relation of obedience. Obedience will come, moreover, it will have to be
justified by what it inscribes in a system where society can mean only one
thing, namely the best means for man of exercising his power. Obedience is
second compared to this requirement. In a philosophy of the One, obedience is
obviously first, i.e. the political relation is the relation of obedience, it is not the
relation of the exercise of power.
We will find this problem again in Nietzsche: what is equal? What is equal is
that each being, whatever it is, in every way exercises all that it can of its
power, that, that makes all beings equal. But the powers are not equal. But
each endeavours to persevere in its being, i.e. exercise its power. From this
point of view, all beings are the same, they are all in being and being is equal.
Being is also said of everything that is, but everything that is is not equal, i.e.
does not have the same power. But being which is said of everything that is,
that, that is equal. With that, it doesn'tt prevent there being differences
between beings. From the point of view of the difference between beings a
whole idea of aristocracy can be established, namely there are the better ones.
If I try to summarize, understand where we were the last time. We posed a very
precise problem, the problem which I have dealt with until now, which is this:
what is the status, not of Being [tre], but of being [tant], i.e. what is the
status of what is from the point of view of an ontology.
What is the status of the being [tant] or of what exists [existant] from the
point of view of an ontology? I have tried to show that the two conceptions,
that of the quantitative distinction between existing things, and the other point
of view, that of the qualitative opposition between modes of existence, far from
contradicting themselves, have been interlinked with one another the whole
time.
This finishes the first category: what is an ontology, and how is it distinguished
from philosophies which are not ontologies.
Second major category: what is the status of the being [tant] from the point of
view of a pure ontology like Spinozas?

Inaudible intervention

Gilles: You say that from the point of view of the hierarchy, what is first is
difference and one goes from difference to identity. That is quite right, but I
would just add: which type of difference is it about? Response: it is always

finally a difference between Being [tre] and something superior to being, since
the hierarchy is going to be a difference in judgment. Therefore, judgment is
done in the name of a superiority of the One over being. We can judge being
precisely because there is an authority superior to being. Thus the hierarchy is
inscribed as of this difference, since the hierarchy, even its foundation, is the
transcendence of the One over being. And what you call difference is exactly
this transcendence of the One over being. When you invoke Plato, difference is
only first in Plato in a very precise sense, namely the One is more than being.
Thus it is a hierarchical difference. Ontology goes from being [tre] to beings
[tants], i.e. it goes from the same, from what is, and only what is different, it
goes therefore from being to the differences, it is not a hierarchical difference.
All beings are also in Being.
In the Middle Ages, there is a very important school, it was given the name the
School of Chartres; and the School of Chartres, they depend mostly on Duns
Scotus, and they insist enormously on the Latin term "equality. Equal being.
They say all the time that being is fundamentally equal. That doesnt mean
that existing things, or beings [tants], are equal. But being is equal for all,
which means, in a certain way, that all beings are in being. Consequently,
whatever the difference you achieve, since there is a non-difference of being,
and there are differences between beings, these differences will not be
conceived in a hierarchical way. Or, they will be conceived in a hierarchical way
very, very secondarily, to catch up with, to reconcile the things. But in the first
intuition, the difference is not hierarchical. Whereas in philosophies of the One
difference is fundamentally hierarchical. I would say much more: in ontology,
the difference between beings is quantitative and qualitative at the same time.
Quantitative difference of powers, qualitative difference of modes of existence,
but it is not hierarchical. Then, of course, they often speak as if there had been
a hierarchy, they will say that the reasonable man is better than the malicious
one, but better in what sense and why? It is for reasons of power and exercise
of power, not for reasons of hierarchy.
I would like to pass to a third rubric which is connected at the second and
which would come down to saying that if the Ethics - I defined as the two coordinates of the Ethics: the quantitative distinction from the point of view of
power, the qualitative opposition from the point of view of the modes of
existence. I tried to show last time how we passed perpetually from the one to
the other. I would like to begin a third rubric, which is, from the point of view of
the Ethics, how does the problem of evil arise. Because, once again, we have
seen that this problem arose in an acute way, why? I remind you that I
discussed the sense in which, from time immemorial, classical philosophy had
set up this paradoxical proposition, by knowing very well that it was a paradox,
namely evil is nothing. But precisely, evil is nothing, understand that there are
at least two possible manners of speaking. These two manners are not
reconciled at all. Because when I say evil is nothing, I could mean firstly one

thing: evil is nothing because everything is Good. If I say everything is Good. If

you write Good with a capital G, if you write it like that, you can comment on
the formula word for word: there is being, good: The One is superior to being,
and the superiority of the One over being makes being turn towards the One as
being the Good. In other words, evil is nothing, means: inevitably evil is
nothing since it is the Good superior to being which is the cause of being. In
other words, the Good makes being. The Good is the One as the reason for
being. The One is superior to being. Everything is Good means that it is the
good that makes being what is. I am discussing Plato. You understand that
evil is nothing means that only the Good makes being, and correlatively:
makes action. It was the argument of Plato: the malicious one is not voluntarily
malicious since what the malicious one wants is the good, it is whatever good. I
can thus say that evil is nothing, in the sense that only the Good makes being
and makes action, therefore evil is nothing.
In a pure Ontology, where there is no One superior to being, I say evil is
nothing, there is no evil, there is being. Okay. But that engages me with
something completely new, it is that if evil is nothing, then the good is nothing
either. It is thus for completely opposite reasons that I can say in both cases
that evil is nothing. In one case, I say that evil is nothing because only the
Good makes being and makes action, in the other case, I say that evil is
nothing because the Good is nothing too, because there is only being. Now we
have seen that this negation of the good, like that of evil, did not prevent
Spinoza from making an ethics. How is an ethics made if there is neither good
nor evil. From the same formula, in the same era, if you take the formula: evil
is nothing, signed by Leibniz, and signed by Spinoza, they both say the same
formula, evil is nothing, but it has two opposite senses. In Leibniz it derives
from Plato, and in Spinoza, who makes a pure ontology, it becomes
complicated.
Hence my problem: what is the status of evil from the point of view of ethics,
i.e. from the whole status of beings, of existing things? We will return to the
parts where ethics is really practical. We have an exceptional text of Spinoza: it
is an exchange of eight letters, four each. A set of eight letters exchanged with
a young man called Blyenberg. The sole object of this correspondence is evil.
The young Blyenberg asks Spinoza to explain evil ?

(tape inaudible ... and end of the first part)

On the project of a pure ontology, how is it that Spinoza calls this pure ontology
an Ethics? It would be by an accumulation of traits that we realize that it was [a
pure ontology], although he calls it an Ethics. We saw the general atmosphere
of this link between an Ontology and an Ethics with the suspicion that an ethics
is something that has nothing to do with morality. And why do we have a
suspicion of the link that makes this pure Ontology take the name of Ethics? We
have seen it. Spinozas pure Ontology is presented as the absolutely infinite
single position. Consequently, the beings (tants), this absolutely infinite single
substance, is being. Being (tre) as being. Consequently, the beings (tants)
will not be Beings (tres), they will be what Spinoza calls modes, the modes of
absolutely infinite substance. And a mode is what? It is a manner of being. The
beings (tants) or what exists (existants) are not Beings (tres), there is Being
only in the form of absolutely infinite substance. Consequently, we who are
beings (tants), we who are what exists (existants), we will not be Beings
(tres), we will be manners of Being (tre) of this substance. And if I ask myself
what is the most immediate sense of the word ethics, in what way is it already
other than morality, well, ethics is better known to us today under another
name, the word ethology.

When one speaks of an ethology in connection with animals, or in connection

with man, what is it a matter of? Ethology in the most rudimentary sense is a
practical science, of what? A practical science of the manners of being. The
manner of being is precisely the state of beings (tants), of what exists
(existants), from the point of view of a pure ontology.

In what way is it already different from a morality? We are trying to compose a

kind of landscape which would be the landscape of ontology. We are manners
of Being in Being, that is the object of an ethics, i.e. an ethology. In a morality,
on the contrary, what is it a matter of? There are two things which are
fundamentally welded together. It is a matter of essence and values. A morality
recalls us to essence, i.e. our essence, and which is recalled to us by values. It
is not the point of view of Being. I do not believe that a morality can be made
from the point of view of an ontology. Why? Because morality always implies
something superior to Being; what is superior to Being is something which
plays the role of the One, of the Good, it is the One superior to Being. Indeed,
morality is the enterprise of judging not only all that is, but Being itself. Now
one can only judge Being in the name of an authority higher than Being.

In what way, in a morality, is it a matter of essence and values? What is in

question in a morality is our essence. What is our essence? In a morality it is
always a matter of realising the essence. This implies that the essence is in a
state where it is not necessarily realised, that implies that we have an essence.
It is not obvious that there is an essence of man. But it is quite necessary for
morality to speak and to give us orders in the name of an essence. If we are
given orders in the name of an essence, it is because this essence is not
realised by itself. It will be said that this essence is in man potentially (en
puissance). What is the essence of man is potentially in man, from the point of
view of a morality? It is well known, the essence of man is to be a reasonable
animal. Aristotle: Man is a reasonable animal. The essence is what the thing is,
reasonable animal is the essence of man. Even if man is in essence a
reasonable animal, he does not cease to behave in an unreasonable way. How
does that happen? It is because the essence of man, as such, is not necessarily
realised. Why? Because man is not pure reason, and then there are accidents,
he doesnt cease being diverted. The whole classical conception of man
consists in inviting him to agree with his essence because this essence is like a
potentiality, which is not necessarily realised, and morality is the process of the
realization of the human essence.

Now, how can this essence which is only potential, be realized? By morality. To
say that it is to be realized by morality is to say that it must be taken for an
end. The essence of man must be taken for an end by existing man. Therefore,
to behave in a reasonable way, i.e. to carry out the essence is the task of
morality. Now the essence taken as an end is value. Note that the moral vision
of the world is made of essence. The essence is only potential, it is necessary
to realise the essence, that will be done insofar as the essence is taken for an
end, and the values ensure the realization of the essence. It is this ensemble
which I would call morality.

In an ethical world, let us try to switch over, there is no longer any of this. What
will they say to us in an Ethics? We will find nothing. It is another landscape.
Spinoza very often speaks about essence, but for him, essence is never the
essence of man. Essence is always a singular determination. There is the
essence of this man, and of that man, there is no essence of man. He will
himself say that the general essences or the abstract essences of the type the
essence of manare confused ideas. There is no general idea in an Ethics. There
is you, this one, that one, there are singularities. The word essence is quite

likely to change sense. When he speaks about essence, what interests him is
not the essence, what interests him is existence and what exists.

In other words, what is can only be put in relation to Being at the level of
existence, and not at the level of essence.

At this level, there is already an existentialism in Spinoza. It is thus not a

matter of an essence of man, in Spinoza, it is not the question of an essence of
man that would only be potential and which morality would be assigned to
realise, it is about something altogether different. You recognize an ethics in
what he, who speaks to you about ethics, tells you of two things in one. He is
interested in existing things (existants) in their singularity. Sometimes, he is
going to tell you, between what exists there is a distinction, a quantitative
difference in existence; what exists can be considered on a kind of quantitative
scale according to which they are more or less... More or less what? We are
going see. Not at all an essence common to several things, but a quantitative
distinction of more and less between existing things, that is Ethics.

In addition, the same discourse of an ethics is pursued by saying that there is

also a qualitative opposition between modes of existence. Two criteria of ethics,
in other words, the quantitative distinction of existing things, and the
qualitative opposition of modes of existence, the qualitative polarization of
modes of existence, will be the two ways in which existing things are in being.

These are going to be the links of Ethics with Ontology. Existing things or the
beings are in Being from two simultaneous points of view, from the point of
view of a qualitative opposition of the modes of existence, and from the point
of view of a quantitative scale of existing things. It is completely the world of
immanence. Why?

It is the world of immanence because you see at which point it is different from
the world of moral values such as I have just defined them, the moral values
being precisely this kind of tension between the essence to be realized and the
realization of the essence.

I would say that value is exactly the essence taken as an end.

That is the moral world. The completion of the moral world, one can say that it
is indeed in Kant that a supposed human essence is taken for an end, in a kind
of pure act.

Ethics is not that at all, they are like two absolutely different worlds. What can
Spinoza have to say to the others. Nothing.

It would be a matter of showing all that concretely. In a morality, you always

have the following operation: you do something, you say something, you judge
it yourself. It is the system of judgement. Morality is the system of judgement.
Of double judgement, you judge yourself and you are judged. Those who have
the taste for morality are those who have the taste for judgement. Judging
always implies an authority superior to Being, it always implies something
superior to an ontology. It always implies one more than Being, the Good which
makes Being and which makes action, it is the Good superior to Being, it is the
One. Value expresses this authority superior to Being. Therefore, values are the
fundamental element of the system of judgement. Therefore, you are always
referred to this authority superior to Being for judging.

In an ethics, it is completely different, you do not judge. In a certain manner,

you say: whatever you do, you will only ever have what you deserve.
Somebody says or does something, you do not relate it to values. You ask
yourself how is that possible? How is this possible in an internal way? In other
words, you relate the thing or the statement to the mode of existence that it
implies, that it envelops in itself. How must it be in order to say that? Which
manner of Being does this imply? You seek the enveloped modes of existence,
and not the transcendent values. It is the operation of immanence. (...)

The point of view of an ethics is: of what are you capable, what can you do?
Hence a return to this sort of cry of Spinozas: what can a body do? We never
know in advance what a body can do. We never know how were organized and
how the modes of existence are enveloped in somebody.

Spinoza explains very well such and such a body, it is never whatever body, it
is what you can do, you.

My hypothesis is that the discourse of ethics has two characteristics: it tells us

that beings (tants) have a quantitative distinction of more and less, and in
addition, it also tells us that the modes of existence have a qualitative polarity,
roughly, there are two great modes of existence. What are they?

When it is suggested to us that, between you and me, between two persons,
between a person and an animal, between an animal and a thing, there is
ethically, that is ontologically, only a quantitative distinction, what quantity is
involved? When it is suggested to us that what makes the most profound of our
singularities is something quantitative, what does that really mean? Fichte and
Schelling developed a very interesting theory of individuation that we sum up
under the name quantitative individuation. If things are individuated
quantitatively, we vaguely understand. What quantity? It is a matter of defining
people, things, animals, anything by what each one can do.

People, things, animals distinguish themselves by what they can do, i.e. they
can't do the same thing. What is it that I can do? Never would a moralist define
man by what he can do, a moralist defines man by what he is, by what he is by
right. So, a moralist defines man as a reasonable animal. It is essence. Spinoza
never defines man as a reasonable animal, he defines man by what he can do,
body and soul. If I say that reasonable is not the essence of man, but it is
something that man can do, it changes so that unreasonable is also something
that man can do. To be mad is also a part of the power (pouvoir) of man. At the
level of an animal, we see the problem clearly. If you take what is called natural
history, it has its foundation in Aristotle. It defines the animal by what the
animal is. In its fundamental ambition, it is a matter of what the animal is.
What is a vertebrate, what is a fish, and Aristotles natural history is full of this
search for the essence. In what is called the animal classifications, one will
define the animal above all, whenever possible, by its essence, i.e. by what it
is. Imagine these sorts who arrive and who proceed completely otherwise: they
are interested in what the thing or the animal can do. They are going to make a
kind of register of the powers (pouvoirs) of the animal. Those there can fly, this
here eats grass, that other eats meat. The alimentary regime, you sense that it
is about the modes of existence. An inanimate thing too, what can it do, the
diamond, what can it do? That is, of what tests is it capable? What does it
support? What does it do? A camel can go without drinking for a long time. It is
a passion of the camel. We define things by what they can do, it opens up

forms of experimentation. It is a whole exploration of things, it doesn't have

anything to do with essence. It is necessary to see people as small packets of
power (pouvoir). I am making a kind of description of what people can do.

From the point of view of an ethics, all that exists, all beings (tants) are
related to a quantitative scale which is that of power (puissance). They have
more or less power. This differentiable quantity is power. The ethical discourse
will not cease to speak to us, not of essences, it doesnt believe in essences, it
speaks to us only of power (puissance), that is, the actions and passions of
which something is capable. Not what the thing is, but what it is capable of
supporting and capable of doing. And if there is no general essence, it is
because, at this level of power (puissance), everything is singular. We dont
know in advance even though the essence tells us what a set of things is.
Ethics tells us nothing, it cannot know. One fish cannot do what the next fish
can. There will thus be an infinite differentiation of the quantity of power
(puissance) according to what exists. Things receive a quantitative distinction
because they are related to the scale of power (puissance).

When, well after Spinoza, Nietzsche will launch the concept of will to power
(volont de puissance), I am not saying that he intends to say this, but above
all, it means this. And we cannot understand anything in Nietzsche if we
believe that it is the operation by which each of us would tend towards power
(puissance). Power is not what I want, by definition, it is what I have. I have this
or that power and it is this that situates me in the quantitative scale of Beings.
Making power the object of the will is a misunderstanding, it is just the
opposite. It is according to power that I have, that I want this or that. The will to
power means that you will define things, men, animals according to the
effective power that they have. Once again, it is the question: What can a body
do? This is very different from the moral question: What must you do by virtue
of your essence? It is: What can you do, you, by virtue of your power
(puissance)? There you have it, therefore, that power (puissance) constitutes
the quantitative scale of Beings. It is the quantity of power (puissance) which
distinguishes one existing thing (xistant) from another existing thing
(xistant).

Spinoza very often said that essence is power (puissance). Understand the
philosophical coup that he is in the process of making.

we find ourselves faced with Blyenberghs two objections. The first concerns
the point of view of nature in general. It comes down to saying to Spinoza that
its very nice to explain that every time a body encounters another there are
relations that combine and relations that decompose, sometimes to the
advantage of one of the two bodies, sometimes to the advantage of the other
body. But nature itself combines all the relations at once. Thus in nature in
general what doesnt stop is the fact that all the time there are compositions
and decompositions of relations, all the time since, ultimately, the
decompositions are like the other side of the compositions. But there is no
reason to privilege the composition of relations over the decomposition since
the two always go together.
For example: I eat. I compose the relation with the food I absorb. But this is
done by decomposing the foods own relations. Another example: I am
poisoned. Arsenic decomposes my relation, okay, but it composes its own
relation with the new relations into which the parts of my body enter under the
action of the arsenic. Thus there is always composition and decomposition at
once. Thus nature, says Blyenbergh, nature such as you conceive it is nothing
but an immense chaos.
Under the objection Spinoza wavers.
Spinoza sees no difficulty and his reply is very clear. He says that it is not so for
a simple reason: its that from the point of view of the whole of nature, one
cannot say that there is composition and decomposition at once since, from the
point of view of the whole of nature, there are only compositions. There are
only compositions of relations. Its really from the point of view of our
understanding [entendement] that we say that such and such relations
combine to the detriment of another such relation, which must decompose so
that the two others can combine. But its because we isolate a part of Nature.
From the point of view of the complete whole of Nature, there is never anything
but relations that combine with each other. I like this reply very much: the
decomposition of relations does not exist from the point of view of the whole of
nature since the whole of nature embraces all relations. Thus there are
inevitably compositions, and that is all [un point c'est tout].

This very simple, very clear, very beautiful reply sets up another difficulty. It
refers to Blyenberghs second objection. Let us suppose, at the limit, that he
concedes the point on the problem of the whole of nature, so then lets
approach the other aspect, a particular point of view, my particular point of
view, that is to say the point of view of a precise and fixed relation. Actually,
what I call ME [Moi] is a set of precise and fixed relations which constitute me.
From this point of view, and its solely from a particular, determinable point of
view, you or me, that I can say that there are compositions and
decompositions.
I would say that there is composition when my relation is conserved and
combined with another, external relation, but I would say that there is
decomposition when the external body acts on me in such a manner that one
of my relations, or even many of my relations, is destroyed, that is, ceases to
be carried out [effectus] by the current parts. Just as from the point of view of
nature I was able to say that there are only compositions of relations, as soon
as I take a particular determined point of view, I must say that there are
decompositions which are not to be confused with compositions. Hence
Blyenberghs objection, which consists in saying that ultimately what you call
vice and virtue is whatever suits [arrange] you. You will call it virtue every time
you compose relations, no matter what relations you destroy, and you will call
it vice every time that one of your relations is decomposed. In other words you
will call virtue whatever is agreeable to you and vice whatever is not agreeable
to you. This comes down to saying that food is agreeable to you and poison is
not agreeable to you. But when we speak generally of vice and virtue, we
appeal to something other than such a criterion of taste, that is, what suits me
and what doesnt suit me. This objection is distinct from the preceding one
because it is made in the name of a particular point of view and no longer in
the name of the whole of nature. And it is summarized in this line that
Blyenbergh constantly repeats: you reduce morality to a matter of taste.
Spinoza is going to throw himself into an endeavor to show that he preserves
an objective criterion for the distinction of the good from the bad, or of virtue
from vice. Hes going to attempt to show that Spinozism offers us a properly
ethical criterion of the good and the bad, of vice and virtue, and that this
criterion is not a simple criterion of taste according to what suits me or doesnt
suit me. He is going to try to show that, from a particular point of view, he
doesnt confuse vice and virtue with what suits me. He is going to show it in
two texts which, to my knowledge, are Spinozas strangest, to the point that
the one seems incomprehensible and the other is perhaps comprehensible but
seems very bizarre. In the end, everything is resolved in a marvelously lucid
way.
The first is in the letters to Blyenbergh (letter 23). He wants to show that not
only does he have a criterion for distinguising vice from virtue, but that this

criterion applies in cases that appear very complicated, and that further it is a
criterion of distinction, not only for distinguishing vice from virtue, but if one
comprehends this criterion well, one can make distinctions in cases of crime.
Ill read this text:
"Neros matricide, insofar as it contained anything positive, was not a crime."
You see what Spinoza means. Evil isnt anything. Thus insofar as an act is
positive it cannot be a crime, it cannot be evil. Therefore an act as a crime, if it
is a crime, its not so insofar as it contains something positive, its from another
point of view. Very well, we can comprehend it abstractly. "Nero killed his
mother. Orestes also killed his mother. Orestes was able to accomplish an act
which, externally, is the same, and at the same time intended to kill his
mother, without deserving the same accusation as Nero." Actually, we treat
Orestes in a different way than we treat Nero, even though both of them killed
their mothers intentionally. "What, therefore, is Neros crime? It consists solely
in the fact that, in his act, Nero showed himself to be ungrateful, unmerciful
and disobedient." The act is the same, the intention is the same, there is a
difference at the level of what? Its a third determination. Spinoza concludes,
"none of these characteristics expresses anything to do with an essence."
Ungrateful, unmerciful, none of these characteristics expresses anything to do
with an essence. One doesnt know what to think. Is this a reply to Blyenbergh?
What can one get out of a text of this sort? Ungrateful, unmerciful and
disobedient. So then if Neros act is bad, its not because he killed his mother,
its not because he intended to kill her, its because Nero, in killing his mother,
showed himself to be ungrateful, unmerciful and disobedient. Orestes kills his
mother but is neither ungrateful nor disobedient. So one keeps searching. One
comes across Book IV of The Ethics, and one comes across a text which doesnt
appear to have anything to do with the previous one. One gets the impression
that Spinoza has acquired a kind of diabolical humor or has gone mad. Book IV,
proposition 59, scholium:
The text of the proposition already does not appear simple. It involves
demonstrating, for Spinoza, that all the actions to which we are determined
from a feeling which is a passion, we can be determined to do them without it
(without the feeling), we can be determined to do them by reason. Everything
that we do when pushed by passion, we can do when pushed by pure reason.
Then comes the scholium:
"These things are more clearly explained by an example. The act of beating,
insofar as it is considered physically, and insofar as we attend only to the fact
that the man raises his arm, closes his fist, and moves his whole arm forcefully
up and down, is a virtue, which is conceived from the structure of the human
body." He does not cheat with the word virtue, its an exercise [effectuation] of

the power of the body, its what my body can do, its one of the things it can
do. This makes it part of the potentiae of the human body, of this power
[puissance] in action, its an act of power, and for that very reason this is what
we call virtue. "Therefore, if a man moved by anger or hate (i.e. by a passion) is
determined (determined by the passion) to close his fist or move his arm, that,
as we have shown in Part II, happens because one and the same action can be
associated with any images of things whatever." Spinoza is in the process of
telling us something very strange. He is in the process of telling us that he calls
the determination of the action association, the link that unites the image of
the action with an image of a thing. That is the determination of the action. The
determination of the action is the image of a thing to which the image of the
act is linked. Its truly a relation that he himself presents as being a relation of
association: one and the same action can be associated with any image of a
thing whatever.
The citation from Spinoza continues: "And so we can be determined to one and
the same action both from those images of things which we conceive
confusedly and from those images of things we conceive clearly and distinctly.
It is evident, therefore, that every desire which arises from a feeling which is a
passion would be of no use if men could be guided by reason."
That is to say that all the actions that we do determined by passions, we could
just as well do determined by pure reason.
What is this introduction of the confused and the distinct? There it is, what I
recall from the text and its in the text to the letter. He says that an image of
action can be associated with images of very different things. Consequently the
same action can be associated just as well with images of confused things as
with images of clear and distinct things.
So I bring my fist down on my mothers head. Theres one case. And with the
same violence I bring my fist down on the head [membrane] of a bass drum.
Its not the same gesture. But Spinoza suppressed [supprime] this objection.
He replied to it in advance. Actually, Spinoza posed the problem in conditions
such that this objection could not be valid. In effect, he asks us to consent to an
extremely paradoxical analysis of action as follows: between the action and the
object on which it bears there is a relation which is a relation of association.
Indeed, if, between the action and the object on which it bears, the relation is
associative, if its a relation of association, then Spinoza is quite right. That is,
its clearly the same action, whatever the variants might be, which in one case
is associated with my mothers head and in the other case is associated with a
bass drum. Thus the objection is suppressed.
What difference is there between these two cases? One senses what Spinoza
means and what he means is not nothing. Lets return to the criterion were

sure of: what bad is there when I do this thing that is an exercise [effectuation]
of the power of my body and which, in this sense, is good? I do that, I simply
give someone a blow on the head. What is bad: that I decompose a relation,
namely my mothers head. In beating like that on my mothers head I destroy
the constituent relation of the head: my mother dies or passes out under the
blow. In Spinozist terms, I would say that in this case I associate my action with
the image of a thing whose relation is directly decomposed by this action. I
associate the image of the act with the image of something whose constituent
relation is decomposed by this act.
When I bring my fist down on a bass drum? The drumhead is defined how? The
tension of the head will also be defined by a certain relation. But in this case
here, if the power of a head is to produce harmonics, here Ive associated my
action with the image of something whose relation combines directly with this
action. That is, I have drawn harmonics out of the drumhead.
Whats the difference? Its enormous. In one case I associated my action, once
again, the image of a thing whose relation combines directly with the relation
of my act, and in the other case, I associated my act with the image of a thing
whose relation is immediately and directly decomposed by my act. You grasp
the criterion of The Ethics for Spinoza. Its a very modest criterion, but here,
Spinoza gives us a rule. He liked the decompositions of relations very much, he
adored the battles of spiders, that made him laugh. Imagine your everyday
actions: there are a certain number of them which are characterized as being
associated with an image of a thing or being which combines directly with the
action, and others which, on the contrary (a type of action), are associated with
images of things whose relation is decomposed by the action.
So by convention the actions of direct composition will be called GOOD and the
actions of direct decomposition will be called BAD.
We are still floundering among many problems. First problem: what is there in
the text of The Ethics that can cast a glimmer of light for us on the text of the
letter, the difference between Orestes and Nero. In the letter, it involves two
actions which are both crimes. Why is what Nero did something bad, while
according to Spinoza one cant even say that Orestes, in killing his mother, has
done something bad? How can one say such a thing? One can say such a thing
according to the following: we now have the method of the analysis of action
according to Spinoza. Every action will be analyzed along two dimensions: the
image of the act as power of the body, what a body can do, and the image of
the associated thing, that is to say the object on which the act bears. Between
the two there is a relation of association. Its a logic of action.
Nero kills his mother. In killing his mother, Nero associated his act directly with
the image of a being whose relation would be decomposed by this act: he killed

his mother. Thus the relation of primary, direct association is between the act
and an image of a thing whose relation is decomposed by this act.
Orestes kills his mother because she killed Agamemnon, that is to say because
she killed Orestes father. In killing his mother, Orestes pursues a sacred
vengeance. Spinoza does not say vengeance. According to Spinoza, Orestes
associates his act, not with the image of Clytemnestra whose relation will be
decomposed by this act, but rather he associates it with the relation of
Agamemnon which was decomposed by Clytemnestra. In killing his mother,
Orestes recomposes his relation with the relation of his father.
Spinoza is in the process of telling us that, okay, at the level of a particular
point of view, you or me, there is always composition and decomposition of
relations at once; does that mean that the good and the bad are mixed up and
become indiscernible? No, replies Spinoza, because at the level of a logic of the
particular point of view there will always be a priority [primat]. Sometimes the
composition of relations will be direct and the decomposition indirect, and
sometimes, on the contrary, the decomposition willl be direct and the
composition indirect. Spinoza tells us: I call good an action that implements
[opre] a direct composition of relations even if it implements an indirect
decomposition, and I call bad an action that implements a direct decomposition
even if it implements an indirect composition. In other words there are two
types of actions: actions in which the decomposition comes about as if in
consequence and not in principle, because the principle is a composition - and
this has value only for my point of view, because from the point of view of
nature everything is composition and its for that reason that God knows
neither evil nor the bad - and inversely there are actions which directly
decompose and imply compositions only indirectly. This, then, is the criterion of
the good and the bad and its with this that its necessary to live. Spinoza is an
author who, whenever he encounters the problem of a symbolic dimension,
continually expunges it, hunts it down, and tries to show that it was a confused
idea of the worst imagination. Prophetism is the act by which I receive a sign
and by which I emit signs. There is clearly a theory of the sign in Spinoza,
which consists in relating the sign to the most confused understanding and
imagination in the world, and in the world such as it is, according to Spinoza,
the idea of the sign does not exist. There are expressions, there are never
signs. When God reveals to Adam that the apple will act as a poison, he reveals
to him a composition of relations, he reveals to him a physical truth and he
doesnt send him a sign at all. Its only to the extent that one comprehends
nothing of the substance-mode relation that one invokes signs. Spinoza says a
thousand times that God makes no signs, he gives expressions. He does not
give a sign which would refer to a signification or a signifier (a crazy notion for
Spinoza), he expresses himself, that is to say he reveals his relations. And
revealing is neither mystical nor symbolic. Revealing is giving something to
comprehend. He gives relations to comprehend in the understanding of God.

The apple falls, its a revelation of God, its a composition of relations If there
is an order of filiations in Spinoza, its obviously not a symbolic order, its an
order that, step by step, makes up Nature, and Nature is an individual, an
individual which encompasses all individuals, there is an order of compositions
of relations and its quite necessary that all the relations be carried out
[effectus]. The necessity of Nature is that there will not be relations that are
not carried out. Everything possible is necessary, which means that all relations
have been or will be carried out.
Spinoza wouldnt do the Eternal Return, the same relation will not be executed
[execut] twice. There is an infinity of relations, the whole of Nature is the
totality of executions [effectuations] of all possible, and thus necessary,
relations. That is identity in Spinoza, the absolute identity of the possible and
the necessary. On prophetism, Spinoza says something very simple which will
be taken up again by Nietzsche, by all those authors of whom one can say that
they are, in this sense, those who have pushed positivism as far as possible.
Here, broadly speaking, is the idea that they get: okay, there are laws. These
laws are laws of Nature and thus when one speaks of divine revelation there is
nothing mysterious. Divine revelation is the exposition of laws. Spinoza calls a
law a composition of relations. This is what will be called a law of nature. When
one is very restricted one cannot comprehend laws as laws. How does one
comprehend them? 2 + 2 = 4 is a composition of relations. You have the
relation two plus two, you have the relation four, and you have the relation of
identity between the relation two plus two and the relation four. If you
comprehend nothing, you hear this law as an order, or as a commandment. The
little child at school comprehends the law of nature as a moral law: it is
necessary that it be so, and if he says something else he will be punished. It
proceeds like that according to our restricted understanding. If we were to
grasp the laws as what they are, as physical compositions of relations,
compositions of bodies, then notions as strange as command and obedience
would remain completely unknown to us. Its to the extent that we perceive a
law that we dont comprehend that we apprehend it as an order; God forbade
absolutely nothing, Spinoza explains on the subject of Adam. He revealed a law
to him, namely that the apple combines with a relation that excludes my
constituent relation. Therefore its a law of nature. Its exactly like arsenic.
Adam comprehends nothing of any of this, and instead of grasping it as a law,
he grasps it as one of Gods prohibitions. So when I grasp things under the form
command-obedience, instead of grasping them as compositions of relations, at
that very moment I start saying that God is like a father, I demand a sign. The
prophet is someone who, not grasping the laws of nature, will just ask for the
sign that guarantees to him that the order is just.
If I comprehend nothing in the law, I demand on the other hand a sign in order
to be sure that what I am ordained to do is really what I am ordained to do. The
first reaction of the prophet is: God, give me a sign that it is really you who

speaks to me. Later, when the prophet has the sign, he is going to emit signs.
This will be the language of signs.
Spinoza is a positivist because he opposes expression to the sign: God
expresses, the modes express, the attributes express. Why? In logical
language, one would say that the sign is always equivocal, there is an
equivocity of the sign, that is to say that the sign signifies, but it signifies in
several senses. In contrast, expression is uniquely and completely univocal:
there is only one single sense of the expression, and that is the sense following
which the relations combine.
According to Spinoza, God proceeds by expression and never by sign. The true
language is that of expression. The language of expression is that of the
composition of relations to infinity.
All that Spinoza will consent to is the fact that, because we are not
philosophers, because our understanding is restricted, we always have need of
certain signs. Signs are a vital necessity because we comprehend only a very
few of the things in the world. Thats the way Spinoza justifies society. Society
is the institution [instauration] of the minimum of signs indispensible to life. Of
course, there are relations of obedience and command, if one has knowledge
[connaissance] there is no need to obey or command. But it happens that one
has a very limited knowledge, thus all one can ask of those who command and
obey is not to meddle with knowledge. So all obedience and command bearing
on knowledge is null and void. Which Spinoza expresses on a very beautiful
page of the Theological-Political Treatise, namely that there is only one
absolutely inalienable freedom, and that is the freedom of thought. If there is a
symbolic domain, it is that of order, command and obedience. It is the domain
of signs. The domain of knowledge is the domain of relations, that is to say of
univocal expressions.

Eternity, instantaneity, duration.

affectio and affectus,

affection and affect.

Duration. Theory of the affects.
Blyenbergh, the Ethics
Sadness and joy. Hate. Power (puissance).
The spheres of belonging.
The unlimited, the infinite.

Bleyenbergh: Composition and decomposition of relations

Spinozas example in the letters to Blyenbergh: I am led by a basely sensual

appetite or else, the other case: I feel a true love. What are these two cases? It
is necessary to try to understand them according to the criteria that Spinoza
gives us. A basely sensual appetite, even the mere expression, one feels that it
is not good, that it is bad. It is bad in what sense? When I am led by a basely
sensual appetite, what does that mean? It means that: within it there is an
action, or a tendency to action: for example desire. What happens to the desire
when am I led by a basely sensual appetite? It is the desire of. Good. What is
this desire? It can only be qualified by its association with an image of a thing,
for example I desire a bad woman.

Richard Pinhas: several! [Bursts of general laughter]) or even worse, even

worse: several!

Gilles Deleuze : Yes. What does it mean? We saw a bit of it when he suggested
the difference between adultery, all that. Forget the ridiculous aspect of the
examples, but they are not ridiculous, they are examples! In this case, what he
calls basely sensual, basely sensual appetite, the basely sensual consists in
this, that the action, in all manners, even for example making love, the action
is a virtue! Why? Because it is something that my body can do; don't ever
forget the theme of power (puissance). It is in my bodys power. So it is a
virtue, and in this sense it is the expression of a power.

But if I remained there with it, I would have no means of distinguishing the
basely sensual appetite from the most beautiful of loves. But there it is, when

there is basely sensual appetite, why is it? It is because, in fact, I associate my

action, or the image of my action, with the image of a thing whose relation is
decomposed by this action. In several different ways, in all ways, for example if
I am married, in the very example that Spinoza took, I decompose a relation,
the relation of the couple. Or if the other person is married, I decompose the
relation of the couple. But whats more, in a basely sensual appetite I
decompose all sorts of relations: the basely sensual appetite with its taste for
destruction, good we can take everything up again on the decompositions of
relations, a kind of fascination of the decomposition of relations, of the
destruction of relations. On the contrary in the most beautiful of loves. Notice
that there, I don't invoke the mind at all, it would not be Spinozist, according to
parallelism. I invoke a love in the case of the most beautiful of loves, a love
which is not less bodily than the most basely sensual love. The difference is,
simply, that in the most beautiful of loves, my action, the same, exactly the
same, my physical action, my bodily action, is associated with an image of the
thing whose relation is directly combined, directly composed with the relation
of my action. It is in this sense that the two uniting individuals lovingly form an
individual which has both of them as parts, Spinoza would say. On the contrary,
in the basely sensual love, the one destroys the other, the other destroys the
one, that is there is a whole process of decomposition of relations. In short,
they make love like they are knocking each other about.

All this is very concrete. So it works.

Only we always come up against this, Spinoza tells us: you don't choose, in the
end, the image of the thing with which your action is associated. It engages a
whole play of causes and of effects which escape you. Indeed, what is it that
makes this basely sensual love take you? You cannot say to yourself: Ha! I
could do otherwise. Spinoza is not one of those who believes in a free will. No,
it is a whole determinism which associates the images of things with the
actions. Then whats more troubling, the formula: I am as perfect as I can be
according to the affections that I have. That is to say that if I am dominated by
a basely sensual appetite, I am as perfect as I can be, as perfect as it is
possible, as perfect as it is in my power (pouvoir) to be.

And could I say: I am deprived of (manque) a better state? Spinoza seems very
firm. In the letters to Blyenbergh he says: I cannot say that I am deprived of a
better state, I cannot even say it. Because it doesn't make any sense. To say at
the moment when I experience a basely sensual appetite once again, you will
see in the text, if you haven't already seen it, this example which returns

because Blyenbergh clings there to this example. Indeed it is very simple, it is

very clear. When I say, at the moment when I experience a basely sensual
appetite, when I say: Ha! I am deprived of true love, if I say it, what does that
mean to say: I am deprived of something? Literally it doesn't mean anything,
absolutely nothing in Spinoza, but nothing! It merely means that my mind
compares a state that I have to a state that I don't have, in other words it is not
a real relation, it is a comparison of the mind. A pure comparison of the mind.
And Spinoza goes so far as to say: you might as well say at that moment there
that the stone is deprived of sight. You might as well say at that moment there
that the stone is deprived of sight. Indeed, why wouldnt I compare the stone to
a human organism, and in the name of a same comparison of the mind, I would
say: the stone doesn't see, therefore it is deprived of sight. And Spinoza said
expressly I am not looking for the texts because you are reading them, I hope
Spinoza responds expressly to Blyenbergh: it is just as stupid to speak of the
stone by saying of it that it is deprived of sight as it would be stupid, at the
moment when I experience a basely sensual appetite, to say that I am deprived
of a better love.

So then, at this level, we listen to Spinoza, and we tell ourselves that there is
something which doesn't work, because in his comparison, I take the two
judgments, I say of the stone: it can't see, it is deprived of sight, and I say of
someone who experiences a basely sensual appetite that they are deprived of
virtue. Are these two propositions, as Spinoza claims, of the same type? It is so
apparent that they are not the same, that we can be confident that if Spinoza
says to us that they are of the same type, it is because he wants to be
provocative. He wants to say to us: I challenge you to tell me the difference
between the two propositions. But one feels the difference. Spinozas
provocation is going to allow us perhaps to find it. In the two cases, for the two
propositions, is the stone (pierre) deprived of sight, or is Pierre the name this
time deprived of virtue, is the comparison of the mind between two states, a
state that I have and a state that I don't have, is the comparison of the mind of
the same type? Evidently not! Why? To say that the stone is deprived of sight
is, on the whole, to say that nothing in it contains the possibility of seeing.
While, when I say: he is deprived of true love, it is not a comparison of the
same type, since, this time, I dont rule out that at other moments this being
here has experienced something which resembled true love.

In other words, the question specifies, I will go very slowly, even if you have the
impression that all this goes without saying: is a comparison within the same
being analogous to a comparison between two beings? Spinoza doesn't back
away from the problem, he takes the case of the blind man, and he says to us

quietly but once again, what does he have in mind in saying things like this to
us, which are so obviously inaccurate he says to us: the blind man is deprived
of nothing! Why? He is as perfect as he can be according to the affections that
he has. He is deprived of (priv de) visual images, to be blind is to be deprived
of visual images; that means that he doesnt see, but neither does the stone
see. And he says: there is no difference between the blind man and the stone
from this point of view, namely: the one like the other doesn't have visual
images. So it is just as stupid, says Spinoza, it is just as stupid to say that the
blind man is deprived of sight as it is to say: the stone is deprived of sight. And
the blind man, then? He is as perfect as he can be, according to what? You see
even so, Spinoza doesn't say to us: according to his power (puissance); he says
that the blind man is as perfect as he can be according to the affections of his
power, that is according to the images of which he is capable. According to the
images of things of which he is capable, which are the true affections of his
power. So it would be entirely the same thing as saying: the stone doesn't have
sight, and to say: the blind man doesn't have sight.

Pure instantaneity of essence

Blyenbergh begins here to understand something. He begins to understand.
However, Spinoza Why does he make this kind of provocation? And, Blyenbergh
[X] once again it appears to me a typical example of the point at which the
commentators are mistaken, it seems to me, by saying that Blyenbergh is
stupid, because Blyenbergh doesn't get Spinoza wrong. Blyenbergh answers
Spinoza immediately by saying: all that is very pretty but you can only manage
it if you insist upon (he didn't say it in this form, but you will see, the text really
comes down to the same thing) a kind of pure instantaneity of the essence. It is
interesting as an objection, it is a good objection. Blyenbergh retorts: you
cannot assimilate the blind man not seeing and the stone not seeing, you can
only make such an assimilation if, at the same time, you pose a kind of pure
instantaneity of the essence, namely: there belongs to an essence only the
present, instantaneous affection that it experiences insofar as it experiences it.
The objection here is very very strong. If indeed I am saying: there belongs to
my essence only the affection that I experience here and now, then, indeed, I
am not deprived of anything. If I am blind I am not deprived of sight, if I am
dominated by a basely sensual appetite, I am not deprived of better love. I am
not deprived of anything. There belongs to my essence, indeed, only the
affection that I experience here and now. And Spinoza answers quietly: yes,
thats the way it is.

This is curious. What is curious? That it is the same man who never stops
telling us that the essence is eternal. The singular essences, that is yours,
mine, all the essences are eternal. Notice that it is a way of saying that the
essence doesn't endure. Now as a matter of fact there are two ways of not
enduring, at first sight: the way of eternity or the way of instantaneity. Now it is
very curious how slyly he passes from one to the other. He began by telling us:
the essences are eternal, and now he tells us: the essences are instantaneous.
If you like, it becomes a very bizarre position. To the letter of the text: the
essences are eternal, but those things which belongs to the essence are
instantaneous; there belongs to my essence only what I experience actually
insofar as I experience it actually. And indeed, the formula: I am as perfect as I
can be according to the affection which determines my essence implies this
strict instantaneity.

That is pretty much the high point of the correspondence, because a very
curious thing is going to happen. Spinoza responds to this very violently
because he increasingly loses patience with this correspondence. Blyenbergh
protests here, he says: but in the end, you cannot define the essence by
instantaneity, what does this mean? Then it is a pure instantaneity? Sometimes
you have a basely sensual appetite, sometimes you have a better love, and
you will say each time that you are as perfect as you can be, there as in a
series of flashes! In other words Blyenbergh says to him: you cannot expel the
phenomenon of duration. There is a duration, and it is precisely according to
this duration that you can become better, there is a becoming, and it is
according to this duration that you can become better or worse. When you
experience a basely sensual appetite it is not a pure instantaneity which comes
over you. It is necessary to take it in terms of duration, that is: you become
worse than you were before. And when a better love forms in you, of course
you become better. There is an irreducibility of duration. In other words the
essence cannot be measured in its instantaneous states.

Now this is curious because Spinoza stops the correspondence. On this point no
response from Spinoza. And at just the same time Blyenbergh does something
imprudent, that is sensing that hes posed an important question to Spinoza, he
starts to pose all sorts of questions, he thinks he has caught Spinoza out, and
Spinoza tells him to back off. He says to him let go of me a while, leave me in
peace. He cuts the correspondence short, he stops, he won't answer anymore.

All of this is very dramatic because it can be said: Aha! Then he didn't have
anything to respond If he had to respond because the response that Spinoza

could have made, and we are certainly forced to conclude that he could have
made it, therefore if he didn't make it, it is because he did not want to, the
response is all in the Ethics. Therefore just as on certain points the
correspondence with Blyenbergh goes farther than the Ethics, on other points,
and for a simple reason I think, which is that Spinoza above all doesn't want to
give Blyenbergh, for reasons which are his own, he above all doesn't want to
give Blyenbergh the idea of what this book is, this book of which everyone is
speaking at the time, that Spinoza experiences the need to hide because he
feels that he has a lot to fear. He doesn't want to give Blyenbergh, whom he
feels to be an enemy, he doesn't want to give him an idea of what the Ethics is.
So he stops the correspondence. We can consider in this respect that he has a
response that he doesn't want to give. He says to himself: I will still have
problems.

The sphere of belonging of essence

But it is up to us to try to reconstitute this response. Spinoza knows very well
that there is duration. You see that we are now in the process of playing with
three terms: eternity, instantaneity, duration. What is instantaneity? We dont
yet know at all what eternity is in Spinoza, but eternity is the modality of
essence. It is the modality which belongs to essence. Lets suppose that the
essence is eternal, that is that it is not subject to time. What does this mean?
We dont know.

What is instantaneity? Instantaneity is the modality of affection of essence.

Formula: I am always as perfect as I can be according to the affections that I
have here and now. Therefore affection is actually an instantaneous cut. In
effect it is the species of horizontal relation between an action and an image of
a thing. Third dimension, it is as if we were in the process of constituting the
three dimensions of what we could call the sphere. Here I take a word, which is
not at all Spinozist, but I take a word which allows us to regroup this, a
Husserlian word, the sphere of belonging of the essence: the essence is what
belongs to it. I believe that Spinoza would say that this sphere of belonging of
the essence has three dimensions. There is the essence itself, eternal; there
are the affections of the essence here and now which are like so many instants,
that is, what affects me at this moment; and then there is what?

It is found, and here, the terminology is important, Spinoza rigorously

distinguishes between affectio and affectus. It is complicated because there are
a lot of translators who translate affectio by affection, all of the translators

translate affectio by affection that, that works, but there are lots of translators
who translate affectus by feeling. On the one hand this doesnt say much, in
French, the difference between affection and feeling, and on the other hand it
is a shame, even a slightly more barbaric word would be better, but it would be
better, it seems to me, to translate affectus by affect, since the word exists in
French; this retains at least the same root common to affectio and to affect.
Therefore Spinoza, if only by his terminology, distinguishes well between the
affectio and the affectus, the affection and the affect.

Affection envelops an affect

What is it, the affect? Spinoza tells us that it is something that the affection
envelops. The affection envelops an affect. You recall, the affection is the effect
literally if you want to give it an absolutely rigorous definition it is the
instantaneous effect of an image of a thing on me. For example perceptions are
affections. The image of things associated with my action is an affection. The
affection envelops, implicates, all of these are the words Spinoza constantly
uses. To envelope: it is necessary to really take them as material metaphors,
that is that within the affection there is an affect. There is a difference in nature
between the affect and the affection. The affect is not something dependent on
the affection, it is enveloped by the affection, thats something else. There is a
difference in nature between the affect and the affection. What does my
affection, that is the image of the thing and the effect of this image on me,
what does it envelop? It envelops a passage or a transition. Only it is necessary
to take passage or transition in a very strong sense. Why?

Duration is the passage, the lived transition

You see, it means: it is something other than a comparison of mind, here we
are no longer in the domain of a comparison of mind. It is not a comparison of
the mind in two states, it is a passage or transition enveloped by the affection,
by every affection. Every instantaneous affection envelops a passage or
transition. Transition, to what? Passage, to what? Once again, not at all a
comparison of the mind, I must add in order to go more slowly: a lived passage,
a lived transition, which obviously doesnt mean conscious. Every state
implicates a lived passage or transition. Passage from what to what, between
what and what? More precisely, so close are the two moments of time, the two
instants that I consider instant A and instant A, that there is a passage from
the preceding (antrieur) state to the current (actuel) state. The passage from
the preceding state to the current state differs in nature with the preceding
state and with the current state. There is a specificity of the transition, and it is
precisely this that we call duration and that Spinoza calls duration. Duration is

the lived passage, the lived transition. What is duration? Never anything but
the passage from one thing to another, it suffices to add, insofar as it is lived.

When, centuries later, Bergson will make duration into a philosophical concept,
it will obviously be with wholly different influences. It will be according to itself
above all, it will not be under the influence of Spinoza. Nevertheless, I am just
pointing out that the Bergsonian use of duration coincides strictly. When
Bergson tries to make us understand what he calls duration, he says: you can
consider psychic states as close together as you want in time, you can consider
the state A and the state A as separated by a minute, but just as well by a
second, by a thousandth of a second, that is you can make more and more
cuts, increasingly tight, increasingly close to one another. You may well go to
the infinite, says Bergson, in your decomposition of time, by establishing cuts
with increasing rapidity, but you will only ever reach states. And he adds that
the states are always of space. The cuts are always spatial. And you will have
brought your cuts together very well, you will let something necessarily escape,
it is the passage from one cut to another, however small it may be. Now, what
does he call duration, at its simplest? It is the passage from one cut to another,
it is the passage from one state to another. The passage from one state to
another is not a state, you will tell me that all of this is not strong, but it is a
really profound statute of living. For how can we speak of the passage, the
passage from one state to another, without making it a state? This is going to
pose problems of expression, of style, of movement, it is going to pose all sorts
of problems. Yet duration is that, it is the lived passage from one state to
another insofar as it is irreducible to one state as to the other, insofar as it is
irreducible to any state. This is what happens between two cuts.

In one sense duration is always behind our backs, it is at our backs that it
happens. It is between two blinks of the eye. If you want an approximation of
duration: I look at someone, I look at someone, duration is neither here nor
there. Duration is: what has happened between the two? Even if I would have
gone as quickly as I would like, duration goes even more quickly, by definition,
as if it was affected by a variable coefficient of speed: as quickly as I go, my
duration goes more quickly. However quickly I pass from one state to another,
the passage is irreducible to the two states. It is this that every affection
envelops. I would say: every affection envelops the passage by which we arrive
at it. Or equally well: every affection envelops the passage by which we arrive
at it, and by which we leave it, towards another affection, however close the
two affections considered are. So in order to make my line complete it would be
necessary for me to make a line of three times: A, A,' A"; A is the instantaneous
affection, of the present moment, A' is that of a little while ago, A" is what is

going to come. Even though I have brought them together as close as possible,
there is always something which separates them, namely the phenomenon of
passage. This phenomenon of passage, insofar as it is a lived phenomenon, is
duration: this is the third member of the essence.

I therefore have a slightly stricter definition of the affect, the affect: what every
affection envelops, and which nevertheless is of another nature is the passage,
it is the lived passage from the preceding state to the current state, or of the
current state to the following state. Good. If you understand all that, for the
moment were doing a kind of decomposition of the three dimensions of the
essence, of the three members of the essence. The essence belongs to itself
under the form of the eternity, the affection belongs to the essence under the
form of instantaneity, the affect belongs to the essence under the form of
duration.

Affect, increase and decrease of power

Now the passage is what? What could a passage be? It is necessary to leave
the too spatial idea. Every passage Spinoza tells us, and this is going to be the
basis of his theory of affectus, of his theory of the affect, every passage is
here he doesn't say implicates, understand that the words are very very
important he will tell us of the affection that it implicates an affect, every
affection implicates, envelops, but the enveloped and the enveloping just don't
have the same nature. Every affection, that is every determinable state at a
single moment, envelops an affect, a passage. But the passage, I don't ask
what it envelops, it is enveloped; I ask of what does it consist, what is it? And
my response from Spinoza, is it obvious what it is? It is increase and decrease
of my power (puissance). It is increase or decrease of my power, even
infinitesimally. I take two cases: I am in a dark room Im developing all of this,
it is perhaps useless, I don't know, but it is to persuade you that when you read
a philosophical text it is necessary that you have the most ordinary situations
in your head, the most everyday ones. You are in a dark room, you are as
perfect, Spinoza will say: Lets judge from the point of view of affections, you
are as perfect as you can be according to the affections that you have. You
don't have any, you don't have visual affections, thats all. There, thats all. But
you are as perfect as you can be. All of a sudden someone enters and turns on
the lights without warning: I am completely dazzled. Notice that I took the
worse example for me. Then, no. Ill change it, I was wrong. I am in the dark,
and someone arrives softly, all that, and turns on a light, this is going to be
very complicated this example. You have your two states which could be very
close together in time. The state that I call: dark state, and small b, the lighted

state. They are very close together. I am saying: there is a passage from one to
the other, so fast that it may even be unconscious, all that, to the point that
your whole body, in Spinozist terms these are examples of bodies, your whole
body has a kind of mobilization of itself, in order to adapt to this new state. The
affect is what? It is the passage. The affection is the dark state and the lighted
state. Two successive affections, in cuts. The passage is the lived transition
from one to the other. Notice that in this case here there is no physical
transition, there is a biological transition, it is your body which makes the
transition.

Every affection is instantaneous

What does this mean? The passage is necessarily an increase of power or a
decrease of power. It is necessary to already understand and it is for this
reason that all this is so concrete, it is not determined in advance. Suppose that
in the dark you were in deep state of meditation. Your whole body was focused
on this extreme meditation. You held something. The other brute arrives and
turns on the light, if need be you lose an idea that you were going to have. You
turn around, you are furious. We hold onto this because we will use the same
example again. You hate him, even if not for long, but you hate him, you say to
him: Hey! Listen. In this case the passage to the lighted state will have
brought you what? A decrease of power. Evidently if you had looked for your
glasses in the dark, there they would have brought you an increase of power.
The guy who turned the light on, you say to him: Thank you very much, I love
you. Good.

Weve already said that, maybe this story of increase and decrease of power is
going to play in quite variable directions and contexts. But, on the whole, there
are directions. If we stick to you, one could say in general, without taking the
context into account, if one increases the affections of which you are capable,
there is an increase of power, if one decreases the affections of which you are
capable there is a decrease of power. We can say this on the whole even
knowing that it is not always like this. What do I mean? I mean something very
simple: it is that every affection is instantaneous Spinoza, you see how he is
very very curious, in virtue of his rigor he will say: every affection is
instantaneous, and it is this that he responded to Blyenbergh, he didn't want to
say more on it. One could not say that he distorted his thought, he only gave
one sphere of it, he only gave a tip of it. Every affection is instantaneous, he
will always say this, and he will always say: I am as perfect as I can be
according to what I have in the instant. It is the sphere of belonging of the
instantaneous essence. In this sense, there is neither good nor bad. But in

return, the instantaneous state always envelopes an increase or a decrease of

power, and in this sense there is good and bad. So much so that, not from the
point of view of its state, but from the point of view of its passage, from the
point of view of its duration, there is something bad in becoming blind, there is
something good in becoming seeing, since it is either decrease of power or else
increase of power. And here it is no longer the domain of a comparison of the
mind between two states, it is the domain of the lived passage from one state
to another, the lived passage in the affect. So much so that it seems to me that
we can understand nothing of the Ethics, that is of the theory of the affects, if
we don't keep very much in mind the opposition that Spinoza established
between the comparisons between two states of the mind, and the lived
passages from one state to another, lived passages that can only be lived in
the affects. The affects are joy or sadness There remains for us quite a few
things to understand. I would not say that the affects signal the decreases or
increases of power, I would say that the affects are the decreases and the
increases of lived power. Not necessarily conscious once again. It is I believe a
very very profound conception of the affect. So Lets give them names in order
to better mark them. The affects which are increases of power we will call joys,
the affects which are decreases of power we will call sadnesses. And the affects
are either based on joy, or else based on sadness. Hence Spinozas very
rigorous definitions: sadness is the affect that corresponds to a decrease of
power, of my power, joy is the affect which corresponds to an increase of my
power. Sadness is a affect enveloped by an affection. The affection is what? It is
an image of a thing which causes me sadness, which gives me sadness. You
see, there we find everything, this terminology is very rigorous. I repeat. I don't
know anymore what Ive said. The affect of sadness is enveloped by an
affection, the affection is what, it is the image of a thing which gives me
sadness, this image can be very imprecise, very confused, it matters little.
There is my question: why does the image of a thing which gives me sadness,
why does this image of a thing envelop a decrease of power (puissance) of
acting? What is this thing which gives me sadness? We have at least all of the
elements to respond to it, now everything is regrouped, if you have followed
me everything must regroup harmoniously, very harmoniously. The thing which
gives me sadness is the thing whose relations don't agree with mine. That is
affection. All things whose relations tend to decompose one of my relations or
the totality of my relations affect me with sadness. In terms of affectio you
have there a strict correspondence, in terms of affectio, I would say: the thing
has relations which are not composed with mine, and which tend to decompose
mine. Here I am speaking in terms of affectio. In terms of affects I would say:
this thing affects me with sadness, therefore by the same token], in the same
way, decreases my power. You see I have the double language of instantaneous
affections and of affects of passage. Hence I return as always to my question:
why, but why, if one understood why, maybe one would understand everything.
What happens? You see that he takes sadness in one sense, they are the two

big affective tonalities, not two particular cases. Sadness and joy are the two
big affective tonalities, that is affective in the sense of affectus, the affect. We
are going to see as two lineages: the lineage based on sadness and the lineage
based on joy, that are going to cover the theory of the affects. Why the thing
whose relations don't agree with mine, why does it affect me with sadness, that
is decrease my power of acting? You see we have a double impression: both
that Weve understood in advance, and then that were missing something in
order to understand. What happens, when something is presented having
relations which don't compose with mine, it could be a current of air.

I am going back, I am in the dark, in my room, I am alone, I am left in peace.

Someone enters and he makes me flinch, he knocks on the door, he knocks on
the door and he makes me flinch. I lose an idea. He enters and he starts to
speak; I have fewer and fewer ideas ouch, ouch, I am affected with sadness.
Yes, I feel sadness, Ive been disturbed, damn! Spinoza will say, the lineage of
sadness is what? Then on top of it all I hate it! I say to him: eh, listen, its okay.
It could be not very serious, it could be a small hate, he irritates me damn it:
hoooo! I cannot have peace, all that, I hate it!

What does it mean, hate? You see, sadness, he said to us: your power of acting
is decreased, then you experience sadness insofar as it is decreased, your
power of acting, okay. I hate it, that means that the thing whose relations don't
compose with yours, you strive, this would only be what you have in mind, you
strive for its destruction. To hate is to want to destroy what threatens to
destroy you. This is what hate means. That is, to want to decompose what
threatens to decompose you. So the sadness engenders hate. Notice that it
engenders joys too.

Hate engenders joys. So the two lineages, on one hand sadness, on the other
hand joy, are not going to be pure lineages. What are the joys of hate? There
are joys of hate.

As Spinoza says: if you imagine the being that you hate to be unhappy, your
heart experiences a strange joy. One can even engender passions. And Spinoza
does this marvelously. There are joys of hate. Are these joys? We can at least
say, and this is going to advance us a lot for later, that these joys are strangely
compensatory, that is indirect. What is first in hate, when you have feelings of
hate, always look for the sadness at base, that is your power of acting was

impeded, was decreased. And even if you have, if you have a diabolical heart,
even if you have to believe that this heart flourishes in the joys of hate, these
joys of hate, as immense as they are, will never get rid of the nasty little
sadness of which you are a part; your joys are joys of compensation. The man
of hate, the man of resentment, etc., for Spinoza, is the one all of whose joys
are poisoned by the initial sadness, because sadness is in these same joys. In
the end he can only derive joy from sadness. Sadness that he experiences
himself by virtue of the existence of the other, sadness that he imagines
inflicting on the other to please himself, all of this is for measly joys, says
Spinoza. These are indirect joys. We rediscover our criteria of direct and
indirect, all comes together at this level.

So much so that I return to my question: then yes, it is necessary to say it all

the same: in what way does an affection, that is the image of something that
doesn't agree with my own relations, in what way does this decrease my power
of acting? It is both obvious and not. Here is what Spinoza means: suppose that
you have a power (puissance), Lets set it up roughly the same, and there, first
case you come up against something whose relations don't compose with
yours. Second case, on the contrary you encounter something whose relations
compose with your own. Spinoza, in the Ethics, uses the Latin term: occursus,
occursus is exactly this case, the encounter. I encounter bodies, my body never
stops encountering bodies. The bodies that he encounters sometimes have
relations which compose, sometimes have relations which don't compose with
his. What happens when I encounter a body whose relation doesn't compose
with mine? Well there: I would say and you will see that in book IV of the
Ethics this doctrine is very strong. I cannot say that it is absolutely affirmed,
but it is very much suggested a phenomenon happens which is like a kind of
fixation. What does this mean, a fixation? That is, a part of my power is entirely
devoted to investing and to isolating the trace, on me, of the object which
doesn't agree with me. It is as if I tense my muscles, take once again the
example: someone that I don't wish to see enters into the room, I say to myself
Uh oh, and in me is made something like a kind of investment: a whole part of
my power is there in order to ward off the effect on me of the object, of the
disagreeable object. I invest the trace of the thing on me. I invest the effect of
the thing on me. I invest the trace of the thing on me, I invest the effect of the
thing on me. In other words, I try as much as possible to circumscribe the
effect, to isolate it, in other words I devote a part of my power to investing the
trace of the thing. Why? Evidently in order to subtract it, to put it at a distance,
to avert it. Understand that this goes without saying: this quantity of power
that Ive devoted to investing the trace of the disagreeable thing, this is the
amount of my power that is decreased, which is removed from me, which is as
it were immobilized.

This is what is meant by: my power decreases. It is not that I have less power,
it is that a part of my power is subtracted in this sense that it is necessarily
allocated to averting the action of the thing. Everything happens as if a whole
part of my power is no longer at my disposal. This is the tonality affective
sadness: a part of my power serves this unworthy need which consists in
warding off the thing, warding off the action of the thing. So much immobilized
power. To ward off the thing is to prevent it from destroying my relations,
therefore Ive toughened my relations; this can be a formidable effort, Spinoza
said: like lost time, like it would have been more valuable to avoid this
situation. In this way, a part of my power is fixed, this is what is meant by: a
part of my power decreases. Indeed a part of my power is subtracted from me,
it is no longer in my possession. It is invested, it is like a kind of hardening, a
hardening of power (puissance), to the point that it is almost bad, damn,
because of lost time!

On the contrary in joy, it is very curious. The experience of joy as Spinoza

presents it, for example I encounter something which agrees, which agrees
with my relations. For example music. There are wounding sounds. There are
wounding sounds which inspire in me an enormous sadness. What complicates
all this is that there are always people who find these wounding sounds, on the
contrary, delicious and harmonious. But this is what makes the joy of life, that
is the relations of love and hate. Because my hate against the wounding] sound
is going to be extended to all those who like this wounding sound. So I go
home, I hear these wounding sounds which appear to me as challenges, which
really decompose all of my relations, they enter into my head, they enter into
my stomach, all that. A whole part of my power is hardened in order to hold at
a distance these sounds which penetrate me. I obtain silence and I put on the
music that I like; everything changes. The music that I like, what does that
mean? It means the resonant relations which are composed with my relations.
And suppose that at that very moment my machine breaks. My machine
breaks: I experience hate! (Richard: Oh no!) An Objection? (Laughter of Gilles
Deleuze) Finally I experience a sadness, a big sadness. Good, I put on music
that I like, there, my whole body, and my soul it goes without saying
composes its relations with the resonant relations. This is what is meant by the
music that I like: my power is increased. So for Spinoza, what interests me
therein is that, in the experience of joy, there is never the same thing as in
sadness, there is not at all an investment and well see why there is not at
all an investment of one hardened part which would mean that a certain
quantity of power (puissance) is subtracted from my power (pouvoir). There is
not, why? Because when the relations are composed, the two things of which
the relations are composed, form a superior individual, a third individual which

encompasses and takes them as parts. In other words, with regard to the music
that I like, everything happens as if the direct composition of relations (you see
that we are always in the criteria of the direct) a direct composition of relations
is made, in such a way that a third individual is constituted, individual of which
me, or the music, are no more than a part. I would say, from now on, that my
power (puissance) is in expansion, or that it increases.

If I take these examples, it is in order to persuade you all the same that, when,
and this also goes for Nietzsche, that when authors speak of power
(puissance), Spinoza of the increase and decrease of power (puissance),
Nietzsche of the Will of Power (Volont de Puissance), which it too, proceeds
What Nietzsche calls affect is exactly the same thing as what Spinoza calls
affect, it is on this point that Nietzsche is Spinozist, that is, it is the decreases
or increases of power (puissance). They have in fact something which doesn't
have anything to do with whatever conquest of a power (pouvoir). Without
doubt they will say that the only power (pouvoir) is finally power (puissance),
that is: to increase ones power (puissance) is precisely to compose relations
such that the thing and I, which compose the relations, are no more than two
sub-individualities of a new individual, a formidable new individual.

I am going back. What distinguishes my basely sensual appetite from my best,

most beautiful, love? It is exactly the same! The basely sensual appetite, you
know, its all the expressions, we can all make suggestions, it is in order to
laugh, therefore we can say anything, the sadness After love, the animal is sad,
what is this? This sadness? What does it say to us? Spinoza would never say
this. Or then it is not worth the pain, there is no reason, sadness, good There
are people who cultivate sadness. Feel, feel what happens to us, this
denunciation which is going to run throughout the Ethics, namely: there are
people who are so impotent that they are the ones who are dangerous, they
are the ones who take power (pouvoir). And they can take power (pouvoir) so
far away are the notions of power (puissance) and of power (pouvoir) the
people of power (pouvoir) are the impotent who can only construct their power
(pouvoir) on the sadness of others. They need sadness. They can only reign
over slaves, and the slave is precisely the regime of the decrease of power
(puissance). There are people who can only reign, who only acquire power
(pouvoir) by way of sadness and by instituting a regime of sadness of the type:
repent, of the type hate someone and if you don't have anyone to hate, hate
yourself, etc. Everything that Spinoza diagnoses as a kind of immense culture
of sadness, the valorization of sadness, all of which says to you: if you don't
pass by way of sadness, you will not flourish. Now for Spinoza this is an
abomination. And if he writes an Ethics, it is in order to say: no! No! Everything

you want, but not this. Then indeed, good = joy, bad = sadness. But the basely
sensual appetite, you see now, and the most beautiful of loves, it is not at all a
spiritual thing, but not at all. It is when an encounter works, as one says, when
it functions well. It is a functionalism, but a very beautiful functionalism. What
does that mean? Ideally it is never like this completely, because there are
always local sadnesses, Spinoza is not unaware of that, there are always
sadnesses. The question is not if there is or if there isnt, the question is the
value that you give to them, that is the indulgence that you grant them. The
more you grant them indulgence, that is the more you invest your power
(puissance) in order to invest the trace of the thing, the more you will lose
power (puissance). So in a happy love, in a love of joy, what happens? You
compose a maximum of relations with a maximum of relations of the other,
bodily, perceptual, all kinds of natures. Of course bodily, yes, why not; but
perceptive also: Ah good Lets listen to some music! In a certain manner one
never stops inventing.

When I spoke of a third individual of which the two others are no more than
parts, it doesn't at all mean that this third individual preexists, it is always by
composing my relations with other relations, and it is under such a profile,
under such an aspect that I invent this third individual of which the other and
myself are no more than parts, sub-individuals. Thats it: each time that you
proceed by composition of relations and composition of composed relations,
you increase your power. On the contrary, the basely sensual appetite, it is not
because it is sensual that it is bad. It is because, fundamentally, it never stops
gambling on the decomposition of relations. It is really this sort of thing: Come
on, hurt me, sadden me so that I can sadden you. The spat, etc. Ha, like we are
okay with the spat. Ho. Like it is long after, that is, the small joys of
compensation. All that is disgusting, but it is foul, it is the measliest life in the
world. Ha come on, Lets make our scene Because it is necessary to hate one
another, afterwards we like one another much more. Spinoza vomits, he says:
what are these mad people? If they did this, again, for themselves, but they are
contagious, they are propagators. They won't let go of you until they have
inoculated you with their sadness. Whats more, they treat you as idiots if you
tell them that you don't understand, that it is not your thing. They tell you that
this is the true life. And the more that they wallow, based on the spat, based on
this stupidity, on the anguish of Haaaa, Heu The more that they hold on to you
the more that they inoculate you, if they can hold on to you, then they pass it
on to you. (Gilles Deleuze looks extremely nauseated).

Claire Parnet: Richard would like you to speak of the appetite

Gilles Deleuze: Of the composition of relations?! (Laughter). I have said

everything on the composition of relations. Understand, the misinterpretation
would be to believe: look for a third individual of which we would be only the
parts. It does not preexist nor does the manner in which relations are
decomposed. That preexists in Nature since Nature is everything, but from your
point of view it is very complicated. There we are going to see what problems
this poses for Spinoza because all this is very concrete all the same, on the
ways of living. How to live? You don't know beforehand which are the relations.
For example you are not necessarily going to find your own music. I mean: it is
not scientific, in what sense? You don't have a scientific knowledge of relations
which would allow you to say: there is the woman or the man who is
necessary for me. One goes along feeling ones way, one goes along blind.
That works, that doesn't work, etc. And how to explain that there are people
who only launch into things where they say that it is not going to work?
(general laughter). They are the people of sadness, they are the cultivators of
sadness, because they think that that is the foundation of existence. Otherwise
the long apprenticeship by which, according to a presentiment of my
constituent relations, I vaguely apprehend first what agrees with me and what
doesn't agree with me. You will tell me that if it is in order to lead to that, it is
not strong. Nothing but the formula: above all don't do what doesn't agree with
you. It is not Spinoza who said this first, at first, but the proposition means
nothing other than : don't do what doesn't agree with you if you take it out of
all context. If you take this conception that I find very grandiose to its
conclusion, the relations which are composed, etc. How is it that someone very
concrete is going to lead his existence in such a manner that he is going to
acquire a kind of affection, of affect, or of presentiment, of the relations which
agree with him, of the relations which don't agree with him, of situations where
he must withdraw, of situations where he must engage himself, etc. That is not
at all: it is necessary to do this, it is no longer at all the domain of morality. It is
not necessary to do anything at all, it is necessary to find. It is necessary to
find his thing, that is not at all to withdraw, it is necessary to invent the
superior individualities into which I can enter as a part, for these individualities
do not preexist. All that I meant takes on, I believe, a concrete signification, the
two expressions take on a concrete signification. [The essence is eternal.

The eternal essence, degree of power (puissance)

The eternal essence, what does it mean? Your essence is eternal, your singular
essence, that is your own essence in particular, what does this mean? For the
moment we can only give one sense to this formula, namely: you are a degree
of power (puissance). You are a degree of power: it is this that Spinoza means

when he says, verbatim: I am a part (pars) of the power of God, that means,
literally: I am a degree of power (puissance). Immediate objection. I am a
degree of power, but after all: me as a baby, little kid, adult, old man, it is not
the same degree of power, therefore it varies, my degree of power. Okay, Lets
leave that aside. How, why does this degree of power have a latitude. Okay. But
I say on the whole: I am a degree of power and it is in this sense that I am
eternal. No one has the same degree of power as another. See, we will have
need of it later, the fact that it is a quantitative conception of individuation. But
it is a special quantity since it is a quantity of power (puissance). A quantity of
power we have always called an intensity. It is to this and to this alone that
Spinoza assigns the term eternity. I am a degree of power of God, that means:
I am eternal. Second sphere of belonging: I have instantaneous affections. We
saw this, it is the dimension of instantaneity. Following this dimension the
relations compose or don't compose. It is the dimension of affectio:
composition or decomposition between things.

Third dimension of belonging: the affects. That is: each time that an affection
executes my power (puissance), and it executes it as perfectly as it can, as
perfectly as is possible. The affection, indeed, that is the belonging to, executes
my power; it realises my power, and it realises my power as perfectly as it can,
according to the circumstances, according to here and now. It executes my
power here and now, according to my relations with things. The third dimension
is that each time an affection executes my power, it doesn't do it without my
power increasing or decreasing, it is the sphere of the affect. So my power is an
eternal degree doesn't prevent it from ceaselessly, in duration, increasing and
decreasing. This same power which is eternal in itself, doesnt stop increasing
and decreasing, that is varying in duration. How to understand this, after all?
Understanding this, after all, is not difficult. If you reflect, I have just said: the
essence is a degree of power, that is: if it is a quantity, it is an intensive
quantity. But an intensive quantity is not at all like an extensive quantity. An
intensive quantity is inseparable from a threshold, that is an intensive quantity
is fundamentally, in itself, already a difference. The intensive quantity is made
of differences. Does Spinoza go so far as to say a thing like this?

Letter to Meyer on infinity

Here, I make a parenthesis of pseudo scholarship. It is important. I can say that
Spinoza, firstly, said explicitly pars potentiae, part of power (puissance), and he
said that our essence is a part of our divine power (puissance). I am saying, it is
not a question of forcing the texts, part of power is not an extensive part, it is
obviously an intensive part. I am always pointing out in the domain of

scholarship, but here I need it in order to justify everything that Im saying, that
in the Scholastics of the Middle Age, the equality of two terms is absolutely
current: gradus or pars, part or degree. Now the degrees are very special parts,
they are intensive parts; this is the first point. Second point: I point out that in
letter XII to Meyer, a gentleman named Meyer, there is a text that we will
surely see the next time because it will allow us to draw conclusions on
individuality. I point it out from this point on and I would like, for the next time,
those who have the correspondence of Spinoza to have read the letter to
Meyer, which is a famous letter, which is concerned with the infinite. In this
letter, Spinoza develops a very bizarre, very curious geometrical example. And
he made this geometrical example the object of all sorts of commentaries and
it looked quite bizarre. And Leibniz, who was himself a very great
mathematician, who had knowledge of the letter to Meyer, declared that he
particularly admired Spinoza for this geometrical example which showed that
Spinoza understood things that even his contemporaries didn't understand,
said Leibniz. Therefore the text is that much more interesting with Leibnizs
benediction.

Here is the figure that Spinoza proposes for our reflection: two circles of which
one is inside the other, but above all they are not concentric. Two
[non-]concentric circles of which one is inside the other. Note the greatest and
the smallest distance from one circle to the other. Do you understand the
figure? Here is what Spinoza tells us. Spinoza tells us something very
interesting, it seems to me, he tells us: in the case of this double figure, you
can not say that you don't have a limit or threshold. You have a threshold, you
have a limit. You even have two limits: the outer circle, the inner circle, or what
comes down to the same thing, the greatest distance from one circle to the
other, or the least distance. You have a maximum and a minimum. And he
says: consider the sum, here the Latin text is very important, the sum of the
inequalities of distance. You see: you trace all the lines, all the segments which
go from one circle to the other. You evidently have an infinity. Spinoza tells us:
consider the sum of the inequalities of distance. You understand: he doesn't
literally tell us to consider the sum of the unequal distances, that is of the
segments which go from one circle to the other. He tells us: the sum of the
inequalities of distance, that is the sum of the differences. And he says: it is
very curious, this infinity here. We will see what he means, but I mention this
text for the moment because I have a specific idea, he tells us: it is very
curious, it is an infinite sum. The sum of the inequalities of distance is infinite.
He could also have said that the unequal distances is an infinite sum. And yet
there is a limit. There is a limit since you have the limit of the big circle and the
limit of the small circle. So there is something infinite and yet it is not
unlimited. And he says that it is an odd infinity, it is a very particular
geometrical infinity: it is an infinity that you can say is infinite even though it is

not unlimited. And indeed, the space encompassed between the two circles is
not unlimited, the encompassed space between the two circles is perfectly
limited. I take up exactly the expression of the letter to Meyer: the sum of the
inequalities of distance, even though he could have made the same reasoning
by taking holding of the simpler case: the sum of unequal distances. Why does
he want to sum up the differences?

For me it is truly a text which is important, because, what does he have in his
head that he doesnt say? He needs it by virtue of his problem of essences.
Essences are degrees of power, but what is a degree of power? A degree of
power is a difference between a maximum and a minimum. It is in this way that
it is an intensive quantity. A degree of power is a difference in itself.

(End of tape.)

How to become reasonable?

Like many thinkers of his time, he is one of the philosophers who have said
most profoundly: you know, you are born neither reasonable, nor free, nor
intelligent. If you become reasonable, if you become free, etc., it is a matter of
a becoming. But there is no author who is more indifferent, for example, to the
problem of freedom as belonging to the nature of man. He thinks that nothing
at all belongs to the nature of man. He is an author who thinks everything,
really, in terms of Becoming. So then, good, okay, without doubt. What does
this mean, becoming reasonable? What does it means, becoming free, once it
is said that we are not? We are not born free, we are not born reasonable. We
are completely at the mercy of encounters, that is: we are completely at the
mercy of decompositions. And you must understand that this is normal in
Spinoza; the authors who think that we are free by nature are the ones who
make of nature a certain idea. I believe we can only say: we are free by nature
if we don't conceive it as a substance, that is as a relatively independent thing.
If you conceive yourself as a collection of relations, and not at all as a
substance, the proposition I am free is plainly deprived of sense. It is not at all
that I am for the opposite: it makes no sense, freedom or no freedom. On the
other hand, perhaps the question has a sense: How to become free? Similarly
to be reasonable can be understood if I am defined as a reasonable animal,
from the point of view of substance, this is the Aristotelian definition which
implies that I am a substance. If I am a collection of relations, perhaps they are
rational relations, but to say that this is reasonable, is plainly deprived of all
sense. So if reasonable, free, etc., make any sense it could only be the result of

a becoming. Already this is very new. To be thrown into the world is precisely to
risk at every instant encountering something which decomposes me.

Hence I said: there is a first aspect of reason. The first effort of reason, I
believe, is very curious in Spinoza, it is a kind of extraordinarily groping effort.
And there you cant say that it is insufficient because it encounters concrete
gropings. It is all a kind of apprenticeship in order to evaluate or have signs, I
did say signs, to organize or to find signs that tell me a little of which relations
agree with me and which relations don't agree with me. It is necessary to try, it
is necessary to experiment. And my own experience, I can not even transmit it
because perhaps it doesn't agree with anothers. That is, it is like a kind of
groping so that each discovers at the same time what he likes and what he
supports. Good, it is a little like this that we live when we take medication: it is
necessary to find their doses, their things, it is necessary to make selections,
and the prescription of the doctor will not be sufficient. It will come in handy.
There is something which goes beyond a simple science, or a simple
application of science. It is necessary to find your thing, it is like an
apprenticeship in music, finding at the same time what agrees with you, what
you are capable of doing. This is already what Spinoza will call, and it will be
the first aspect of reason, a kind of double aspect, selecting-composing. To
select, selection-composition, is to manage to find by experience those
relations with which mine compose, and drawing from them the consequences.
That is: at any cost flee as best as I can I cant totally, I cant completely but
flee as much, to the maximum, the encounter with relations which dont agree
with me, and compose to the maximum, be composed to the maximum with
the relations which agree with me. Here again is the first determination of
freedom or of reason. So Rousseaus theme, what he himself called the
materialism of the wise, you remember when I spoke a little of this idea of
Rousseaus, very very curious, a kind of art of composing situations, this art of
composing situations that consists above all of withdrawing from situations
which don't agree with you, of entering into situations which agree with you,
etc.. This is the first effort of reason. But I insist overall: at this level, we have
no previous knowledge, we have no preexisting knowledge, we don't have
scientific knowledge. It is not about science. It is really about living
experimentation. It is about apprenticeship: I never stop deceiving myself, I
never stop running into situations which don't agree with me, I never stop etc.,
etc.

And little by little is sketched out a kind of beginning of wisdom, which brings
us back to what? Which brings us back to what Spinoza says from the
beginning: but the fact that each knew a little, had a vague idea of what he is

capable of, once its said that the incapable people are not incapable people, it
is people who rush to what they are not capable of, and who drop what they
are capable of. But, Spinoza asks: What can a body do? It doesn't mean: what
a body in general can do, it means: yours, mine. Of what are you capable? It is
this kind of experimentation with capacity. To try to experiment with capacity,
and at the same time to construct it, at the same time that one experiments
with it, is very concrete. Yet we don't have prior knowledge (savoir). Good, I
don't know what, there are domains [] of what am I capable? Who can say, in
the two senses, there are people who are too modest who say: I am not
capable of it because I would not succeed, and then there are the people too
sure of themselves, who say: Ha that, such a nasty thing, I am not capable of
it, but they would perhaps do it, we don't know. No one knows what he is
capable of.

What am I capable of?

I think that one of the things, in the beautiful era of existentialism, there was as
it was all the same very much connected to the end of the war, to the
concentration camps etc. There was a theme that Jaspers had launched, and
which was a theme, it seems to me, which was very profound: he distinguished
two types of situation, limit situations and simple everyday situations. He said:
limit situations could befall us at any time, they are precisely situations which
we cant anticipate. What do you want: someone who was not tortured what
does that mean? He has no idea if he will hold out or if he won't hold out. If
need be, the most courageous types collapse, and the types that one would
have thought, in that way, pathetic, they hold out marvelously. One doesn't
know. The limit situation is really a situation such as this, I learn at the last
moment, sometimes too late, what I was capable of. What I was capable of for
better or worse. But we cant say in advance. It is too easy to say: Oh that, me,
I would never do it! And inversely, we ourselves pass our time doing things like
that, but what we are really capable of, we pass right by. So many people die
without knowing and will never know what they were capable of. Once again: in
atrocity as in the very good. It is the surprises, it is necessary to surprise
oneself. We tell ourselves: Oh look! I would never have believed that I would
have done it. People, you know, they are quite artful. Generally we always
speak of the manner it is very complicated for Spinozism because we always
speak of the manner in which people destroy themselves, but I believe that,
finally, it is often so for discourse too. It is sad, it is always a very sad spectacle,
and then it is annoying! They also have a kind of prudence: the cunning of
people! the cunning of people is odd, because there are a lot of people who
destroyed themselves over points which, precisely, they themselves have no
need of. Then evidently they are losers, you understand, yeah, I suppose
someone who, at the limit, renders himself impotent, but it is someone who

doesn't really have the desire to do it, it is not their thing. In other words it is a
very secondary relation for them. To budge is a very secondary relation. Good.
He manages to put himself in states where he can no longer budge, in a certain
way he has what he wanted since he set on a secondary relation. It is very
different when someone destroys himself in what he himself experiences as
being his principal constituent relations. If running doesn't interest you a lot,
you can always smoke a lot, hey. We will say to you: You destroy yourself, then
very well. I myself would be satisfied to be on a small chair, on the contrary it
would be better like this, I would have peace! Very well. So, I destroy myself?
No, not so. Obviously I destroy myself because if I can no longer budge at all, in
the end I risk dying of it, in the end I would have the boredom of another
nature that I would not have foreseen. Oh yes, it is annoying. But you see, even
in things where there is self-destruction, there are tricks which imply a whole
calculus of relations. One can very well destroy oneself over a point which is
not essential for the person himself, and try to keep the essential, all this is
complex. It is complex. You are sly, you don't know to what extent you are all
sly, everyone. There you go.

I would call reason, or effort of reason, conatus of reason, effort of reason, this
tendency to select, to learn the relations, this apprenticeship of the relations
which are composed or which are not composed. Now I wouldnt mind saying:
as you have no previous science, you understand what Spinoza means:
science, you are perhaps going to arrive at a science of relations. But what will
it be? Funny science. It won't be a theoretical science. The theory will perhaps
be a part, but it will be a science in the sense of vital science.

The sign is the equivocal expression: I manage as best I can. And the signs are
what? It is the signs of language which are fundamentally ambiguous,
according to Spinoza, they are on one hand the signs of language, and on the
other hand the signs of God, prophetic signs, and on the other hand the signs
of society: rewards, punishments, etc. Prophetic signs, social signs, linguistic
signs, are the three great types of signs. Now each time it is the language of
equivocity. We are forced to set out from there, to pass by there, in order to
construct our apprenticeship, that is in order to select our joys, eliminate our
sadness, that is to make headway in a kind of apprehension of the relations
which are composed, to arrive at an approximate knowledge (connaissance) by
signs of the relations which agree with me and of the relations which don't
agree with me. So the first effort of reason, you see, exactly, it is to do
everything in my power (pouvoir) in order to increase my power (puissance) of
acting, that is in order to experience passive joys, in order to experience of the
joys of passion. The joys of passion are what increase my power of acting

according to still equivocal signs in which I don't possess this power

(puissance). Do you see? Very well. The question which I have come to is:
supposing that it is like this, that there is this moment of long apprenticeship,
how can I pass, how can this long apprenticeship lead me to a more sure stage,
where I am more sure of myself, that is where I become reasonable, where I
become free. How can this be done?

We will see next time.

In order to analyse the different dimensions of individuality, I have tried to

develop this theme of the presence of the infinite [linfini] in the philosophy of
the seventeenth century, and the form under which this infinite presented
itself. This theme is very fuzzy [flou] and I would like to draw from it some
themes concerning the nature, this conception of the individual, this infinitist
conception of the individual. Spinoza provides a perfect expression, as if he
pushed those themes that were scattered among other authors of the
seventeenth century to the end. In all its dimensions, the individual as Spinoza
presents it, I would like to say three things about it. On the one hand, it is
relation, on the other hand, it is power [puissance], and finally it is mode. But a
very particular mode. A mode that one could call intrinsic mode.
The individual insofar as relation refers us to a whole plane that can be
designated by the name of composition [compositio]. All individuals being
relations, there is a composition of individuals among themselves, and
individuation is inseparable from this movement of composition.
Second point, the individual is power [puissance potentiae]. This is the
second great concept of individuality. No longer composition that refers to
relations, but potentiae. We find the modus intrinsecus quite often in the Middle
Ages, in certain traditions, under the name gradus. This is degree. The intrinsic
mode or degree.
There is something common to these three themes: it's by virtue of this that
the individual is not substance. If it's a relation it's not substance because

substance concerns a term and not a relation. The substance is terminus, which
is a term. If it's power it's not substance either because, fundamentally,
whatever is substance is form. It's the form that is called substantial. And
lastly, if it's degree it's not substance either since every degree refers to a
quality that it graduates, every degree is degree of a quality. Now what
determines a substance is a quality, but the degree of a quality is not
substance.
You see that all this revolves around the same intuition of the individual as not
being substance. I begin with the first character. The individual is relation. This
is perhaps the first time in the history of the individual that an attempt to think
relation in the pure state will be sketched out. But what does that mean,
relation in the pure state? Is it possible, in some way, to think relation
independently of its terms? What does a relation independent of its terms
mean? There had already been a rather strong attempt in Nicholas of Cusa. In
many of his texts that I find very beautiful, there was an idea that will be taken
up again later. It seems to me that in his work it appeared in a fundamental
way, that is, every relation is measure, only if every measure, every relation,
plunges into the infinite. He dealt often with the measure of weight, with
weighing, insofar as the relative measure of two weights refers to an absolute
measure, and the absolute measure, itself, always brings the infinite into play.
This is the theme that there is an immanence of pure relation and the infinite.
One understands by "pure relation" the relation separate from its terms. Thus
it's for this reason that it's so difficult to think pure relation independently of its
terms. It's not because it's impossible, but because it puts into play a mutual
immanence of the infinite and relation.
The intellect has often been defined as the faculty of setting out relations.
Precisely in intellectual activity there is a kind of infinite that is implied
[impliqu]. At the level of relation the implication of the infinite occurs through
intellectual activity. What does that mean? Doubtless it will be necessary to
wait until the seventeenth century to find a first statute of relation independent
of its terms. This is what many philosophers, including those who made use of
mathematical means, had sought since the Renaissance.
This will be brought to a first perfection thanks to the infinitesimal calculus. The
infinitesimal calculus puts into play a certain type of relation. Which one? The
method of exhaustion was like a kind of prefiguration of the infinitesimal
calculus. The relation to which infinitesimal calculus gave a solid statute is
what is called a differential relation, and a differential relation is of the type
dy/dx =, we'll see what it's equal to.
How does one define this relation dy/dx = ? That which is called dy is an
infinitely small quantity, or what is called a vanishing [vanouissante] quantity.
A quantity smaller than any given or givable quantity. Whatever quantity of y

you are given, dy will be smaller than this value. Thus I can say that dy as a
vanishing quantity is strictly equal to zero in relation to y. In the same way dx is
strictly equal to zero in relation to x. dx is the vanishing quantity of x. Thus I
can write, and mathematicians do write dy/dx = 0/0. This is the differential
relation. If I call y a quantity of the abscissa and x a quantity of the ordinate, I
would say that dy=0 in relation to the abscissa, dx=0 in relation to the
ordinate. Is dy/dx equal to zero? Obviously not. dy is nothing in relation to y, dx
is nothing in relation to x, but dy over dx does not cancel out. The relation
subsists and the differential relation will present itself as the subsistence of the
relation when the terms vanish. They have found the mathematical convention
that allows them to treat relations independently of their terms. Now what is
this mathematical convention? I summarize. It's the infinitely small. Pure
relation thus necessarily implies the infinite under the form of the infinitely
small since pure relation will be the differential relation between infinitely small
quantities. It's at the level of the differential relation that the reciprocal
immanence of the infinite and relation is expressed in the pure state. dy/dx =
0/0 but 0/0 is not 0.
Indeed, what subsists when y and x cancel out under the form dy and dx, what
subsists is the relation dy/dx itself, which is not nothing.
Now what does this relation dy/dx designate?
To what is it equal?
We will say that dy/dx equals z, that is to say it does not involve y or x at all,
since it's y and x under the form of vanishing quantities. When you have a
relation dy/dx derived from a circle, this relation dy/dx = 0/0 doesn't involve
the circle at all but refers to what is called a trigonometric tangent.
One comprehends that dy/dx = z, that is to say the relation that is independent
of its terms will designate a third term and will serve in the measurement and
in the determination of a third term: the trigonometric tangent. In this sense I
can say that the infinite relation, that is to say the relation between the
infinitely small, refers to something finite. The mutual immanence of the
infinite and relation is in the finite. Its in the finite itself that there is
immanence of relation and the infinitely small. In order to gather together
these three terms, pure relation, the infinite and the finite, I would say that the
differential relation dy/dx tends towards a limit, and this limit is z, that is to say
the determination of the trigonometric tangent. We are inside an
extraordinarily rich knot of notions. Then afterward the mathematicians will say
no, it's barbaric to interpret infinitesimal calculus by the infinitely small, it's not
that. Perhaps they're right from a certain point of view, but this is to pose the
problem badly. The fact is that the seventeenth century, by way of its
interpretation of infinitesimal calculus, finds a means of fusing three key

concepts, for mathematics and philosophy at the same time. These three key
concepts are the concepts of the infinite, relation and limit. Thus if I extract a
formula of the infinite from the seventeenth century, I would say that
something finite consists of an infinity [infinit] under a certain relation. This
formula can appear totally dull: something finite consists in the infinite under a
certain relation, when in fact it is extraordinarily original. It marks an
equilibrium point, for seventeenth-century thought, between the infinite and
the finite, by way of a new theory of relations. And then when these later sorts
consider it as going without saying that in the least finite dimension there is the
infinite; when thereafter they speak of the existence of God all the time but this
is much more interesting than is believed it doesn't finally involve God, it
involves the richness of this implication of concepts: relation, infinite, limit.
How is the individual a relation? You will find, at the level of the individual, a
limit. This does not prevent there having been some infinite, this does not
prevent there being relations and these relations being composed, the relations
of one individual are composed with another; and there is always a limit that
marks the finitude of the individual, and there is always an infinite of a certain
order that is involved by the relation.
It's a funny vision of the world. They didn't merely think like that, they saw like
that. It was their very own taste, their way of treating things. When they see
what microscopes show them, they see a confirmation of it: the microscope is
the instrument that gives us a sensible and confused presentiment of this
activity of the infinite under any finite relation. And Pascal's text on the infinite,
he was a great mathematician as well, but when he needs to let us know how
he sees the world, he doesn't need his mathematical knowledge [savoir] at all,
the two reinforce each other. Then Pascal can make up his text on the two
infinites without any reference to mathematics whatsoever. He says extremely
simple but extremely original things. And indeed, the originality lies in this way
of fusing three concepts: relation, limit, infinite. This makes a funny world. We
no longer think like that. What has changed is a whole system of mathematics
as conventions, but that has changed only if you comprehend that modern
mathematics also plots its concepts on a set of notions of another, equally
original type. [Following a remark] The limit towards which the relation tends is
the reason for knowing [connitre] the relation as independent of its terms,
that is to say dx and dy, and the infinite, the infinitely small is the reason for
being [raison dtre] of relation; indeed, it's the reason for being of dy/dx.
Descartes' formula: the infinite conceived and not comprehended. One does
not comprehend the infinite because it is incomprehensible, but one conceives
it. This is Descartes' great formula: one can conceive it clearly and distinctly,
but comprehending it is something else. Thus one conceives it, there is a
reason for knowledge [connaissance] of the infinite. There is a reason for
knowing that is distinct from the reason for being. Comprehending would be

grasping the reason for being, but we cannot grasp the reason for being of the
infinite because to do so we would have to be adequate to God; but our
understanding is merely finite. On the other hand, one can conceive the
infinite, conceive it clearly and distinctly, thus one has a reason for knowing it.
Practical exercises in philosophy would have to be thought experiments
[expriences]. This is a German notion: experiments that one can only do in
thought.
Let's pass on to the second point. I've had to invoke the notion of limit. Indeed,
in order to account for the immanence of the infinite in relation, I return to the
preceding point. The logic of relations [rapports], of relationships [relations] is a
fundamental thing for philosophy, and alas, French philosophy has never been
very interested in this aspect. But the logic of relations has been one of the
great creations of the English and the Americans. But there were two stages.
The first stage is Anglo-Saxon, the logic of relations such as it was built up on
the basis of Russell at the end of the nineteenth century; now this logic of
relations claims to be founded on this: the independence of relation in relation
to its terms, but this independence, this autonomy of relation in relation to its
terms is founded on finite considerations. They are founded on a finitism.
Russell even has an atomist period in order to develop his logic of relations.
This stage had been prepared by a very different stage. The great classical
stage of the theory of relations is not like they say; they say that earlier, people
confused the logic of relations and the logic of attribution. They confused two
types of judgment: judgments of relation (Pierre is smaller than Paul) and
judgments of attribution (Pierre is yellow or white), thus they had no
consciousness of relations. It's not like that at all. In so-called classical thought,
there is a fundamental realization of the independence of relation in relation to
relationships, only this realization passes by way of the infinite. The thought of
relation as pure relation can only be made in reference to the infinite. This is
one of the highly original moments of the seventeenth century.
I return to my second theme: the individual is power [puissance]. The individual
is not form, it is power. Why does this follow? It's what I just said about the
differential relation 0/0, which is not equal to zero but tends towards a limit.
When you say that, the tension towards a limit, you rediscover this whole idea
of the tendency in the seventeenth century in Spinoza at the level of a
Spinozist concept, that of conatus. Each thing tends to persevere in its being.
Each thing strives [sefforce]. In Latin, "strive" is "conor," the effort or
tendency, the conatus. The limit is being defined according to an effort, and
power is the same tendency or the same effort insofar as it tends towards a
limit. If the limit is grasped on the basis of the notion of power, namely tending
towards a limit, in terms of the most rudimentary infinitesimal calculus, the

polygon that multiplies its sides tends towards a limit, which is the curved line.
The limit is precisely the moment when the angular line, by dint of multiplying
its sides, tends towards infinity [linfini]. It's the tension towards a limit that
now implies the infinite. The polygon, as it multiplies its sides to infinity, tends
towards the circle.
What change does this bring about in the notion of limit?
The limit was a well-known notion. One did not speak of tending towards a
limit. The limit is a key philosophical concept. There is a veritable mutation in
the manner of thinking a concept. What was limit? In Greek it's "peras." At the
simplest level, the limit is the outlines [contours]. Its the time limits [termes].
Surveyors [Gomtres]. The limit is a term, a volume has surfaces for its limits.
For example, a cube is limited by six squares. A line segment is limited by two
endpoints. Plato has a theory of the limit in the Timeus: the figures and their
outlines. And why can this conception of the limit as outline be considered as
the basis for what one could call a certain form of idealism? The limit is the
outline of the form, whether the form is purely thought or sensible, in any case
one will call "limit" the outline of the form, and this is very easily reconciled
with an idealism because if the limit is the outline of the form, after all what I
can do is what there is between the limits. If I were to put some sand, some
bronze or some thought matter, some intelligible matter, between my limits,
this will always be a cube or a circle. In other words, essence is the form itself
related to its outline. I could speak of the pure circle because there is a pure
outline of the circle. I could speak of a pure cube without specifying what it
involves. I would name these the idea of the circle, the idea of the cube. Hence
the importance of "peras"-outline in Platos philosophy in which the idea will be
the form related to its intelligible outline.
In other words, in the idea of an outline-limit, Greek philosophy finds a
fundamental confirmation for its own proper abstraction. Not that it is more
abstract than another philosophy, but it sees the justification of the abstractio,
such as it conceives it, namely the abstraction of ideas.
Henceforth the individual will be the form related to its outline. If I look for
something to which such a conception concretely applies, I would say,
regarding painting for example, that the form related to its outline is a tactileoptical world. The optical form is related, be it only by the eye, to a tactile
outline. Then that can be the finger of pure spirit, the outline inevitably has a
kind of tactile reference, and if one speaks of the circle or the cube as a pure
idea, to the extent that one defines it by its outline and one relates the
intelligible form to its outline, there is a reference however indirect it may be to
a tactile determination. It is completely wrong to define the Greek world as the
world of light, it's an optical world, but not at all a pure optical world. The word
that the Greeks use to speak of the "idea" already sufficiently attests to the

optical world that they promote: Eidos. Eidos is a term that refers to visuality,
to the visible. The sight of spirit, but this sight of spirit is not purely optical. It is
optical-tactile. Why? Because the visible form is related, however indirectly it
may be, to the tactile outline. It's not surprising that one of those who reacts
against Platonic idealism, in the name of a certain technological inspiration, is
Aristotle. But if you consider Aristotle, there the tactile reference of the Greek
optical world appears quite evidently in an extremely simple theory which
consists in saying that substance, or rather sensible substances are composites
of form and matter, and it's the form that's essential. And the form is related to
its outline, and the experience constantly invoked by Aristotle is that of the
sculptor. Statuary has the greatest importance in this optical world; it's an
optical world, but a world of sculpture, that is to say one in which the form is
determined according to a tactile outline. Everything happens as if the visible
form were unthinkable outside of a tactile mold. That is the Greek equilibrium.
It's the Greek tactilo-optical equilibrium.
The eidos is grasped by the soul. The eidos, the pure idea is obviously
graspable only by the pure soul. As pure soul we can only speak of it, according
to Plato himself, by analogy, seeing that we only experiment with our soul
insofar as it is bound to a body, we can only speak of it by analogy. Thus, from
the point of view of analogy, I would always have said okay, its the pure soul
that grasps the pure idea. Nothing corporeal. It's a purely intellectual or
spiritual grasp. But does this pure soul that grasps the idea proceed in the
manner of an eye, in the manner of, or does it proceed rather in the manner of
the sense of touch? Touch which would then be purely spiritual, like the eye
which would be purely spiritual. This eye is the third eye. This would be a
manner of speaking, but we definitely need the analogy. In Plato we definitely
need analogical reasoning. Then all my remarks consist in saying that the pure
soul no more has an eye than it has a sense of touch, it is in relation with the
ideas. But this does not prevent the philosopher, in order to speak of this
apprehension of the idea by the soul, from having to ask himself what is the
role of an analogon of the eye and an analogon of touch? An analogue of the
eye and an analogue of touch in the grasping of the idea. There are then these
two analoga since the idea is constantly[gap in recording] This was the first
conception of the outline-limit. But what happens when, several centuries later,
one gets a completely different conception of the limit, and the most varied
signs come to us from it?
First example, from the Stoics. They lay into Plato quite violently. The Stoics are
not the Greeks, they are at the edge [pourtour] of the Greek world. And this
Greek world has changed a lot. There had been the problem of how to develop
the Greek world, then Alexander. These Stoics are attacking Plato, there is a
new Oriental current. The Stoics tell us that we don't need Plato and his ideas,
it's an indefensible conception. The outline of something is what? It's nonbeing, say the Stoics. The outline of something is the spot where the thing

ceases to be. The outline of the square is not at all the spot where the square
ends. You see that it's very strong as an objection. They take literally this
Platonism that Ive sketched out quite summarily, namely that the intelligible
form is the form related to a spiritual touch [tact], that is to say it's the figure
related to the outline. They will say, like Aristotle, that the example of the
sculptor is completely artificial. Nature never proceeds by molding. These
examples are not relevant, they say. In what cases does nature proceed by way
of molds, it would be necessary to count them, its certainly only in superficial
phenomena that nature proceeds by way of molds. These are phenomena that
are called superficial precisely because they affect surfaces, but nature, in
depth [profondeur], does not proceed by way of molds. I am pleased to have a
child who resembles me; I have not sent out a mold. Notice that biologists, until
the eighteenth century, cling to the idea of the mold. They insisted on the
spermatozoon analogous to a mold, this is not reasonable. On that point Buffon
had great ideas; he said that if one wants to comprehend something of the
production of living things, it would be necessary to work ones way up to the
idea of an internal mold. Buffons concept of an "internal mold" could help us.
It means what? It's awkward because one could just as well speak of a massive
surface. He says that the internal mold is a contradictory concept. There are
cases in which one is obliged to think by means of a contradictory concept. The
mold, by definition, is external. One does not mold the interior, which is to say
that for the living thing, the theme of the mold already does not work.
Nevertheless there is a limit to the living thing. The Stoics are in the process of
getting hold of something very strong, life does not proceed by molding.
Aristotle took artificial examples. And on Plato they let loose even more: the
idea of the square, as if it were unimportant that the square was made of wood,
or of marble, or of whatever you like. But this matters a lot. When one defines a
figure by its outlines, the Stoics say, at that very moment everything that
happens inside is no longer important. It's because of this, the Stoics say, that
Plato was able to abstract the pure idea. They denounce a kind of sleight-ofhand [tour de passe-passe]. And what the Stoics are saying stops being simple:
they are in the process of making themselves a totally different image of the
limit. What is their example, opposed to the optical-tactile figure? They will
oppose problems of vitality. Where does action stop? At the outline. But that,
that holds no interest. The question is not at all where does a form stop,
because this is already an abstract and artificial question. The true question is:
where does an action stop?
Does everything have an outline? Bateson, who is a genius, has written a short
text that is called "[why] does everything have an outline?" Take the expression
"outside the subject," that is to say "beyond the subject." Does that mean that
the subject has an outline? Perhaps. Otherwise what does "outside the limits"
mean? At first sight it has a spatial air. But is it the same space? Do "outside
the limits" and "outside the outline" belong to the same space? Does the

conversation or my course today have an outline? My reply is yes. One can

touch it. Let's return to the Stoics. Their favorite example is: how far does the
action of a seed go? A sunflower seed lost in a wall is capable of blowing out
that wall. A thing with so small an outline. How far does the sunflower seed go,
does that mean how far does its surface go? No, the surface is where the seed
ends. In their theory of the utterance [nonc], they will say that it states
exactly what the seed is not. That is to say where the seed is no longer, but
about what the seed is it tells us nothing. They will say of Plato that, with his
theory of ideas, he tells us very well what things are not, but he tells us nothing
about what things are. The Stoics cry out triumphantly: things are bodies.
Bodies and not ideas. Things are bodies, that meant that things are actions.
The limit of something is the limit of its action and not the outline of its figure.
Even simpler example: you are walking in a dense forest, you're afraid. At last
you succeed and little by little the forest thins out, you are pleased. You reach a
spot and you say, "whew, here's the edge." The edge of the forest is a limit.
Does this mean that the forest is defined by its outline? It's a limit of what? Is it
a limit to the form of the forest? It's a limit to the action of the forest, that is to
say that the forest that had so much power arrives at the limit of its power, it
can no longer lie over the terrain, it thins out.
The thing that shows that this is not an outline is the fact that we can't even
specify the precise moment at which there is no more forest. There was a
tendency, and this time the limit is not separable, a kind of tension towards the
limit. It's a dynamic limit that is opposed to an outline limit. The thing has no
other limit than the limit of its power [puissance] or its action. The thing is thus
power and not form. The forest is not defined by a form, it is defined by a
power: power to make the trees continue up to the moment at which it can no
longer do so. The only question that I have to ask of the forest is: what is your
power? That is to say, how far will you go?
That is what the Stoics discover and what authorizes them to say: everything is
a body. When they say that everything is a body, they don't mean that
everything is a sensible thing, because they do not emerge from the Platonic
point of view. If they were to define the sensible thing by form and outline, that
would hold no interest. When they say that everything is a body, for example a
circle does not extend in space in the same fashion if it is made of wood as it
does if it is made of marble. Further, "everything is a body" will signify that a
red circle and a blue circle do not extend in space in the same fashion. Thus it's
tension.
When they say that all things are bodies, they mean that all things are defined
by tonos, the contracted effort that defines the thing. The kind of contraction,
the embryonic force that is in the thing, if you don't find it, you don't know

[connaissez] the thing. What Spinoza takes up again with the expression "what
can a body do?"
Other examples. After the Stoics, at the beginning of Christianity a quite
extraordinary type of philosophy developes: the Neo-Platonic school. The prefix
"neo" is particularly well founded. Its in applying themselves to some
extremely important Platonic texts that the Neo-Platonists will completely
decenter all of Platonism. So much so that, in a certain sense, one could say
that all of it was already in Plato. Only it was as though taken into a set that
was not Platos. The Enneads have been inherited from Plotinus. Skim through
Ennead four, book five. You will see a kind of prodigious course on light. A
prodigious text in which Plotinus will try to show that light can be
comprehended neither as a function of the emitting body nor as a function of
the receiving body. His problem is that light makes up a part of these odd
things that, for Plotinus, are going to be the true ideal things. One can no
longer say that it begins there and ends there. Where does light begin? Where
does light end?
Why couldn't one say the same thing three centuries earlier? Why did this
appear in the so-called Alexandrine world? It's a manifesto for a pure optical
world. Light has no tactile limit, and nevertheless there is certainly a limit. But
this is not a limit such that I could say it begins there and it ends there. I
couldn't say that. In other words, light goes as far as its power goes. Plotinus is
hostile to the Stoics, he calls himself a Platonist. But he had a premonition of
the kind of reversal [retournement] of Platonism that he is in the process of
making. It's with Plotinus that a pure optical world begins in philosophy.
Idealities will no longer be only optical. They will be luminous, without any
tactile reference. Henceforth the limit is of a completely different nature. Light
scours the shadows. Does shadow form part of light? Yes, it forms a part of light
and you will have a light-shadow gradation that will develop space. They are in
the process of finding that deeper than space there is spatialization. Plato
didn't know [savait] of that. If you read Plato's texts on light, like the end of
book six of the Republic, and set it next to Plotinus 's texts, you see that
several centuries had to pass between one text and the other. These nuances
are necessary. It's no longer the same world. You know [savez] it for certain
before knowing why, that the manner in which Plotinus extracts the texts from
Plato develops for himself a theme of pure light. This could not be so in Plato.
Once again, Plato's world was not an optical world but a tactile-optical world.
The discovery of a pure light, of the sufficiency of light to constitute a world
implies that, beneath space, one has discovered spatialization. This is not a
Platonic idea, not even in the Timeus. Space grasped as the product of an
expansion, that is to say that space is second in relation to expansion and not
first. Space is the result of an expansion, that is an idea that, for a classical
Greek, would be incomprehensible. Its an idea that comes from the Orient.
That light could be spatializing: it's not light that is in space, it's light that

constitutes space. This is not a Greek idea. Several centuries later a

tremendously important art form, Byzantine art, burst forth. It's a problem for
art critics to figure out how Byzantine art remains linked to classical Greek art
while at the same time, from another point of view, it breaks completely with
classical Greek art. If I take the best critic in this regard, Riegl, he says
something rigorous, in Greek art you have the priority of the foreground [avantplan]. The difference between Greek art and Egyptian art is that in Greek art
the distinction is made between the foreground and the background [arrireplan], while in Egyptian art, broadly speaking, the two are on the same plane
[plan]. The bas-relief. I summarize quite briefly. Greek art is the Greek temple,
it's the advent of the cube. For the Egyptians it was the pyramid, plane
surfaces. Wherever you set yourself you are always on a plane surface. It's
diabolical because it's a way of hiding the volume. They put the volume in a
little cube which is the funerary chamber, and they set up plane surfaces,
isosceles triangles, to hide the cube. The Egyptians are ashamed of the cube.
The cube is the enemy, the black, the obscure, it's the tactile. The Greeks
invent the cube. They make cubical temples, that is to say they move the
foreground and the background forward. But, Riegl says, there is a priority of
the foreground, and the priority of the foreground is linked to the form because
it's the form that has the outline. It's for this reason that he will define the
Greek world as a tactile-optical world. With the Byzantines it's quite odd. They
nestle [nichent] the mosaics, they move them back. There is no depth in
Byzantine art, and for a very simple reason, it's that depth is between the
image and me. All of Byzantine depth is the space between the spectator and
the mosaic. If you suppress this space it's as if you were to look at a painting
outside of every condition of perception, it's unbearable.
The Byzantines mount an enormous forced takeover. They privilege the
background, and the whole figure will arise from the background. The whole
image will arise from the background. But at that very moment, as if by
chance, the formula of the figure or the image is no longer form-outline. Formoutline was for Greek sculpture. And nevertheless there is a limit, there are
even outlines, but this is not what acts, the work no longer acts that way,
contrarily to Greek statuary in which the outline captures the light. For
Byzantine mosaic it's light-color, that is to say that what defines, what marks
the limits is no longer form-outline but rather the couple light-color, that is to
say that the figure goes on as far as the light that it captures or emits goes,
and as far as the color of which it's composed goes.
The effect on the spectator is prodigious, namely that a black eye goes exactly
as far as this black shines. Hence the expression of these figures whose faces
are consumed by the eyes. In other words there is no longer an outline of the
figure, there is an expansion of light-color. The figure will go as far as it acts by
light and by color. It's the reversal [renversement] of the Greek world. The
Greeks wouldn't have known [su] how or wouldn't have wanted to proceed to

this liberation of light and color. With Byzantine art color and light are liberated
in relation to space because what they discover is that light and color are
spatializing. Thus art must not be an art of space, it must be an art of the
spatialization of space. Between Byzantine art and Plotinus slightly earlier texts
on light there is an obvious resonance. What is affirmed is the same conception
of the limit.
There is an outline-limit and there is a tension-limit. There is a space-limit and
there is a spatialization-limit.

Confrontation with Gueroult's commentary.

This week and next week I will be speaking again of Spinoza, and then thats it.
Unless you have questions to pose, which I would like very much.
Ok then: my dream is that it is very clear for you, this conception of
individuality, such that weve tried to bring it out in the philosophy of Spinoza,
because, finally, it seems to me that this is one of the newest elements of
Spinozism. It is this manner in which the individual, as such, is going to be
conveyed, related, reported in Being. And in order to try to make you
understand this conception of individuality which seems to me so new in
Spinoza, I will always return to the theme: it is as if an individual, whatever
individual, had three layers, as if it was composed, then, of three layers. We
have advanced, at least into the first dimension, into the first layer of the
individual, and I say: oh yes, all individuals have an infinity of extensive parts.
This is the first point: an infinity of extensive parts. In other words, there are
only individuals that are composite. A simple individual, I believe that, for
Spinoza, it is a notion lacking in sense.
Every individual, as such, is composed of an infinity of parts.
Ill try to summarize very quickly: What does this mean this idea that the
individual is composed of an infinity of parts? What are these parts? Once
again, they are what Spinoza calls the simplest bodies: all bodies are

composed of an infinity of very simple bodies. But what are these: very
simple bodies? We have arrived at a precise enough status: they are not
atoms, meaning finite bodies, and neither are they indefinites. What are they?
And there Spinoza belongs to the 17th century. Once again, what really strikes
me, in regard to the thought of the 17th century, is the impossibility of
grasping this thought if we dont take into account one of the richest notions of
this era, a notion which is simultaneously metaphysical, physical,
mathematical, etc: the notion of the actual infinite. Now the actual infinite is
neither finite nor indefinite. The finite signifies, above all, it refers to, if I seek
the formula of the finite, it is: there is a moment where you have to stop
yourself. That is to say: when you analyse something there will always be a
moment where it will be necessary to stop yourself. Lets say, and for a long
time, this moment of the finite, this fundamental moment of the finite which
marks the necessity of finite terms, it is all of this which inspired atomism since
Epicurus, since Lucretius: the analysis encounters a limit, this limit is the atom.
The atom is subject to a finite analysis. The indefinite is as far as you can go,
you cant stop yourself. That is to say: as far as you can take the analysis, the
term at which you arrive will always be, in turn, divided and analysed. There
will never be a last term.
The point of view of the actual infinite, it seems to me, of which we have
completely lost the sense, and we have lost this sense for a thousand reasons, I
suppose, among others for scientific reasons, all this ? But what matters to me,
is not why we have lost this sense, it is as if I have happened to be able to
reconstruct for you the way in which these thinkers thought. Really, it is
fundamental in their thinking. Once again, if I consider that Pascal wrote texts
that are representative of the 17th Century, these are essentially texts on man
in relation to the infinite. These are people who truly thought naturally,
philosophically, in terms of the actual infinite. Now this idea of an actual
infinite, that is to say neither finite nor indefinite, what does that tell us? What
it tells us is that: there are last terms, there are ultimate terms you see, this is
contrary to the indefinite, it is not the indefinite since there are ultimate terms,
only these ultimate terms are ad infinitum. Therefore, they are not the atom.
They are neither finite nor indefinite. The infinite is actual, the infinite is in
action. In effect, the indefinite is, if you like, infinite, but virtual, that is to say:
you can always go further. This is not it; it (the actual infinite) tells us: there are
last terms: the simplest bodies for Spinoza. These are the ultimate terms,
these are the terms which are last, which you can no longer divide. But, these
terms are infinitely small. They are the infinitely small, and this is the actual
infinite. Note that it is a struggle on two fronts: simultaneously against finitism
and against the indefinite. What does this mean? There are ultimate terms, but
these are not atoms since they are the infinitely small, or as Newton will say,
they are vanishings, vanishing terms. In other words, smaller than any given
quantity. What does this imply? Infinitely small terms; you cant treat them one

by one. This too is a non-sense: to speak of an infinitely small term that I would
consider singularly, that makes no sense. The infinitely small, they can only go
by way of infinite collections. Therefore there are infinite collections of the
infinitely small. The simple bodies of Spinoza dont exist one by one. They exist
collectively and not distributively. They exist by way of infinite sets. And I
cannot speak of a simple body, I can only speak of an infinite set of simple
bodies. Such that an individual is not a simple body, an individual, whatever it
is, and however small it is, an individual has an infinity of simple bodies, an
individual has an infinite collection of the infinitely small.
That is why, despite all the force of Gueroults commentary on Spinoza, I
cannot understand how Gueroult poses the question of knowing if simple
bodies for Spinoza shouldnt have shape and magnitude ? It is obvious that if
simple bodies are infinitely small, that is to say, "vanishing quantities, they
have neither shape nor magnitude. An atom, yes, has a shape and a
magnitude: it is smaller than any given magnitude. What then has shape and
magnitude? What has shape and magnitude, here, the response is very simple,
what has shape and magnitude is a collection, it is a collection itself infinite of
the infinitely small. This yes, the infinite collection of the infintely small has
shape and magnitude. However, we come up against this problem: yes, but
where does it come from, this shape and this magnitude? I mean: if the simple
bodies are all infinitely small, what permits us to distinguish such an infinite
collection of the infinitely small from another such infinite collection of the
infinitely small? From the point of view of the actual infinite, how can we make
distinctions in the actual infinite? Or even: Is there only one collection? One
collection of all the possible infinitely smalls? Now Spinoza is very firm here! He
says: to each individual corresponds an infinite collection of very simple bodies,
each individual is composed of an infinity of very simple bodies. It is necessary
therefore that I have the means of recognising the collection of the infinitely
small that corresponds to such an individual, and that which corresponds to
another such individual. How is that to be done? Before arriving at this
question, lets try to see how these infinitely small are. They enter therefore
into infinite collections, and I believe that here the 17th century grasped
something that mathematics, with completely different means, with a
completely different procedure I dont want to make arbitrary connections
but that modern mathematics rediscovered with a completely different
procedure, that is to say: a theory of infinite sets. The infinitely small enter into
infinite sets and these infinite sets are not the same. That is to say: there is a
distinction between infinite sets. Regardless of whether it was Leibniz, or
Spinoza, the second half of the 17th century is riddled with this idea of the
actual infinite, the actual infinite which consists of these infinite sets of the
infinitely small.
But then these vanishing terms, these infinitely small terms, what are their ?
How are they? I would like this to take on a slightly more concrete shape. It is

obvious that they dont have interiority. Ill try first to say what they are not,
before saying what they are. They have no interiority, they enter into infinite
sets, the infinite set could have an interiority. But these extreme terms,
infinitely small, vanishing, they have no interiority, they are going to constitute
what? They are going to constitute a veritable matter of exteriority. The simple
bodies have only strictly extrinsic relations, relations of exteriority with each
other. They form a species of matter, using Spinozas terminology: a modal
matter, a modal matter of pure exteriority, which is to say: they react on one
another, they have no interiority, they have only external relations with one
another. However, Ill return to my question: if they have only external
relations, what allows us to distinguish one infinite set from another? Once
again, all individuals, each individual, here I can say each individual since the
individual isnt the very simple body, each individual, distributively, has an
infinite set of infinitely small parts. These parts are actually given. But what
distinguishes my infinite set, the infinite set that refers to me, and the set that
refers to a neighbour? Hence, and already we are entering the second layer of
individuality, which leads us to ask: under what aspect does an infinite set of
very simple bodies belong to either this or that individual? Under what aspect?
It is understood, I have an infinite eset of infinitely small parts, but under what
aspect does that infinite set belong to me? Under what aspect does an infinite
set of very simple bodies belong to either this or that individual. It is
understood that I have an infinite set of infinitely small parts, but under what
aspect does that infinite set belong to me?
You see that I have only with difficulty transformed the question because when
I ask under what aspect the infinite set belongs to me, it is another way of
asking what allows me to distinguish such an infinite set from another such
infinite set. Once again, at first sight, in the infinite everything must be
confused, it must be the black night or the white light. What makes it so that I
can distinguish infinities from one another? Under what aspect is an infinite set
said to belong to me or to someone else?
Spinozas response seems to be: an infinite set of infinitely small parts belongs
to me, and not to someone else, insofar as this infinite set puts into effect
[effectue] a certain relation. It is always under a relation that the parts belong
to me. To the point that, if the parts which compose me take on another
relation, at that very moment, they no longer belong to me. They belong to
another individuality, they belong to another body. Hence the question: what is
this relation? Under what relation can the infinitely small elements be said to
belong to something? If I answer the question, I truly have the answer that Im
looking for. I will show how, according to which condition, an infinite set can be
said to belong to a finite individuality. Under what relation of the infinitely small
can they belong to a finite individuality? Good. Spinozas answer, if I stick to
the letter of Spinoza, is: under a certain relation of movement and rest. But

were already there, relation of movement and rest, we know that it doesnt at
all mean and here we would be wrong to read the text too quickly it doesnt
at all mean, as in Descartes, a sum (which we have seen: the relation of
movement and rest, this cannot be the Cartesian formula ? = mv, massvelocity). No, he didnt say "relation. What defines the individual, is therefore
a relation of movement and rest because it is under this relation that an infinity
of infinitely small parts belong to the individual. However, what is this relation
of movement and rest that Spinoza invokes in such a way?
Here, I recommence a confrontation with Gueroults commentary. Gueroult
makes an extremely interesting hypothesis, but here too I dont understand; I
dont understand why he makes this hypothesis here, but it is very interesting.
He says: finally the relations of movement and rest is vibration. At the same
time it is a response that appears to me to be very curious. The answer must
be very precise: it is a vibration! What does that mean? That would mean that
what defines the individual, at the level of the second layer, that is to say the
relation under which the parts belong to it, is a way of vibrating. Each
individual ? Well, that would be good, that would be very concrete, what would
define you, me, is that we would have a kind espce of way of vibrating. Why
not? Why not ? what does that mean? Either it is a metaphor, or else it means
something. A vibration returns us to what, physics? It returns to something
simpler, to a well known phenomenon which is that of the pendulum. Well,
Gueroults hypothesis seems to take on a sense thats very interesting because
physics, in the 17th century, had considerably advanced the study of rotating
bodies and pendulums, and notably had established a distinction between
simple pendulums and compound pendulums. Well then good ? at this moment
then you see that the Gueroult hypothesis becomes this: each simple body is a
simple pendulum, and the individual, which has an infinity of simple bodies, is a
compound pendulum. We would all be compound pendulums. Thats very good!
Or turning discs. It is an interesting conception of each of us. What does it
mean? In effect, a simple pendulum is defined by what? It is defined, if you
vaguely recall memories of physics, but very simple physics, it is defined in a
certain way by a time, a time of vibration or a time of oscillation. For those who
remember, there is the famous formula: t = py root of 1 over g [ ]? Yes, I think
so. "t is the duration of oscillation, "l is the length of the thread on which
the pendulum is suspended, "g is what, in the 17th century, is called the
intensity of gravity, its of little significance ? Good. What is important is that in
the formula, see that a simple pendulum has a time of oscillation which is
independent of the amplitude of oscillation of the shaft of the pendulum,
therefore completely independent of the amplitude of oscillation, independent
of the mass of the pendulum this responds well to the situation of an infinitely
small body, and independent of the weight of the thread. Weight of the thread,
mass of the pendulum, only enter into play from the point of view of the
compound pendulum. Therefore it seems that, in many respects, the Gueroult

hypothesis works. Individuals for Spinoza would be kinds of compound

pendulums, each composed of an infinity of simple pendulums. And what
defines an individual is a vibration. Good.
Well then I say with a lot of freedom, like that, I am developing this for those
who are very technically interested in Spinoza, as for the others you can retain
what you want ? At the same time it is curious because, at the same time this
hypothesis draws my attention, and I cant well see why. There is one thing
which disturbs me: it is that it is true that all of the history of pendulums and of
rotating discs, in the 17th century, is very encouraging; but precisely, if it had
been this that Spinoza had wanted to say, why did he make no allusion to these
problems of vibration, even in his letters? And then, above all, the model of the
pendulum does not give a full account of what appears to me the essential,
that is to say: this presence of the actual infinite and the term "infinitely small
.
You see Gueroults answer, insofar as he comments on Spinoza: the relation of
movement and rest must be understood as the vibration of the simple
pendulum. There you are! I am not at all saying that I am right, truly not ? I
mean: if it is true that the very simple bodies this is why elsewhere Gueroult
needs to affirm that the very simple bodies have nevertheless, for Spinoza, a
shape and a magnitude. Suppose on the contrary but I am not at all saying
that I am right suppose that the very simple bodies were really infinitely small,
that is to say that they have neither shape nor magnitude. At that moment
then the model of the simple pendulum cannot work, and it cannot be a
vibration that defines the relation of movement and rest.
On the other hand, we have another way, and then you can perhaps find others
surely you can find others. The other way would be this: once again I return to
my question, between supposedly infinitely small terms, what type of relations
can they have? The response is very simple: between infinitely small terms, if
we understand what is meant in the 17th century by the infinitely small, that is:
which have no distributive existence, but which necessarily enter into an
infinite collection, between infinitely small terms, there can only be one type of
relation: differential relations.
Why? Infinitely small terms are vanishing terms, that is to say, the only
relations which they can have between the infinitely small terms are relations
which subsist while the terms vanish. A very simple question is: what are
relations such that they subsist while their terms vanish? Lets do here some
very very simple mathematics. I view , if I remain there in the 17th century and
in a certain state of mathematics, and what I am saying is very rudimentary, I
view as well known in the 17th century three types of relation. There are
fractional relations which have been known for a very very long time; there are
algebraic relations which are known which were anticipated well before, that

goes without saying but which received a very firm status, in the 16th and
17th century in the 17th century with Descartes, that is in the first half of the
17th century, with algebraic relations; and finally differential relations, which at
the moment of Spinoza and Leibniz, are the big question of mathematics of this
era. Ill give some examples: I want it to be clear for you, even if it is not
mathematics that Im doing, not at all. Example of a fractional relation: 2/3.
Example of an algebraic relation: ax+by = etc. From which you can get x/y =.
Example of a differential relation, we have seen: dy/dx = z. Good. What
difference is there between these three types of relation? I would say that the
fractional relation is already very interesting because otherwise we could make
like a scale: the fractional relation is irreducibly a relation. Why?
If I say 2/3, 2/3, once again it is not a number. Why is it that 2/3 is not a
number, it is because there isnt a number assignable which multiplied by 3
gives 2. Therefore it is not a number. A fraction is not a number, it is a complex
of numbers, which I decide, by convention, to treat as a number; thats to say
that I decide by convention to submit to the rules of addition, of subtraction, of
multiplication. But a fraction is obviously not a number. Once I have found the
fraction, I can treat numbers like fractions, thats to say: once I employ
fractional symbolism, I can treat a number, for example the number 2, as a
fraction. I can always write 4 over 2. 4 over 2 = 2. But the fractions, in their
irreducibility to whole numbers, dont have numbers, but are complexes of
whole numbers. Good. Therefore already the fraction brings forward a sort of
independence of the relation in relation to its terms.
In this very important question of a logic of relations, the point of departure of
a logic of relations is obvious: in what sense is there a consistency of the
relation independent of its terms? The fractional number already gives me a
kind of first approximation, but that doesnt allow us to avoid the fact that in
the fractional relation, the terms must again be specified. The terms must be
specified, thats to say that you could always write 2 over 3, but the relation is
between two terms: 2 and 3. It is irreducible to these terms since it is itself not
a number but a complex of numbers; but the terms must be specified, the
terms must be given. In a fraction, the relation is as independent of its terms,
Yes! But the terms must be given.
One step further. When I take an algebraic relation of the type x over y, this
time I dont have given terms, I have two variables. I have variables. You See
that everything happens as if the relation had acquired a superior degree of
independence in relation to its terms. I no longer need to assign a determinate
value. In a fractional relation I cannot escape this: I must assign a determinate
value to the terms of the relation. In an algebraic relation I no longer need to
assign a determinate value to the terms of the relation. The terms of the
relation are variable. But that doesnt allow me to avoid the fact that it is again
necessary that my variables have a determinable value. In other words, x and y

can have all sorts of singular values, but they must have one. See, in the
fractional relation, I can only have a singular value, or equivalent singular
values. In an algebraic relation I no longer have to have a singular value, but
that doesnt allow me to avoid the fact that my terms continue to have a
specifiable value, and the relation is quite independent of every particular
value of the variable, but it is not independent of a determinable value of the
variable.
What is very new with the differential relation is that it takes something like a
third step. When I say dy over dx, remember what we saw: dy in relation to y =
0; it is an infinitely small quantity. Dx in relation to x equals zero; therefore I
can write, and they wrote constantly in the 17th century, in this form: dy over
dx = 0 over 0: dy/dx=0/0. Now, the relation 0 over 0 is not equal to zero. In
other words, when the terms vanish, when the terms vanish, the relation
subsists. This time, the terms between which the relation is established are
neither determined, nor determinable. Only the relation between its terms is
determined. It is here that logic is going to make a leap, but a fundamental
leap. Under this form of the differential calculus is discovered a domain where
the relations no longer depend on their terms: the terms are reduced to
vanishing terms, to vanishing quantities, and the relation between these
vanishing quantities is not equal to zero. To the point where I would write, here
Ill do it very summarily: dy over dx equals z: dy/dx = z. What does this mean
"= z? It means, of course, that the differential relation dy over dx [dy/dx],
which is made between vanishing quantities of y and vanishing quantities of
x, tells us strictly nothing about x and y, but tells us something about
z. For example, as applied to a circle, the differential relation dy over dx tells
us something about a tangent called the "trigonometric tangent. In order to
keep it simple, there is no need to understand anything, I can therefore write
dy/dx = z. What does this mean then? See that the relation such as it subsists
when its terms vanish is going to refer to a third term, z. It is interesting; this
must have been very interesting: it is from here that a logic of relations is
possible. What does this mean then? We will say of z that it is the limit of the
differential relation. In other words, the differential relation tends towards a
limit. When the terms of the relation vanish, x and y, and become dy and
dx, when the terms of the relation vanish, the relation subsists because it tends
towards a limit, z. When the relation is established between infinitely small
terms, it does not cancel itself out at the same time as its terms, but tends
towards a limit. This is the basis of differential calculus such as it is understood
or interpreted in the 17th century.
Now you obviously understand why this interpretation of the differential
calculus is at one with the understanding of an actual infinite, meaning with the
idea of infinitely small quantities of vanishing terms.

Now, me, my answer to the question: but what is it exactly, this that Spinoza
speaks to us of when he speaks of the relations of movement and rest, of
proportions of movement and rest, and says: the infinitely small, a collection of
the infinitely small belonging to such an individual under such a relation of
movement and rest, what is this relation? I would not be able to say like
Gueroult that it is a vibration which assimilates the individual to a pendulum: it
is a differential relation. It is a differential relation such that it is manifested in
the infinite sets, in the infinite sets of the infinitely small. And, in effect, if you
take Spinozas letter on blood, of which I have made great use, and the two
components of blood, chyle and lymph, this now tells us what? It tells us that
there are corpuscles of chyle, or better chyle is an infinite set of very simple
bodies. Lymph is another infinite set of the very simple bodies. What
distinguishes the two infinite sets? It is the differential relation! You have this
time a dy/dx which is: the infinitely small parts of chyle over the infinitely small
parts of lymph, and this differential relation tends towards a limit: the blood,
that is to say: chyle and lymph compose blood.
If this is right, we could say why infinite ensembles are distinguished. It is
because the infinite sets of very simple bodies dont exist independently of the
differential relations which they put into effect. Therefore it is by abstraction
that I began by speaking of them. But they necessarily exist, they exist
necessarily under such and such a variable relation, they cannot exist
independently of a relation, since the notion even of the term infinitely small,
or of vanishing quantity, cannot be defined independently of a differential
relation. Once again, dx has no sense in relation to x, dy has no sense
in relation to y, only the relation dx/dy has a sense. Thats to say that the
infinitely small dont exist independently of the differential relation. Good. Now,
what permits me to distinguish one infinite set from another infinite set? I
would say that the infinite sets have different powers [puissances], and that
which appears quite obviously in this thought of the actual infinite is the idea of
the power [puissance] of an set. Lets understand here that I dont at all mean,
it would be abominable to make me mean that they have anticipated things
which closely concern set theory in the mathematics of the beginning of the
20th century, I dont mean that at all. I mean that in their conception, which is
in absolute contrast with modern mathematics, which is completely different,
which has nothing to do with modern mathematics, in their conception of the
infinitely small and of the differential calculus interpreted from the perspective
of the infinitely small, they necessarily brought out and this is not peculiar to
Leibniz, it is also true of Spinoza, and of Malebranche, all these philosophers of
the second half of the 17th century brought out the idea of infinite sets which
are distinguished, not by their numbers, an infinite set by definition, it can not
be distinguished from another infinite set by the number of its parts, since all
infinite sets excede all assignable number of parts therefore, from the point of
view of the number of parts, there cannot be one which has a greater number

of parts than another. All these sets are infinite. Therefore under what aspect
are they distinguished? Why is it that I can say: this infinite set and not that
one?
I can say it, it is quite simple: because infinite sets are defined as infinite under
such and such a differential relation. Between other terms the differential
relations can be considered as the power [puissance] of an infinite set. Because
of this an infinite set will be able to be of a higher power [puissance] than
another infinite set. Its not that it will have more parts, obviously not, but it is
that the differential relation under which the infinity, the infinite set of parts,
belongs to it will be of higher power [puissance] than the relation under which
an infinite set belongs to another individual ? [end of tape]
If we eliminate that, any idea of an actual infinite makes no sense. It is for this
reason that, with the reservations that Ive just mentioned, for my part, the
answer that I would give to: what is this relation of movement and rest that is
for Spinoza characteristic of the individual, that is as the second layer of the
individual, I would say that, no, it is not exactly a way of vibrating, perhaps we
could bring together the two points of view, I dont know, but it is differential
relation, and it is the differential relation that defines power [puissance]. Now,
you understand the situation, yes? you recall that the infinitely small are
constantly influenced from the outside, they pass their time by being in relation
with other collections of the infinitely small. Suppose that an infinite collection
of the infinitely small is determined from the outside to take another relation
than the one under which it belongs to me. What does this mean? It means
that: I die! I die! In effect, the infinite set which belongs to me under such a
relation which characterises me, under my characteristic relation, this infinite
set will take another relation under the influence of external causes. Take again
the example of poison which decomposes the blood: under the action of
arsenic, the infinitely small particles which compose the blood, which compose
my blood under such a relation, are going to be determined to enter under
another relation. Because of this, this infinite set is going to enter in the
composition of another body, it will no longer be mine: I die! Do you
understand? Good. If all of this is true, if it is true ? we are still missing
something, because this relation, it comes from where, this relation? You can
see that Ive progressed, but it is necessary for me to have my three layers. I
cannot pull through in any other way. I need my three layers because I cant
otherwise pull through. I start by saying: I am composed of an infinity of
vanishing and infinitely small parts. Good. But be careful, these parts belong to
me, they compose me under a certain relation which characterises me. But this
relation which characterises me, this differential relation or better, this
summation, not an addition but this kind of integration of differential relations,
since in fact there are an infinity of differential relations which compose me: my
blood, my bones, my flesh, all this refers to all sorts of systems of differential
relations. These differential relations that compose me, that is to say which

determine that the infinite collections which compose me belong effectively to

me, and not to another, insofar as it endures, since it always risks no longer
enduring, if my parts are determined to enter under other relations, they desert
my relation. Ha! ? they desert my relation. Once again: I die! But that is going
to involve lots of things.
What does it mean to die, at that very moment? It means that I no longer have
parts. Its stupefying! Good. But this relation which characterises me, and
which determines that the parts which put into effect the relation belong to me
as soon as they put into effect the relation, insofar as they put into effect the
differential relation, they belong to me, this differential relation, is this the last
word on the individual? Obviously not, it is necessary to give an account of it in
its turn. What is it going to express, it depends on what? What does it do that ?
it doesnt have its own reason, this differential relation. What does it do that,
me, I am characterised by such a relation or such an set of relations?
Last layer of the individual, Spinozas answer: it is that the characteristic
relations which constitute me, that is to say which determine that the infinite
sets which verify these relations, which put into effect these relations which
belong to me, the characteristic relations express something. They express
something which is my singular essence. Here Spinoza says this very firmly: the
relations of movement and rest serve only to express a singular essence. That
means that none of us have the same relations, of course, but it isnt the
relation that has the last word. Its what? Couldnt we here return to something
of Gueroults hypothesis? Last question: there is therefore a last layer of the
individual, that is to say that the individual is a singular essence. You can now
see what formula I can give to the individual: each individual is a singular
essence, each singular essence expresses itself in the characteristic relations of
the differential relation type, and under these differential relations, the infinite
collections of the infinitely small belong to the individual.
Hence a last question: what is it, this singular essence? Couldnt we find here,
at this level though it would be necessary to say that Gueroult, in all rigour, is
mistaken about this level at this level something equivalent to the idea of
vibration? What is a singular essence? Be careful that you have understood the
question, it is almost necessary to consent to press the conditions of such a
question. I am no longer in the domain of existence. What is it, existence? What
does it mean, to me, to exist? We will see that it is just as complicated in
Spinoza, because he gives a very rigorous determination to what he calls
existing. But if we start with the most simple, I would say: to exist is to have an
infinity of extensive parts, of extrinsic parts, to have an infinity of infinitely
small extrinsic parts, which belong to me under a certain relation. Insofar as I
have, in effect, extensive parts which belong to me under a certain relation,
infinitely small parts which belong to me, I can say: I exist.

When I die, once again, then it is necessary to work out the Spinozist concepts,
when I die what happens? To die means, exactly this, it means: the parts which
belong to me cease to belong to me. Why? We have seen that they only belong
to me insofar as they put into effect a relation, relation which characterises me.
I die when these parts which belong to me or which belonged to me are
determined to enter under another relation which characterises another body: I
would feed worms! "I would feed worms, which means: the parts of which I
am composed enter under another relation I am eaten by worms. My
corpuscles, mine, which pass under the relation of the worms. Good! That could
happen ? Or better, the corpuscles of which I am composed, precisely, they put
into effect another relation, conforming to the relation of arsenic: I have been
poisoned! Good. Do you see that in one sense it is very serious, but it is not
that serious, for Spinoza. Because, in the end, I can say that death ? concerns
what? We can say in advance, before knowing what it is that he calls an
essence, death concerns essentially a fundamental dimension of the individual,
but a single dimension, that is the relationship of the parts to an essence. But it
concerns neither the relation under which the parts belong to me, nor the
essence. Why?
Youve seen that the characteristic relation, the differential relation, or the
differential relations which characterise me, they are independent in
themselves, they are independent of the terms since the terms are infinitely
small, and that the relation, itself, on the contrary, has a finite value: dy/dx = z.
Then it is actually true that my relation or my relations cease to be put into
effect when I die, there are no longer parts which effect. Why? Because the
parts have been set up to put into effect other relations. Good. But firstly there
is an eternal truth of the relation, in other words there is a consistency of the
relation even when it is not put into effect by actual parts, there is an actuality
of the relation, even when it ceases to be put into effect. That which disappears
with death is the effectuation of the relation, it is not the relation itself. You say
to me: what is a non-effectuated relation? I call upon this logic of the relation
such as it seems to be born in the 17th century, that is to say it has effectively
shown in what conditions a relation had a consistency while its terms were
vanishing. There is a truth of the relation independent of the terms which put
the relation into effect, and on the other hand there is a reality of the essence
that is expressed in the relation, there is a reality of the essence independent
of knowing if the actually given parts putting the relation into effect conform
with the essence. In other words both the relation and the essence are said to
be eternal, or at least to have a species of eternity a species [espce] of
eternity doesnt at all mean a metaphoric eternity it is a very precise type of
eternity, that is to say that: the species of eternity in Spinoza has always
signified what is eternal by virtue of its cause and not by virtue of itself
therefore the singular essence and the characteristic relations in which this
essence expresses itself are eternal, while what is transitory, and what defines

my existence, is uniquely the time during which the infinitely small extensive
parts belong to me, that is to say put the relation into effect. But then there
you are, this is why it is necessary to say that my essence exists when I dont
exist, or when I no longer exist. In other words there is an existence of the
essence which is not confused with the existence of the individual whose
essence is the essence in question. There is an existence of the singular
essence which is not confused with the existence of the individual whose
essence is the essence in question. It is very important because you see where
Spinoza is heading, and his whole system is founded on it: it is a system in
which everything that is is real. Never, never has such a negation of the
category of possibility been carried so far. Essences are not possibilities. There
is nothing possible, everything that is is real. In other words essences dont
define possibililties of existence, essences are themselves existences.
Here he goes much further than the others of the 17th century here Im
thinking of Leibniz. With Leibniz, you have an idea according to which essences
are logical possibilities. For example, there is an essence of Adam, there is an
essence of Peter, there is an essence of Paul, and they are possibles. As long as
Peter, Paul, etc. dont exist, we can only define the essence as a possible, as
something which is possible. Simply, Leibniz will be forced, henceforth, to give
an account of this: how can the possible account for, integrate in itself the
possibility of existing, as if it would be necessary to burden the category of the
possible with a kind [espce] of tendency to existence. And, in effect, Leibniz
develops a very very curious theory, with a word that is common to both
Leibniz and Spinoza, the word conatus, tendency, but which actually has two
absolutely different senses in Spinoza and Leibniz. With Leibniz singular
essences are simply possibles, they are special possibles since they tend with
all their force to exist. It is necessary to introduce into the logical category of
possibility a tendency to existence.
Spinoza, Im not saying that it is better its your choice it is truly a
characteristic of the thought of Spinoza, for him, it is the same notion of the
possible: he doesnt want to enrich the notion of the possible by grafting it to a
tendency to existence. What he wants is the radical destruction of the category
of the possible. There is only the real. In other words, essence isnt a logical
possibility, essence is a physical reality. It is a physical reality, what can that
mean? In other words, the essence of Paul, once Paul is dead, remains a
physical reality. It is a real being. Therefore it would be necessary to distinguish
them as two real beings: the being of the existence and the being of the
essence of Paul. Whats more, it would be necessary to distinguish as two
existences: the existence of Paul and the existence of the essence of Paul. The
existence of the essence of Paul is eternal, while the existence of Paul is
transitory, mortal, etc. You see, from the point where were at, if this is it, a
very important theme of Spinoza is: but what is it going to be, this physical
reality of the essence? Essences cant be logical possibilities, if they were

logical possibilities they would be nothing: they must be physical realities. But
be careful, these physical realities are not confused with the physical reality of
the existence. What is the physical reality of the existence? Spinoza finds
himself in the grip of a problem which is very very complicated, but so much
the better. I want this all to be clear, I dont know how to do it.
Spinoza tells us, Ill tell you shortly when and where he tells us this, in a very
fine text, he tells us: imagine a white wall. A totally white wall. There is nothing
on it. Then you arrive with a pencil, you draw a man, and then next to it you do
another. There your two men exist. They exist insofar as what? They exist
insofar as youve traced them. Two figures exist on the white wall. You can call
these two figures Peter and Paul. So long as nothing is traced on the white wall,
does something exist which would be distinct from the white wall? Spinozas
response very curiously is: No, strictly speaking nothing exists! On the white
wall, nothing exists so long as the figures havent been traced. Youre telling
me that this isnt complicated. It isnt complicated. It is a fine example because
I will have need of it for the next time. As for now, all I will do is comment on
Spinozas text. Now, where can this text be found? This text can be found in the
early work of Spinoza, a work which was not written by him, but is the notes of
an auditor, and is known by the title the Short Treatise. The Short Treatise. You
see why this example is important. The white wall is something equivalent to
what Spinoza calls the attribute. The attribute, extension. The question was
asked: but what is there in extension? In extension there is extension, the white
wall equals a white wall, extension equals extension! But you could say: bodies
exist in extension. Yes, bodies exist in extension. OK. What is the existence of
bodies in extension? The existence of bodies in extension is effectively when
these bodies are traced. What does that mean, effectively traced? We have
seen this answer, Spinozas very strict answer, it is when an infinity of infinitely
small parts are determined to belong to a body. The body is traced. It has a
shape. What Spinoza will call mode of the attribute is such a shape. Therefore
the bodies are in extension exactly like figures traced on the white wall, and I
can distinguish one figure from another figure, by saying precisely: which parts
belong to which shape, pay attention, such another part, it can have there
common fringes, but what can this do? This means that there will be a common
relation between the two bodies, yes, this is possible, but I would distinguish
existing bodies. Outside of that, can I distinguish something? One finds that the
text of the Short Treatise, of Spinozas youth, seems to say: ultimately it is
impossible to distinguish something outside of existing modes, outside of
shapes. If you havent traced the shape, you cannot distinguish something on
the white wall. The white wall is uniformly white. Excuse me for dwelling on
this, it is really because it is an essential moment in Spinozas thought.
Nevertheless, already in the Short Treatise he says: the essences are singular,
that is to say there is an essence of Peter and of Paul which is not confused
with the existence of Peter and Paul. Now, if essences are singular, it is

necessary to distinguish something on the white wall without the shapes

necessarily having been traced. Whats more, if I leap to his definitive work, the
Ethics, I see that in Part II, Proposition 7, 8, etc., Spinoza comes across this
problem again. He says, very bizarrely: modes exist in the attribute in two
ways; on the one hand they exist insofar as they are comprised and contained
in the attribute; and, on the other, insofar as it is said that they have duration.
Two existences: durational existence, immanent existence. Here I take the
letter of the text. Modes exist in two ways, that is to say that: existing modes
exist insofar as they are said to have duration, and the essences of modes exist
insofar as they are contained in the attribute. Good! This is complicated
because modal essences are once again, and here it is confirmed by all the
texts of the Ethics, they are singular essences, meaning that one isnt confused
with the essence of another, the one isnt confused with the other, good, very
well. But then, how are they distinguished in the attribute, one from the other.
Spinoza affirms that they are distinguished, and then here he abandons us!
Does he really abandon us, it is not possible! A thing like this is not imaginable!
He doesnt tells us, OK. He gives an example, he gives us a geometric example,
precisely, which comes down to saying: does a shape have a certain mode of
existence when it isnt traced? Does a shape exist in extension when it isnt
traced in extension? The whole text seems to say: yes, and the whole text
seems to say: complete this yourselves. And this is normal, perhaps he has
given us all the elements of an answer. To complete it ourselves. It is
necessary, we have no choice! Either we renounce being Spinozist that
wouldnt be bad either or it is necessary to complete it yourself. How could we
complete this ourselves? This is why I pleaded as I said at the beginning of the
year, we plead with ourselves, on the one hand, with the heart, and, on the
other, with that which we know. The white wall! Why does he speak of the
white wall? What is this story of the white wall?
After all, examples in philosophy are also a bit like a wink of the eye. You tell
me: well what do we do if we dont understand the wink of an eye? Its not
serious, not serious at all! We pass by a million things. Lets make do with what
we have, lets make do with what we know. White wall. But after all Im trying
to complete it with all my heart before completing it with knowledge. Lets call
on our hearts. I take on one side my white wall, on the other side my drawings
on the white wall. I have drawn on the wall. And my question is this: can I
distinguish on the white wall things independently of the shapes drawn, can I
make distinctions which are not distinctions between shapes?
Here it is like a practical exercise, there is no need to know anything. Simply, I
say: you are reading Spinoza well if you arrive at this problem or at an
equivalent problem. It is necessary to read him literally enough in order for you
to say: ah yes, this is the problem that he poses us, and the job for him is to
pose the problem so precisely that it is even a present that he gives us in his
infinite generosity is to pose the problem so well, he poses the problem for us

so precisely that obviously, we tell ourselves, the answer is this, and we will
have the impression of having found the answer. It is only the great authors
who give you this impression. They stop just when all is finished, but no, there
is a tiny bit that they havent mentioned. We are forced to find it and we say to
ourselves: I am good arent I, I am strong arent I, I found it, because at the
moment when I come to pose the question like this: can something be
distinguished on the white wall independently of the drawn shapes? It is
obvious that I have the answer already. And that we respond in chorus, we
respond: Of course, there is another mode of distinction which is what? It is
that the white has degrees! And I can vary the degrees of whiteness. One
degree of whiteness is distinguished from another degree of whiteness in a
totally different way than that by which a shape on the white wall is
distinguished from another shape on the white wall. In other words, the white
has, one says in Latin we use all the languages in order to try to better
understand the languages that we dont know, what! (laughs) the white has
distinctions of gradus. There are degrees, and the degrees are not confused
with the shapes. You say: such a degree of white, in the sense of such a degree
of light. A degree of light, a degree of whiteness, is not a shape. And even
though two degrees are distinguished, two degrees arent distinguished like
shapes in space. I would say that shapes are distinguished externally, taking
account of their common parts. I would say of degrees that it is a completely
different type of distinction, that there is an intrinsic distinction. What is this?
Accordingly I no longer need ? It is an accident. Each operates with what they
know. I tell myself: ha, it is not at all surprising that Spinoza ? What is the wink
of the eye from the point of view of knowledge? We started with our heart by
saying: yes, it can only be that: there is a distinction of degrees which is not
confused with the distinction of figures. The light has degrees, and the
distinction of degrees of light is not confused with the distinction of shapes in
the light. You tell me that all of this is infantile; but it is not infantile when we
try to make them philosophical concepts. Yes its infantile, and it isnt. Thats
good. Well then, what is this story, there are intrinsic distinctions! Good, lets
try to progress, from the point of view of terminology. It is necessary to make a
terminological grouping.
My white wall, the white of the white wall, I will call: quality. The
determination of shapes on the white wall I will call: magnitude, or length. I
will say why I use the apparently bizarre word magnitude [grandeur].
Magnitude, or length, or extensive quantity. Extensive quantity is in effect the
quantity which is composed of parts. Recall the existing mode, existing me, is
defined precisely by the infinity of parts which belong to me. What else is there
besides quality, the white, and extensive quantity, magnitude or length, there
are degrees. There are degrees which are what, which we call in general:
intensive quantities, and which are in fact just as different from quality as from
extensive quantity. These are degrees or intensities.

Now there is a philosopher of the Middle Ages, one of great genius, here I
appeal to a very small bit of knowledge, he is called Duns Scotus. He appeals
to the white wall. It is the same example. Did Spinoza read Duns Scotus? [This
is] of no interest, because I am not sure at all that it is Duns Scotus who
invented this example! It is an example which can be found throughout the
Middle Ages, in a whole group of theories of the Middle Ages. The white wall.
Yes! ... He said: quality, the white, has an infinity of intrinsic modes. He wrote in
Latin: modus intrinsecus. And Duns Scotus here innovated, invented a theory of
intrinsic modes. A quality has an infinity of intrinsic modes. Intrinsic modes,
what are they, and he says: the white has an infinity of intrinsic modes, these
are the intensities of white. Understand: white equals light in the example. An
infinity of luminous intensities. He adds this and note that he takes
responsibility because here this is new you tell me, say: there is an intensity,
there is an infinity of intensities of light. Ok, not much. But what does he draw
from this and why does he say this? What accounts does he settle, and with
whom? This becomes important. Understand that the example is typical
because when he says white, or quality, he means as well: form. In other
words, we are in open discussion of the philosophy of Aristotle, and he is
saying: a form has intrinsic modes. Ha! If he means: a form has intrinsic modes,
it doesnt go without saying, not at all! Why? Because, it goes without saying
that all sorts of authors, all sorts of theologians would consider that a form
would be invariable in itself, and that only existing things vary in which form
puts itself into effect. Duns Scotus tells us: here where the others distinguish
two terms, it is necessary to distinguish three: that in which the form puts itself
into effect are extrinsic modes. Therefore it is necessary to distinguish form
from extrinsic modes, but there is something else. A form has also a kind
[espce] as they say in the Middle Ages a kind of latitude, a latitude of form,
which has degrees, the intrinsic degrees of form. Good. These are intensities,
therefore intensive quantities. What distinguishes them? How is one degree
distinguished from another degree? Here, I insist on this because the theory of
intensive quantities is like the conception of differential calculus of which I have
spoken, it is determinant throughout the whole of the Middle Ages. Whats
more, it is related to problems of theology, there is a whole theory of intensities
at the level of theology. If there is a unity of physics and metaphysics in the
Middle Ages, it is very centred understand this makes the metaphysics of the
Middle Ages much more interesting, there is a whole problem of the Trinity, that
is to say three persons for one and the same substance, that which obstructs
the mystery of the trinity. It is always said: they fight like that, they are
theological questions. Not at all, they are not theological questions, it engages
everything because, at the same time: they determine a physics of intensities,
in the Middle Ages; they determine an elucidation of theological mysteries, the
Holy Trinity; and they determine a metaphysics of forms, all of this is way
beyond the specificity of theology. Under what form are the three persons of
the Holy Trinity distinguished? It is obvious that there is a kind of problem of

individuation that is very very important. It is necessary that the three persons
are, in a way, not at all different substances, it is necessary that they are
intrinsic modes. Therefore how will they be distinguished? Have we not forged
ahead here into a kind of theology of intensity.
When Klossowski in his literature finds a kind of very very strange connection
between theological themes of which it is said: but after all where does all of
this come from, and a very Nietzschean conception of intensities, it would be
necessary to see, as Klossowski is someone extremely wise, erudite, it is
necessary to see what link he makes between these problems of the Middle
Ages and current questions or the Nietzschean questions. It is obvious that in
the Middle Ages the whole theory of intensities is simultaneously physical,
theological and metaphysical. Under which form?
[end of tape very little time before the end of the course.]

This is the last time that we will speak of Spinoza. Im going to begin with a
question that was posed to me last time: how can Spinoza say, at least in one
text, that every affection, that any affection is an affection of essence?
Actually, "affection of essence," you feel that its a slightly odd expression. To
my knowledge its the only case in which one finds this expression. Which
case? A very precise text, which is a recapitulative text at the end of book three
of the Ethics. Here Spinoza gives us a series of definitions hors livre. He defines
or he gives again definitions which, until then, had either not been given or
were scattered. He gives definitions of the affects.
You recall that the affects were a very particular kind of affection: this is what
follows from that. We often translate it by the word "feeling" [sentiment]. But
there is the French word "affect" which corresponds completely to the Latin
word "affectus." This, strictly speaking, is what follows from the affections, the
affections being perceptions or representations. But in definition one at the end
of book three we read this: "Desire is mans very essence, insofar as it is
conceived to be determined, from any given affection of it, to do something."
This definition consists of quite a long explication and, if one continues, one
stumbles upon a sentence that also creates something of a problem, for by
affection of essence, "we understand any constitution of that essence, whether

it is innate (or acquired)." In the Latin text something is missing: the reason for
this parenthesis. In the Dutch translation of the Short Treatise, there is the
complete sentence that we expect. Why do we expect this complement, "(or
acquired)"? Because its a very standard distinction in the seventeenth century
between two types of ideas or affections: ideas that are called innate, and
ideas that are called acquired and adventitious.
Innate-acquired is a quite standard couple in the seventeenth century but, on
the other hand, the fact is that Spinoza has not used this terminology and its
only in this recapitulation that the resumption of the words innate and acquired
appears. What is this text in which Spinoza employs terms that he hasnt
employed up until now and in which he issues the formula "affection of
essence"?
If you think about everything weve said up until now, there is a problem
because one asks oneself how Spinoza can say that all the affections and all
the affects are affections of essence. That means that even a passion is an
affection of essence.
At the close of all our analyses, we tended to conclude that what truly belongs
to essence are the adequate ideas and the active affects, that is, the ideas of
the second kind and the ideas of the third kind. Its these that truly belong to
essence. But Spinoza seems to say entirely the opposite: not only are all the
passions affections of essence, but even among the passions, sadnesses, the
worst passions, every affect affects essence!
I would like to try to resolve this problem.
Its not a question of discussing one of Spinozas texts, we must take it literally.
It teaches us that, be that as it may, every affection is affection of essence.
Thus the passions belong to essence no less than the actions; the inadequate
ideas [belong] to essence no less than the adequate ideas. And nevertheless
there was necessarily a difference. The passions and the inadequate ideas
must not belong to essence in the same way that the actions and the adequate
ideas belong to it.
How do we get out of this?
Affection of essence. What interests me is the formula "of," in Latin the
genitive. In French the genitive is indicated by the particle "de." I think I recall
that grammar distinguishes several senses of the genitive. There is a whole
variation. When you employ the locution "de" to indicate a genitive, this always
means that something belongs to someone. If I make the genitive a locution of
belonging, this doesnt prevent the belonging from having very different
senses. The genitive can indicate that something comes from someone and
belongs to her insofar as it comes from someone, or it can indicate that

something belongs to someone insofar as this someone undergoes the

something.
In other words, the locution "de" does not choose the direction [sens] in which
it is inflected, if its a genitive of passion or a genitive of action.
My question is this: I have an inadequate idea, I have a confused proposition
out of which comes a passion-affect. In what sense does this belong to my
essence? It seems to me that the answer is this: in my natural condition I am
condemned to inadequate perceptions. This means that I am composed of an
infinity of extensive parts [which are] external to one another. These extensive
parts belong to me under a certain relation. But these extensive parts are
perpetually submitted to the influence of other parts which act upon them and
which dont belong to me. If I consider certain parts that belong to me and that
make up part of my body, lets say my skin; corpuscules of skin that belong to
me under such relations: my skin. They are perpetually submitted to the action
of other external parts: the set of what acts on my skin, particles of air,
particles of sun. Im trying to explain at the level of a rudimentary example.
The corpuscules of sun, the corpuscules of heat act on my skin. This means
that they are under a certain relation that is the relation of the sun. The
corpuscules of my skin are under a certain relation that is precisely
characteristic of my body, but these particles that have no other law than the
law of external determinations act perpetually upon one another.
I would say that the perception that I have of heat is a confused perception,
and from it come affects which are themselves passions: "Im hot!" At the level
of the proposition "Im hot!," if I try to distribute the Spinozist categories, I
would say: an external body acts on mine. Its the sun. That is to say that the
parts of the sun act on the parts of my body. All of that is pure external
determinism, its like the shocks of particles.
I call perception when I perceive the heat that I experience, the idea of the
effect of the sun on my body. Its an inadequate perception since its an idea of
an effect, I do not know the cause and from it follows a passive affect; either
its too hot and Im sad, or I feel good, what happiness the sun!
In what sense is this an affection of essence?
Its inevitably an affection of essence. At first sight its an affection of the
existing body. But finally there is only essence. The existing body is still a figure
of essence. The existing body is essence itself, insofar as an infinity of
extensive parts, under a certain relation, belongs to it. Under a certain relation!
What does that mean, this relation of movement and rest?
You recall, you have essence that is a degree of power [puissance]. To this
essence corresponds a certain relation of movement and rest. As long as I

exist, this relation of movement and rest is executed by the extensive parts
that, from then on, belong to me under this relation.
What does that mean?
In the Ethics there is a quite curious slippage [glissement] of notions, as if
Spinoza had a double vocabulary there. And this is included, this would be so
only in accordance with the physics of that epoch.
He passes sometimes from a kinetic vocabulary to a dynamic vocabulary. He
considers the following two concepts as equivalents: relation of movement and
rest, and power [pouvoir] of being affected or aptitude to be affected. One
must ask oneself why he treats this kinetic proposition and this dynamic
proposition as equivalents. Why is a relation of movement and rest that
characterizes me at the same time a power of being affected that belongs to
me? There will be two definitions of the body. The kinetic definition will be this:
every body is defined by a relation of movement and rest. The dynamic
definition is: every body is defined by a certain power of being affected. You
must be sensitive to the double kinetic and dynamic register.
One will find a text in which Spinoza says that "a very large number of
extensive parts belongs to me. Hence I am affected in an infinity of ways."
Having, under a certain relation, an infinity of extensive parts is the power of
being affected in an infinity of ways. From then on everything becomes clear.
If you understood the law of extensive parts, they never cease to have causes,
to be causes, and to undergo the effect of one upon the others. This is the
world of causality or extrinsic, external determinism. There is always a particle
that strikes another particle. In other words, you cannot think an infinite set of
parts without thinking that they have at each instant an effect upon one
another.
What does one call affection? One calls affection the idea of an effect. These
extensive parts that belong to me, you cant conceive them as having no effect
upon one another. They are inseparable from the effect that they have on one
another. And there is never an infinite set of extensive parts that would be
isolated. There is at least one set of extensive parts that is defined by this: this
set belongs to me. It is defined by the relation of movement and rest under
which the set belongs to me. But this set is not separable from other sets,
equally infinite, that act on it, that have influence on it and which do not belong
to me. The particles of my skin are obviously not separable from the particles
of air that come to strike them. An affection is nothing other than the idea of
the effect. The necessarily confused idea since I have no idea of the cause. Its
the reception of the effect: I say that I perceive. Its thus that Spinoza can pass
from the kinetic definition to the dynamic definition, that is, that the relation
under which an infinity of extensive parts belongs to me is equally a power of

being affected. But then what are my perceptions and my passions, my joys
and my sadnesses, my affects? If I continue this sort of parallelism between the
kinetic element and the dynamic element, I would say that the extensive parts
belong to me insofar as they execute a certain relation of movement and rest
that characterizes me. They execute a relation since they define the terms
between which the relation applies [joue]. If I speak now in dynamic terms, I
would say that the affections and the affects belong to me insofar as they fulfill
my power of being affected and at each instant my power of being affected is
fulfilled. Compare these completely different moments: instant A: you are out in
the rain, you catch it yourself, you have no shelter and you are reduced to
protecting your right side with your left side and vice versa. You are sensitive to
the beauty of this sentence. Its a very kinetic formula. I am forced to make half
of myself the shelter for the other side. Its a very beautiful formula, its a verse
of Dante, in one of the circles of Hell where theres a little rain and the bodies
are lying in a sort of mud. Dante tries to translate the sort of solitude of these
bodies that have no other resource than that of turning over in the mud. Every
time they try to protect one side of their body with the other side. Instant B:
now you open up. Just now the particles of rain were like little arrows, it was
horrible, you were grotesque in your swimsuits. And the sun comes out, instant
B. Then your whole body opens up. And now you would like your whole body to
be capable of spreading out [talable], you tend toward the sun. Spinoza says
that we must not be fooled, that in the two cases your power of being affected
is necessarily fulfilled. Plainly you always have the affections and affects that
you deserve according to the circumstances, including the external
circumstances; but an affection, an affect belongs to you only to the extent
that it actually contributes to fulfilling your power of being affected.
Its in this sense that every affection and every affect is affect of essence.
Ultimately the affections and the affects can only be affections and affects of
essence. Why? They exist for you only as they fulfill a power of being affected
which is yours, and this power of being affected is the power of being affected
of your essence. At no moment do you have to miss it. When it rains and you
are so unhappy, you literally lack nothing. This is Spinozas great idea: you
never lack anything. Your power of being affected is fulfilled in every way. In
every case, nothing is ever expressed or founded in expressing itself as a lack.
Its the formula "there is only Being." Every affection, every perception and
every feeling, every passion is affection, perception and passion of essence. Its
not by chance that philosophy constantly employs a word for which its
reproached, but what do you want, philosophy needs it, its the sort of locution
"insofar as" [en tant que]. If it were necessary to define philosophy by a word,
one could say that philosophy is the art of the "insofar as." If you see someone
being led by chance to say "insofar as," you can tell yourself that its thought
being born. The first man who thought said "insofar as." Why? "Insofar as" is
the art of the concept. Its the concept. Is it by chance that Spinoza constantly

employs the Latin equivalent of "insofar as"? The "insofar as" refers to
distinctions in the concept that are not perceptible in things themselves. When
you work by way of distinctions in the concept and by way of the concept, you
can say: the thing insofar as, that is to say the conceptual aspect of the thing.
So then every affection is affection of essence, yes, but insofar as what? When
its a matter of inadequate perceptions and passions, we must add that these
are affections of essence insofar as the essence has an infinity of extensive
parts that belong to it under such a relation.
Here the power of being affected belongs to essence, plainly it is necessarily
fulfilled by affects that come from outside. These affects come from outside,
they do not come from the essence, they are nevertheless affects of essence
since they fulfill the power of being affected of essence. Remember well that
they come from outside, and actually the outside is the law to which the
extensive parts acting upon one another are submitted.
When one succeeds in rising to the second and third kinds of knowledge, what
happens? Here I have adequate perceptioions and active affects. What does
that mean? Its the affections of essence. I would even say all the more reason.
What difference from the preceding case? This time they do not come from
outside, they come from inside. Why? We saw it. A common notion already, all
the more reason for an idea of the third kind, an idea of essence, why does this
come from inside?
Just now I said that inadequate ideas and passive affects belong to me, they
belong to my essence. These are thus affections of essence insofar as this
essence actually possesses an infinity of extensive parts that belong to it under
a certain relation.
Lets now try to find the common notions. A common notion is a perception. Its
a perception of a common relation, a relation common to me and to another
body. It follows from affects, active affects. These affections, perceptions and
affects are also affections of essence. They belong to essence. Its the same
thing, but insofar as what? No longer insofar as essence is conceived as
possessing an infinity of extensive parts that belong to it under a certain
relation, but insofar as essence is conceived as expressing itself in a relation.
Here the extensive parts and the action of the extensive parts are cast off since
I am raised to the comprehension of relations that are causes, thus I am raised
to another aspect of essence. Its no longer essence insofar as it actually
possesses an infinity of extensive parts, its essence insofar as it expresses
itself in a relation.
And all the more reason if I am raised to ideas of the third kind, these ideas and
the active affects that follow from them belong to essence and are affections of
essence, this time insofar as essence is in itself [en soi], is in itself [en elle-

mme], in itself and for itself, is in itself [en soi] and for itself [pour soi] a
degree of power [puissance]. I would say broadly that every affection and
every affect are affections of essence, only there are two cases, the genitive
has two senses?ideas of the second kind and [those] of the third kind are
affections of essence, but it would have to be said following a word that will
only appear quite a bit later in philosophy, with the Germans for example,
these are auto-affections. Ultimately, throughout the common notions and the
ideas of the third kind, its essence that is affected by itself.
Spinoza employs the term active affect and there is no great difference
between auto-affection and active affect. All the affections are affections of
essence, but be careful, affection of essence does not have one and only one
sense. It remains for me to draw a sort of conclusion that concerns the EthicsOntology relation.
Why does all this constitute an ontology? I have a feeling-idea. There has never
been but a single ontology. There is only Spinoza who has managed to pull off
an ontology. If one takes ontology in an extremely rigorous sense, I see only
one case where a philosophy has realized itself as ontology, and thats Spinoza.
But then why could this coup only be realized once? Why was it by Spinoza?
The power of being affected of an essence can be as well realized by external
affections as by internal affections. Above all we must not think that power of
being affected refers more to an interiority that did not make up the kinetic
relation. The affects can be absolutely external, this is the case of the passions.
The passions are affects that fulfill the power of being affected and that come
from outside?book five appears to me to found this notion of auto-affection.
Take a text like this one: the love by which I love God (understood in the third
kind) is the love by which God loves himself and I love myself. This means that
at the level of the third kind, all the essences are internal to one another and
internal to the power [puissance] called divine power. There is an interiority of
essences and that does not mean that they merge. One arrives at a system of
intrinsic distinctions; from this point on only one essence affects meand this is
the definition of the third kind, an essence affects my essencebut since all
essences are internal to one another, an essence that affects me is a way in
which my essence affects itself. Although this is dangerous, I return to my
example of the sun. What does "pantheism" mean? How do people who call
themselves pantheists live? There are many Englishmen who are pantheists.
Im thinking of Lawrence. He had a cult of the sun. Light and tuberculosis are
the two points common to Lawrence and Spinoza. Lawrence tells us that,
broadly speaking, there are at least two ways of being in relation to the sun.
There are people on the beach, but they dont understand, they dont know
what the sun is, they live badly. If they were to understand something of the
sun, after all, they would come out of it more intelligent and better. But as soon
as they put their clothes back on, they are as scabby [teigneux] as before.

What do they make of the sun, at this level? They remain in the first kind [?]
The "I" in "I like the heat" is an I that expresses relations of extensive parts of
the vasoconstrictive and vasodilative type, that expresses itself directly in an
external determinism putting the extensive parts in play. In that sense these
are particles that act on my particles and the effect of one on the other is a
pleasure or a joy. Thats the sun of the first kind of knowledge, which I translate
under the nave formula "oh the sun, I love that." In fact, these are extrinsic
mechanisms of my body that play, and the relations between parts, parts of
the sun and parts of my body.
Starting when with the sun, starting when can I begin authentically to say "I"?
With the second kind of knowledge, I leave behind the zone of the effect of
parts on one another. I have acquired some kind of knowledge of the sun, a
practical comprehension of the sun. What does this practical comprehension
mean? It means that I get ahead, I know what such a miniscule event linked to
the sun means, such a furtive shadow at such a moment, I know what this
announces. I no longer record the effects of the sun on my body. I raise myself
to a kind of practical comprehension of causes, at the same time that I know
how to compose the relations of my body with such and such relation of the
sun.
Lets take the perception of a painter. Lets imagine a nineteenth-century
painter who goes out into nature. He has his easel, its a certain relation. There
is the sun that does not remain immobile. What is this knowledge of the second
kind? He will completely change the position of his easel, he is not going to
have the same relation to his canvas depending on whether the sun is high or
the sun is about to set. Van Gogh painted on his knees. The sunsets forced him
to paint almost lying down so that Van Goghs eye had the lowest horizon line
possible. At that moment having an easel no longer means anything. There are
letters in which Czanne speaks of the mistral: how to compose the canvaseasel relation with the relation of wind, and how to compose the relation of the
easel with the sinking sun, and how to end up in such a way that I might paint
on the ground, that I might paint lying on the ground. I compose relations, and
in a certain way I am raised to a certain comprehension of causes, and at that
very moment I can begin to say that I love the sun. I am no longer in the effect
of particles of sun on my body, I am in another domain, in compositions of
relation. And at this very moment I am not far from a proposition that would
have appeared to us mad in the first degree, I am not far from being able to
say, "the sun, I am something of it." I have a relation of affinity with the sun.
This is the second kind of knowledge. Understand that, at the second level,
there is a kind of communion with the sun. For Van Gogh its obvious. He begins
to enter into a kind of communication with the sun.
What would the third kind be? Here Lawrence abounds. In abstract terms it
would be a mystical union. All kinds of religions have developed mystiques of

the sun. This is a step further. Van Gogh has the impression that there is a
beyond that he cannot manage to render. What is this yet further that he will
not manage to render insofar as he is a painter? Is this what the metaphors of
the sun in the mystics are? But these are no longer metaphors if one
comprehends it like that, they can say literally that God is the sun. They can
say literally that "I am God." Why? Not at all because there is an identification.
Its that at the level of the third kind one arrives at this mode of intrinsic
distinction. Its here that there is something irreducibly mystical in Spinozas
third kind of knowledge: at the same time the essences are distinct, only they
distinguish themselves on the inside from one another. So much so that the
rays by which the sun affects me are the rays by which I affect myself, and the
rays by which I affect myself are the rays of the sun that affect me. Its solar
auto-affection. In words this has a grotesque air, but understand that at the
level of modes of life its quite different. Lawrence develops these texts on this
kind of identity that maintains the internal distinction between his own singular
essence, the singular essence of the sun, and the essence of the world.

Capitalism, flows, the decoding of flows, capitalism and schizophrenia,

psychoanalysis, Spinoza.
What is it that moves over the body of a society? It is always flows, and a
person is always a cutting off [coupure] of a flow. A person is always a point of
departure for the production of a flow, a point of destination for the reception
of a flow, a flow of any kind; or, better yet, an interception of many flows.

If a person has hair, this hair can move through many stages: the hairstyle of a
young girl is not the same as that of a married woman, it is not the same as
that of a widow: there is a whole hairstyle code. A person, insofar as she styles
her hair, typically presents herself as an interceptor in relation to flows of hair
that exceed her and exceed her case and these flows of hair are themselves
coded according to very different codes: widow code, young girl code, married
woman code, etc. This is ultimately the essential problem of coding and of the
territorialization which is always coding flows with it, as a fundamental means
of operation: marking persons (because persons are situated at the
interception and at the cutting off [coupure] of flows, they exist at the points
where flows are cut off [coupure]).

But, now, more than marking persons--marking persons is the apparent means
of operation--coding has a deeper function, that is to say, a society is only
afraid of one thing: the deluge; it is not afraid of the void, it is not afraid of

dearth or scarcity. Over a society, over its social body, something flows [coule]
and we do not know what it is, something flows that is not coded, and
something which, in relation to this society, even appears as the uncodable.
Something which would flow and which would carry away this society to a kind
of deterritorialization which would make the earth upon which it has set itself
up dissolve: this, then, is the crisis. We encounter something that crumbles and
we do not know what it is, it responds to no code, it flees underneath the
codes; and this is even true, in this respect, for capitalism, which for a long
time believed it could always secure simili-codes; this, then, is what we call the
well-known power [puissance] of recuperation within capitalism--when we say
recuperate we mean: each time something seems to escape capitalism, seems
to pass beneath its simili-codes; it reabsorbs all this, it adds one more axiom
and the machine starts up again; think of capitalism in the 19th century: it sees
the flowing of a pole of flow that is, literally, a flow, the flow of workers, a
proletariat flow: well, what is this which flows, which flows wickedly and which
carries away our earth, where are we headed? The thinkers of the 19th century
have a very strange response, notably the French historical school: it was the
first in the 19th century to have thought in terms of classes, they are the ones
who invent the theoretical notion of classes and invent it precisely as an
essential fragment of the capitalist code, namely: the legitimacy of capitalism
comes from this: the victory of the bourgeoisie as a class opposed to the
aristocracy.

The system that appears in the works of Saint Simon, A. Thierry, E. Quinet is
the radical seizure of consciousness by the bourgeoisie as a class and they
interpret all of history as a class struggle. It is not Marx who invents the
understanding of history as a class struggle, it is the bourgeois historical school
of the 19th century: 1789, yes, it is a class struggle, they are struck blind when
they see flowing, on the actual surface of the social body, this weird flow that
they do not recognize: the proletariat flow. The idea that this is a class is not
possible, it is not one at this moment: the day when capitalism can no longer
deny that the proletariat is a class, this coincides with the moment when, in its
head, it found the moment to recode all this. That which we call the power
[puissance] of recuperation of capitalism, what is it?

[It consists] in having at its disposal a kind of axiomatic, and when it sets upon
[dispose de] some new thing which it does not recognize, as with every
axiomatic, it is an axiomatic with a limit that cannot be saturated: it is always
ready to add one more axiom to restore its functioning. When capitalism can no
longer deny that the proletariat is a class, when it comes to recognize a type of
class bipolarity, under the influence of workers' struggles in the 19th century,

and under the influence of the revolution, this moment is extraordinarily

ambiguous, for it is an important moment in the revolutionary struggle, but it is
also an essential moment in capitalist recuperation: I make you one more
axiom, I make you axioms for the working class and for the union power
[puissance] that represents them, and the capitalist machine grinds its gears
and starts up again, it has sealed the breach. In other words, all the bodies of a
society are essential: to prevent the flowing over society, over its back, over its
body, of flows that it cannot code and to which it cannot assign a territoriality.

Need, scarcity, famine, a society can code these, what it cannot code, is when
this thing appears, when it says to itself: what is up with these guys? So, in a
first phase, the repressive apparatus puts itself into motion, if we can't code it,
we will try to annihilate it. In a second phase, we try to find new axioms which
allow it to be recoded for better or worse.
A social body is well defined as follows: there is perpetual trickery, flows flow
over from one pole to another, and they are perpetually coded, and there are
flows that escape from the codes and then there is the social effort to
recuperate all that, to axiomatize all this, to manipulate the code a little, so as
to make room for flows that are also dangerous: all of a sudden, there are
young people who do not respond to the code: they insist on having a flow of
hair which was not expected, what shall we do now? We try to recode it, we will
add an axiom, we will try to recuperate [it] but then [if] there is something
within it that continues not to let itself be coded, what then?

In other words, this is the fundamental action of a society: to code the flows
and to treat as an enemy anyone who presents himself, in relation to society,
as an uncodable flow, because, once again, it challenges [met en question] the
entire earth, the whole body of this society. I will say this of every society,
except perhaps of our own--that is, capitalism, even though just now I spoke of
capitalism as if it coded all the flows in the same way as all other societies and
did not have any other problems, but perhaps I was going too fast.
There is a fundamental paradox in capitalism as a social formation: if it is true
that the terror of all the other social formations was decoded flows, capitalism,
for its part, historically constituted itself on an unbelievable thing: namely, that
which was the terror of other societies: the existence and the reality of
decoded flows and these capitalism made its proper concern. If this were true,
it would explain that capitalism is, in a very precise sense, the universal form of
all societies: in a negative sense, capitalism would be that which all societies
dreaded above all, and we cannot help but have the impression that,
historically speaking, capitalism...in a certain sense, is what every social

formation constantly tried to exorcise, what it constantly tried to avoid, why?

Because it was the ruin of every other social formation. And the paradox of
capitalism is that a social formation constituted itself on the basis of that which
was the negative of all the others. This means that capitalism was not able to
constitute itself except through a conjunction, an encounter between decoded
flows of all kinds. The thing which was dreaded most of all by every social
formation was the basis for a social formation that had to engulf all the others:
that what was the negative of all formations has become the very positivity of
ours, this makes one shudder. And in what sense was capitalism constituted on
the conjunction of decoded flows: it required extraordinary encounters at the
end of a process [processus] of decodings of every kind, which were formed
with the decline of feudalism. These decodings of all kinds consisted in the
decoding of land flows, under the form of the constitution of large private
properties, the decoding of monetary flows, under the form of the development
of merchant fortunes, the decoding of a flow of workers under the form of
expropriation, of the deterritorialization of serfs and peasant landholders. And
this is not enough, for if we take the example of Rome, the decoding in
decadent Rome, all this clearly happened: the decoding of flows of property
under the form of large private properties , the decoding of monetary flows
under the forms of large private fortunes, the decoding of labourers with the
formation of an urban sub-proletariat: everything is found here, almost
everything. The elements of capitalism are found here all together, only there
is no encounter. What was necessary for the encounter to be made between
the decoded flows of capital or of money and the decoded flows of labourers,
for the encounter to be made between the flow of emergent capital and the
flow of deterritorialized manpower, literally, the flow of decoded money and the
flow of deterritorialized labourers. Indeed, the manner in which money is
decoded so as to become money capital and the manner in which the labourer
is ripped from the earth in order to become the owner of his/her labour power
[force de travail] alone: these are two processes totally independent from each
other, there must be an encounter between the two.

Indeed, for the process of the decoding of money to form capital that is made
all across the embryonic forms of commercial capital and banking capital, the
flow of labour, the free possessor of his/her labour power alone, is made across
a whole other line that is the deterritorialization of the labourer at the end of
feudalism, and this could very well not have been encountered. A conjunction
of decoded and deterritorialized flows, this is at the basis of capitalism.
Capitalism is constituted on the failure of all the pre-existent codes and social
territorialities.

If we admit this, what does this represent: the capitalist machine, it is literally
demented. A social machine that functions on the basis of decoded,
deterritorialized flows, once again, it is not that societies did not have any idea
of this; they had the idea in the form of panic, they acted to prevent this--it was
the overturning of all the social codes known up to that point--; so, a society
that constitutes itself on the negative of all pre-existing societies, how can it
function? A society for which it is proper to decode and deterritorialize all the
flows: flow of production, flow of consumption, how can it function, under what
form: perhaps capitalism has other processes than coding to make it work,
perhaps it is completely different. What I have been seeking up until now was
to reground, at a certain level, the problem of the relation CAPITALISMSCHIZOPHRENIA--and the grounding of a relation is found in something
common between capitalism and the schizo: what they have totally in
common, and it is perhaps a community that is never realized, that does not
assume a concrete figure, it is a community of a principle that remains
abstract, namely, the one like the other does not cease to filter, to emit, to
intercept, to concentrate decoded and deterritorialized flows.
This is their profound identity and it is not at the level of a way of life that
capitalism renders us schizophrenic, it is at the level of the economic process:
all this only works through a system of conjunction, say the word then, on
condition of accepting that this word implies a veritable difference in nature
from codes. It is capitalism that functions like an axiomatic, an axiomatic of
decoded flows. All other social formations functioned on the basis of a coding
and of a territorialization of flows and between a capitalist machine that makes
an axiomatic of decoded flows such as they are or deterritorialized flows, such
as they are, and other social formations, there is truly a difference in nature
that makes capitalism the negative of other societies. Now, the schizo, in his
own way, with his own tottering walk, he does the same thing. In a sense, he is
more capitalist than the capitalist, more `prole' than the `prole': he decodes,
he deterritorializes the flows and knots together a kind of identity in nature of
capitalism and the schizo.

Schizophrenia is the negative of the capitalist formation. In a sense,

schizophrenia goes further, capitalism functioned on a conjunction of decoded
flows, on one condition, that is, at the same time that it perpetually decoded
flows of money, flows of labour, etc., it incorporated them, it constructed a new
type of machine, at the same time, not afterwards, that was not a coding
machine, but an axiomatic machine.

It is in this way that it succeeds in making a coherent system, on condition that

we say what profoundly distinguishes an axiomatic of decoded flows and a
coding of flows. Whereas the schizo, he does more, he does not let himself be
axiomatized either, he always goes further with the decoded flows, making do
with no flows at all, rather than letting himself be coded, no earth at all, rather
than letting himself be territorialized. What is their relation to each other? It is
from this point that the problem arises. One must study more closely the
relation capitalism / schizophrenia, giving the greatest importance to this: is it
true and in what sense can we define capitalism as a machine that functions on
the basis of decoded flows, on the basis of deterritorialized flows? In what
sense is it the negative of all social formations and along the same lines, in
what sense is schizophrenia the negative of capitalism, that it goes even
further in decoding and in deterritorialization, and just where does it go, and
where does that take it? Towards a new earth, towards no earth at all, towards
the deluge?

If I try to link up with the problems of psychoanalysis, in what sense, in what

manner--this is strictly a beginning--, I assume that there is something in
common between capitalism, as a social structure, and schizophrenia as a
process. Something in common that makes it so that the schizo is produced as
the negative of capitalism (itself the negative of all the rest), and that this
relation, we can now comprehend it by considering its terms: coding of flows,
decoded and deterritorialized flows, axiomatic of decoded flows, etc.

It remains to be seen what in the psychoanalytic and psychiatric problem

continues to preoccupy us. One must reread three texts of Marx: in book I: the
production of surplus value, the chapter on the tendential fall in the last book,
and finally, in the ?Grundrisse,? the chapter on automation.

Richard Zrehen: I did not understand what you said in regard to the analogy
between capitalism and schizophrenia, when you said capitalism is the
negative of other societies and the schizo is the negative of capitalism, I would
have understood that capitalism is to other societies what the schizo is to
capitalism, but, I would have thought, on the contrary, that you were not going
to make this opposition. I would have thought of the opposition: capitalism /
other societies and schizophrenia/ something else, instead of an analogy in
three terms, to make one in four terms.

Cyril: Richard means to say the opposition between: capitalism/ other societies
and schizophrenia and neuroses, for example.

Deleuze: Haaa, yes, yes, yes, yes. We are defining flows in political economy,
its importance with actual economists confirms what I have been saying. For
the moment, a flow is something, in a society, that flows from one pole to
another, and that passes through a person, only to the degree that persons are
interceptors.

Intervention of a guy with a strange accent

Deleuze: Let me take an example, you say that in a society one does not stop
decoding, I'm not sure: I believe that there are two things in a society, one of
which pertains to the principle by which a society comes to an end [se
termine], one of which pertains to the death of a society: all death, in a certain
manner, appears--this is the great principle of Thanatos--from inside [dedans]
and all death comes from outside [dehors]; I mean that there is an internal
menace in every society, this menace being represented by the danger of flows
decoding themselves, it makes sense. There is never a flow first, and then a
code that imposes itself upon it. The two are coexistent. Which is the problem,
if I again take up the studies, already quite old, of Levi-Strauss on marriage: he
tells us: the essential in a society is circulation and exchange.

Marriage, alliance, is exchanging, and what is important is that it circulates and

that it exchanges. There is, then, a flow of women--raising something to a
coefficient flow seems to me to be a social operation, the social operation of
flows; at the level of society, there are no women, there is a flow of women that
refers to a code, a code of age-old things, of clans, of tribes, but there is always
flow of women, and then, in a second moment, a code: the code and the flow
are absolutely formed face to face with one another. What is it the problem
then, at the level of marriage, in a so-called primitive society: it is that, in
relation to flows of women, by virtue of a code, there is something that must
pass through. It involves forming a sort of system, not at all like Levi-Strauss
suggests, not at all a logical combinatory [combinatoire], but a physical system
with territorialities: something enters, something exits, so here we clearly see
that, brought into relation with a physical system of marriage, women present
themselves in the form of a flow, of this flow, the social code means this: in
relation to such a flow, something of the flow must pass through, i.e.: flow;

something must not go through, and, thirdly--this will make up the three
fundamental terms of every code--something must effect the passing through
or, on the contrary, the blocking: for example, in matrilineal systems, everyone
knows the importance of the maternal [utrine] uncle, why, in the flow of
women, what passes through is the permitted or even prescribed marriage. A
schizo, in a society like that, he is not there, literally, it belongs to us, over
there, it is something else. There, it is different: there is a very good case
studied by P. Clastres; there is a guy who does not know, he does not know
whom he must marry, he attempts a voyage of deterritorialization to see a
faraway sorcerer. There is a great English ethnologist named Leach whose
whole thesis consists in saying: it never works like Levi-Strauss says it does, he
does not believe in Levi-Strauss' system: no one knows who to marry; Leach
makes a fundamental discovery, that which he calls local groups and
distinguishes from groups of filiation. Local groups, these are the little groups
that machine [machinent] marriages and alliances and they do not deduce
them from filiations: the alliance is a kind of strategy that responds to political
givens. A local group is literally a group (perverse, specialists in coding) that
determines, for each caste, what can pass through, what can not pass through,
that which must be blocked, that which can flow. In a matrilineal system, what
is blocked? That which is blocked in all systems, that which falls under the rules
of the prohibition of incest. Here, something in the flow of women is blocked;
namely, certain persons are eliminated from the flow of marriageable women,
in relation to other persons. That which, on the contrary, passes through is, we
could say, the first permitted incest: the first legal incests in the form of
preferential marriages; but everyone knows that the first permitted incests are
never practiced in fact, it is still too close to that which is blocked. You see that
the flow is interrupted here, something in the flow is blocked, something passes
through, and here, there are the great perverts who machine marriages, who
block or who effect passages. In the history of the maternal uncle, the aunt is
blocked as an image of forbidden incest, in the form of a jesting kinship, the
nephew has, with his aunt, a very joyous relation, with his uncle, a relation of
theft, but theft, injuries, these are coded, see Malinkowski.

Question: These local groups have magical powers?

Deleuze: They have an overtly political power [pouvoir], they sometimes call
upon sorcery, but they are not witchcraft groups, they are political groups who
define the strategy of a village in relation to another village, and a clan in
relation to another clan.

Every code in relation to flows implies that we prevent something of this flow
from passing through, we block it, we let something pass: there will be people
having a key position as interceptors, i.e. so as to prevent passage or, on the
contrary, to effect passage, and when we take note that these characters are
such that, according to the code, certain prestations return to them, we better
understand how the whole system works.
In all societies, the problem was always to code flows and to recode those that
tended to escape--when is it that the codes vacillate in so-called primitive
societies: essentially at the moment of colonialization, there where the code
flees under the pressure of capitalism: for that is what it represents in a society
of codes, the introduction of money: it scatters to the winds their entire circuit
of flows, in the sense that they distinguish essentially three types of flows: the
flows of production to be consumed, the flows of prestige, objects of prestige
and flows of women. When money is introduced therein, it is a catastrophe (see
what Jaudin analyses as ethnocide: money, Oedipus complex)
They try to relate money to their code, as such it can only be a prestige good, it
is not a production or consumption good, it is not a woman, but the young
people of the tribe who understand quicker than the elders take advantage of
money in order to seize hold of the circuit of consumption goods, the circuit of
consumption that was traditionally, in certain tribes, controlled by women. So
the young people, with money, seize hold of the circuit of consumption. With
money which itself can no longer be coded, within a certain framework, we
begin with money and we end with money.
M[oney]-C[ommodity]-M[oney], there is absolutely no means of coding this
thing here because the qualified flows are replaced by a flow of abstract
quantity whose proper essence is the infinite reproduction for which the
formula is M-C-M. No code can support infinite reproduction. What is formidable
in so-called primitive societies is how debt exists, but exists in the form of a
finite block, debt is finite. So, in this sense flows pass their time by fleeing, it
does not prevent the codes from being correlative and coding the flows:
undoubtedly, it escapes from all sides, and the one who does not let
her/himself be coded, and so we say: that's a madman, we will code him/her:
the village madman, we will make a code of the code. The originality of
capitalism is that it no longer counts on any code, there are code residues, but
no one believes in them: we no longer believe in anything: the last code that
capitalism knew how to produce was fascism: an effort to recode and
reterritorialize even at the economic level, at the level of the functioning of the
market in the fascist economy, here we clearly see an extreme effort to
resuscitate a kind of code that would function like the code of capitalism,
literally, it could have lasted in the form in which it has lasted, as for
capitalism, it is incapable of furnishing a code that covers the ensemble of the
social field like a grid [quadrille], because its problems no longer pose

themselves in terms of code, its problem is to make a mechanism of decoded

flows as such, so it is uniquely in this sense that I oppose capitalism as a social
formation to all the other known social formations. Can we say that between a
coding of flows corresponding to pre-capitalist formations and a decoded
axiomatic, there is a difference in nature or is there simply a variation: there is
a radical difference in nature! Capitalism cannot furnish any code.
We cannot say that the struggle against a system is totally independent of the
manner in which this system was characterized: it is difficult to consider that
the struggle of socialism against capitalism in the 19th century was
independent of the theory of surplus value, in so far as this theory specified the
characteristic of capitalism. Suppose that capitalism can be defined as an
economic machine excluding the codes and making decoded flows function by
taking them into an axiomatic, this already permits us to bring together the
capitalist situation and the schizophrenic situation. Even at the level of analysis
that has a practical influence, the analysis of monetary mechanisms (the
neocapitalist economists, this is schizophrenic) when we see how the monetary
practice of capitalism works, at the concrete level, and not just in theory, its
schizoid character, can we say that it is totally indifferent to revolutionary
practice. All that we are doing in relation to psychoanalysis and psychiatry
comes down to what? Desire, or, it matters little, the unconscious: it is not
imaginary or symbolic, it is uniquely machinic, and as long as you have not
reached the region of the machine of desire, as long as you remain in the
imaginary, the structural or the symbolic, you do not have a genuine hold on
the unconscious. They are machines that, like all machines, are confirmed as
such by their functioning (confirmations==the painter Lindner obsessed by ?
children with machine [enfants avec machine]?: huge little boys in the
foreground holding a strange little machine, a kind of little kite and behind him,
a big social technical machine and his little machine is plugged into the big
one, in the background==that is what I attempted last year to call the orphan
unconscious, the true unconscious, the one that does not pass through daddymommy, the one that passes through delirious machines, these being in a
given relation with the large social machines: second confirmation: an
Englishman, Niderland, was aware of Schreber's father. This is what I object to
in the text of Freud, it is as if psychoanalysis was a veritable millstone which
crushed the deepest character of the guy, namely, his social character... When
we read Schreber, the Great Mongol, the Aryans, the Jews, etc. and when we
read Freud, not a word about all this, it is as if it was just some manifest
content and that one had to discover the latent content=the eternal daddymommy of Oedipus. All the political, politico-sexual, politico-libidinal content,
because in the end, when Schreber pre imagined himself to be a little Alsatian
girl defending Alsace against a French officer, there is political libido here. It is
sexual and political at the same time, the one in the other; we learn that
Schreber was well-known because he had invented a system of education ==

Schreber Gardens. He had produced a system of universal pedagogy.

Schizoanalysis procedes in a direction that is the opposite of psychoanalysis,
indeed, each time that the subject narrates something that brings her/him in
the vicinity of Oedipus or castration, the schizo being analyzed says `Enough.'
What he sees as important, is that: Schreber pre invents a pedagogic system
of universal value, that is not brought to bear on his own child, but globally:
PAN gymnasticon. If we suppress from the delirium [delire] of the son the
politico-global dimension of the paternal pedagogic system, we can longer
understand anything. The father does not supply a structural function, but a
political system: I am saying that the libido passes through here, not through
daddy and mommy, through the political system. In the PAN gymnasticon,
there are machines: no system without machines, a system, rigourously
speaking, is a structural unity of machines, so much so that one must burst the
system to reach the machines. And what are Schreber's machines: they are
SADO-PARANOIAC machines, a type of delirious machine. They are sadoparanoiac in the sense that they are applied to children, preferably to little
girls. With these machines, the children stay calm, in this delirium, the
universal pedagogic dimension clearly appears: it is not a delirium about his
son, it is a delirium that he constructs about the formation of a higher race.
Schreber pre acts against his son, not as a father, but as a libidinal promoter
of a delirious investment of the social field. It is no longer the paternal function,
but rather that the father is there to make something delirious pass through,
this is certain, but the father acts here as an agent of transmission in relation
to a field that is not the familial field, but that is a political and historical field,
once again, the names of history and not the name of the father.

Comtess: We do not catch flies with vinegar, even with a machine

Gilles Deleuze: The system of Schreber pre had a global development (beltwhipping for good conduct). It was a big social machine and it was, at the same
time, sown in the social machine, full of little delirious sado-paranoiac
machines. So too, in the delirium of the son, certainly it is papa, but as a
representative of what authority does he intervene. He intervenes as an agent
of transmission in a libidinal investment of a certain type of social formation.
On the contrary, the drama of psychoanalysis is the eternal familialism that
consists in referring the libido, and with it all sexuality, to the familial machine,
and we can go on to structuralize it, it changes nothing, we remain within the
closed circle of: symbolic castration, structuring function of the family, parental
characters, and we continue to crush all the outside [dehors]. Blanchot: ?a new
type of relation with the outside,? yet, and this is the critical point,
psychoanalysis tends to suppress any relation of itself and of the subject who

has just been analyzed with the outside. On itself alone it pretends to
reterritorialize us, onto the territoriality or onto the most mediocre earth, the
most shabby, the oedipal territoriality, or worse, onto the couch. Here, we
clearly see the relation of psychoanalysis and capitalism: if it is true that in
capitalism, flows are decoded, are deterritorialized constantly, i.e. that
capitalism produces the schizo like it produces money, the whole capitalist
project [tentative] consists in reinventing artificial territorialities in order to
reinscribe people, to vaguely recode them: they invent anything: HLM
[Habitation a Loyer Moyen, i.e.: government-controlled housing], home, and
there is familial reterritorialization, the family, it is after all the social cell, so
they will reterritorialize the guy in a family (community psychiatry): they
reterritorialize people there where all the territorialities are floating ones, they
proceed through an artificial, imaginary, residual reterritorialization. And
psychoanalysis--classical psychoanalysis--fabricates familial reterritorialization,
most of all by skipping over all that is effective in delirium, all that is aggressive
in delirium, namely, that delirium is a system of politico-social investments, not
just of any type: it is the libido that hooks itself onto political social
determinations: Schreber is not dreaming at all when he makes love to his
mother, he dreams when he is being raped like a little Alsacian girl by a French
officer: this depends on something much deeper than Oedipus, namely, the
manner in which the libido invests social formations, to the point that one must
distinguish 2 types of social investments by the (?) desire: social investments
of interests that are of the preconscious type, that, if necessary, pass through
classes, and below these, not exactly in harmony with them, unconscious
investments, the libidinal investments of desire. Traditional psychoanalysis
enclosed the libidinal investments of desire in the familial triangle and
structuralism is the last attempt [tentative] to save Oedipus at the moment
when Oedipus is coming apart at the seams.

The task of schizoanalysis is to see that parents play a role in the unconscious
only as agents of interception, agents of transmission in a system of the flows
of desire, of desiring machines, and what counts is my unconscious relation
with my desiring machines. What are my own desiring machines, and, through
them, the unconscious relation of these desiring machines with the large social
machines with which they carry out...and that hence, there is no reason to
support psychoanalysis in its attempt to reterritorialize us. I take an example
from Leclaire' last book: there is something that no longer works: ?the most
fundamental act in the history of psychoanalysis was a decentering that
consisted in passing from the parents' room as referent to the analytical
office,? there was a time when we believed in Oedipus, and in the reality of
seduction, it was not going strong even then, because the whole unconscious
had been familiarized, a crushing of the libido onto daddy-mommy-me: the
whole development of psychoanalysis was made in this direction [sens]:

substitution of the phantasm for real seduction and substitution of castration

for Oedipus. Leclaire: ?to tell the truth the displacement of the living kernel of
the oedipal conjuncture, of the familial scene to the psychoanalytic scene is
strictly correlative to a sociological mutation in which we can
psychoanalytically demarcate a recourse to the level of the familial institution?
page 30 = the family is shabby = the unconscious protests and no longer
works to triangulate itself, happily there is the analyst to serve as a relay.

It no longer supports the family, custody and the concealment [drobement] of

an all-powerful real. We say, ouf!, we will finally have a relation with the extra
familial real, ha! no! says Leclaire, for that which serves as a relay for the
family, and that which becomes the guardian, the unveiling veiling of the allpowerful real is the office of the analyst. You can no longer triangulate,
oedipalize in the family, it no longer works, you will come onto the couch to
triangulate and oedipalize yourself and indeed, adds Leclaire: ?if the
psychoanalytic couch has become the place where the confrontation with the
real is unfolded.? The confrontation with the real does not take place on the
earth, in the movement of territorialization, reterritorialization, of
deterritorialization, it takes place on this rotten earth that is the couch of the
analyst. ?It is of no importance that the oedipal scene has no referent exterior
to the office, that castration has no referent outside the office of the analyst,?
which signifies that psychoanalysis, like capitalism, finds itself faced with the
decoded flows of desire, finds itself before the schizophrenic phenomena of
decoding and deterritorialization, has chosen to make for itself a little
axiomatic. The couch, the ultimate earth of European man today, his very own
little earth. This situation of psychoanalysis tends to introduce an axiomatic
excluding all reference, excluding all relation with the outside whatever it may
be, appears as a catastrophic movement of interiority when it comes to
understanding the true investments of desire. From the moment we seized
upon the family as referent, it was all screwed up. (last earth, the couch that
valorizes and justifies itself on its own terms). It was compromised from the
beginning, from the moment when we cut desire off from the double
dimension--what I call the double dimension of desire: and its relation, on the
one hand, with desiring machines irreducible to any symbolic or structural
dimension, to functional desiring machines, and the problem of schizoanalysis
is to know how these desiring machines work, and to reach the level where
they work in someone's unconscious, which assumes that we will skip over
Oedipus, castration, etc. On the other hand, with social-political-cosmic
investments, and here one must not say, that there would be any
desexualization of the findings of psychoanalysis, for I am saying that desire, in
its fundamental sexual form, can only be understood in its sexual investments,
in so far as they do not bear on daddy-mommy, this is secondary, but in so far
as they bear--on the one hand, on desiring machines, and on the other hand, in

so far they traverse our sexual, homosexual, heterosexual loves. That which is
invested is always what cuts up [des coupures] of the dimensions of a historical
social field, and certainly, the father and the mother play a role within it, they
are agents of communication of desiring machines, on one hand, of the
machines with each other, and on the other hand, of the desiring machines
with the large desiring machines. Schizoanalysis is made up of three
operations: A destructive task: skipping over the oedipal and castrating
structures in order to reach a region of the unconscious where there is no
castration etc. because desiring machines ignore this.

A positive task: That is to see and to analyze functionally, there is nothing to

interpret = we do not interpret a machine, we grasp its functioning and its
failures, the why of its failures: it is the oedipal collar, the psychoanalytic collar
of the couch that introduces failures into desiring machines: The desiring
machines only work as long as they invest the social machines. And what are
the types of libidinal investments, distinct from the preconscious investments
of interests, these sexual investments--across all the beings that we love, all
our loves, it is a complex of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, that
which we love, it is always a certain mulatto, a movement of deterritorialization
and reterritorialization, it is not the scrawny and hysteric territoriality of the
couch, and across each being that we love, what we invest is a social field,
these are the dimensions of this social field, and the parents are agents of
transmission in the social field.

--see Jackson's letter = the classic black mother who says to her son, don't fool
around and marry well, make money. This classic mother here, is she acting like
a mother and like an oedipal object of desire, or is she acting in such a way
that she transmits a certain type of libidinal investment of the social field,
namely the type that marries well, he makes love, and this in the strictest
sense of the term, with something through his wife, unconsciously, with a
certain number of economic, political, social processes, and that love has
always been a means through which the libido attains something other than
the beloved person, namely a whole cutting up [dcoupage] of the historical
social field, ultimately we always make love with the names of history. The
other mother (of Jackson)--the one who says ?grab your gun,? it follows that the
two act as agents of transmission in a certain type of social-historical
investment, that from one to the other the pole of these investments has
singularly changed, that in one case, we can say that they are reactionary
investments, at the limit fascist, in the other case, it is a revolutionary libidinal
investment. Our loves are like the conduits and the pathways of these
investments that are not, once again, of a familial nature, but of a historico-

political nature, and the final problem of schizoanalysis is not only the positive
study of desiring machines, but the positive study of the manner in which
desiring machines carry out the investment of social machines, whether it be in
forming investments of the libido of a revolutionary type, whether it be in
forming libidinal investments of the revolutionary type. The domain of
schizoanalysis distinguishes itself at this moment from the domain of politics,
in the sense that the preconscious political investments are investments of
class interests that are determinable by certain types of studies, but these still
do not tell us anything about the other type of investments, namely specifically
libidinal investments--Desire. To the point that it can happen that a
preconscious revolutionary investment can be doubled by a libidinal
investment of the fascist type = which explains how displacements are made
from one pole of delirium to another pole of delirium, how a delirium has
fundamentally two poles--which Artaud said so well: ?the mystery of all is
`Heliogabalus the Anarchist,' because these are the two poles--it is not only a
contradiction, it is a fundamental human contradiction, namely a pole of
unconscious investment of the fascist type, and an unconscious investment of
the revolutionary type. What fascinates me in a delirium is the radical absence
of daddy-mommy, except as agents of transmission, except as agents of
interception for there they have a role, but on the other hand the task of
schizoanalysis is to release in delirium the unconscious dimensions of a fascist
investment and a revolutionary investment, and at a certain point, it slips, at a
certain point it oscillates, this is the deep domain of the libido. In the most
reactionary, most folkloric territoriality, a revolutionary ferment can surge forth
(we never know), something schizo, something mad, a deterritorialization: the
Basque problem: They did much for fascism, in other conditions, these same
minorities could have determined, I am not saying this happens by chance,
they could have secured a revolutionary role. It is extremely ambiguous: it is
not at the level of political analysis, it is at the level of analysis of the
unconscious: the way it whirls about [comment ca tourne]. (Mannoni:
antipsychiatry in the question of the court judgement on Schreber = a
completely fascist delirium). If antipsychiatry has a sense, if schizoanalysis has
a sense, it is at the level of an analysis of the unconscious, to tip delirium from
the pole that is always present, the reactionary fascist pole that implies a
certain type of libidinal investment, towards the other pole, no matter if it is
hard and slow, the revolutionary pole.

Richard: Why only two poles?

Deleuze: We can make many, but fundamentally, there are clearly two great
types of investment, two poles. The reference of libidinal investments is daddy-

mommy, these are the territorialities and the deterritorializations, this must be
found in the unconscious, especially at the level of its loves. Phantasm of
naturality: of a pure race, movement of the pendulum = revolutionary
phantasm of deterritorialization. If you're saying that, on the analyst's couch,
what flows still flows, alright then, but the problem that I would pose here is:
there are types of flow that pass beneath the door, what psychoanalysts call
the viscosity of the libido, an overly viscous libido that does not let itself be
grasped by the code of psychoanalysis, alright here yes, there is
deterritorialization, but psychoanalysis says: negative reaction [contreindication]. What annoys me in psychoanalysis of the Lacanian camp is the cult
of castration. The family is a system of transmission, the social investments of
one generation passed on to another, but I absolutely do not think that the
family is a necessary element in the making of social investments because, in
any case, there are desiring machines that, on their own, constitute social
libidinal investments of the large social machines. If you say: the madman is
someone who remains with his desiring machines and who does not carry out
social investments, I do not follow you: in all madness, I see an intense
investment of a particular type of historical, political, social field, even in
catatonic persons. This goes for adults as well as children, it is from earliest
childhood that the desiring machines are plugged into the social field. In
themselves, all territorialities are equal to each other in relation to the
movement of deterritorialization, but there is something like a schizoanalysis of
territorialities, of their types of functioning, and by functioning, I understand
the following: if the desiring machines are on the side of a great
deterritorialization, i.e. on the path of desire beyond territorialities, if to desire
is to be deterritorialized, one must say that each type of territoriality is able to
support such or such a genre of machinic index: the machinic index is that
which, in a territoriality, will be able to make it flee in the direction [sens] of a
deterritorialization. So, I take the example of the dream, from the point of view
that I am attempting to explicate the role of machines, it is very important,
different from that of psychoanalysis: when a plane flies or a sewing machinethe dream is a kind of little imaginary territoriality, sleep or a nightmare is a
deterritorialization--we can say that deterritorialization and the reterritorialities
only exist as a function of each other, but you can evaluate the force of a
possible deterritorialization from the indexes on such or such a territoriality, i.e.
how much it supports of a flow that flees--Flee and in fleeing, makes flee, not
the others, but something from the system, a fragment.

A machinic index in a territoriality is what measures the power [puissance] of

flight in this territoriality by making flows flee, in this regard all territorialities
are not equal to each other. There are artificial territorialities, the more it flees
and the more we can flee while fleeing, the more it is deterritorialized. Our
loves are always situated on a territoriality that, in relation to us,

deterritorializes us or else reterritorializes us. In this regard, there are

misunderstandings + a whole game of investments that are the problem of
schizoanalysis: instead of having the family as a referent, it has as a referent
the movements of deterritoralization and reterritorialization.

Zrehen: I want to say that you employed the term ?Code? for so-called
primitive societies, while I think it is not possible to think of them in terms of
code, because of the well-known mark, because there is a mark, which requires
exchange, it is because there is a debt that we have an obligation to exchange.
What happens from their society to ours, is the loss of the debt, so when you
say that the schizo is the negative of the capitalist and that capitalism is the
negative of primitive societies, it is evident exactly what is lost, it is castration.
With this mark of principle, you are anticipating what makes up capitalism
while crossing out castration. What is foreclosed in capitalism is this initial mark
and what Marx tried to do was to reintroduce the notion of debt. When you
propose to me a reactionary pole of investments and a revolutionary pole, I say
that you are already taking the concepts of `revolutionary' and of `reactionary
as already instituted in a field that does not permit an appreciation of what you
are trying to say. You are using breaks [coupure], I will certainly admit that
Oedipus and castration are dpass, but capitalism...