Intuition as Method
“Intuition involves a plurality of meanings and irreducible multiple aspects.” Bergson
What is intuition? The best way to understand the term will be through analysis of the theory behind the methodology and some examples in practice. First let us try our hand at a simple definition that will be of no doubt only partially adequate but rife will lovely neologisms we will find defined later on. For Bergson, intuition has become method, or rather method has become reconciled with the immediate. Intuition is not duration itself, rather intuition is the movement by which we emerge from our own duration – by which we make use of our own duration to affirm and immediately to recognize the existence of other durations above or below us.
“Only the method of which we are speaking allows one to pass beyond idealism as well as realism, to affirm the existence of objects both inferior and superior to us, though nevertheless, in a certain sense, interior to us… One perceives any number of durations, all very different from one another.” Bergson
Bergson’s method of intuition is in three acts:
Problematizing - a critique of false problems (nonexistent and badly stated) and the creative invention of a genuine statement of the problem(s) that contains within it solution
Differentiating - conduct a search for genuine differences in kind (carvings out and intersections)
Temporalizing - apprehension of real time by thinking in terms of duration
We can speak of intuition as the method of Bergsonism (Bergson’s Philosophy) according to Deleuze. Duration, memory and elan vital are the three major stages of it. This notion of intuition is a fully developed method, and this is no ordinary methodology – it is one that should receive recognition in the History of Philosophy. Intuition always presupposes duration, which allows it a kind of precision through iterative rising to a philosophical method. The key factor in this method is its ability to show the flows of meaning and ask what the ‘fundamental meaning’ is, such that we can rediscover a simplicity of intuition as a lived act. It is through this action of methodology do we achieve any semblance of answers.
1st Rule of Bergsonism: Apply the test of true/false to problems themselves to condemn false problems and reconcile truth for a process of creation at the level of problems.
A speculative problem is one that is solved as soon as it is properly stated, in this way the solution exists albeit hidden or covered up. It must therefore be uncovered by any means necessary as it only appears to be veiled – tools of hermeneutics or other various decryption. But to get to any sort of uncovering stage, we must first state the problem as this is an important first step. It is in this first step that we see the process of creative inventing. That is to say that this creative invention gives being to what did not previously exist and might have never happened – in metaphysics, the effort of invention consists most often in raising the problem or in creating the terms in which it will be stated (we see this same behavior in mathematics). The statement and solving of the problem are here very close to being equivalent.
“Humanity only sets itself problems that it is capable of solving.” Marx
The history of man, theoretically and practically is that of the construction or statement of different problems over time. This is how humanity makes its own history, and it is the becoming aware of that activity is a type of conquest of freedom. In Bergson, the construction of the organism is both the stating of a problem and a solution – the very notion of the problem having roots beyond history and in life itself or elan vital. We must bring the notion of true/false to bear on problems, not just on solutions. By doing so we must be aware of some fallacious thinking traps of circularity: such that we do not define the truth or falsity of a problem by its possibility or impossibility of it being solved. With Bergson, we can attempt an intrinsic determination of a notion of falsity in the expression or formulation of a ‘false problem’. To do so we need a complementary rule to the preceding general rule.
Complementary Rule to the 1st Rule of Bergsonism: False problems are of two sorts -
Nonexistent Problems: problems where the terms contain a confusion of the ‘more’ and the ‘less’. Such as problems of knowledge and being or of the actual/possible.
Badly Stated Problems: problems where the terms represent badly analyzed composites, such as problems of freedom or of intensity
Nonexistent False Problems
Nonexistent Problems confuse the notion of ‘more’ and ‘less’, to illustrate this let us consider three problems as examples: problems of nonbeing; problems of disorder; and problems of the possible. There is not less, but more in the idea of nonbeing than that of being; similarly there is more in disorder than that of order; and likewise, more in the possible than in the real. For instance, in the idea of nonbeing we find three constituent elements – the idea of being, plus a kind of logical operation of generalized negation, and finally a particular psychological motive for that logical operation. When an idea of being does not correspond with our expectation and we grasp it purely as lack, it is the absence that is of novelty and contains something that interests us or sparks curiosity. In the idea of disorder there is already the idea of order, plus its negation, plus the motive for that negation (that is, when we encounter such an order that is not the one we expect). Finally, there is more in the idea of the possible than there is in the idea of the real:
“For the possible is only the real with the addition of an act of mind that throws its image back into the past once it has been enacted.” Bergson
When we conjure the idea of the possible, we also conjure its negation (that is the act of mind throwing an image into the past, or realizing the possible), as well as conjure up the motive for that negation (or realization). The motive of the act of the mind throwing its image is where a great confusion occurs, one in which we confuse the upsurge of reality in the universe with a succession of states in a closed system. Let’s elaborate here because this is a profound point that Deleuze needs from Bergson. Again, Bergson warns us that the very notion of the possible is derived from some particular nonexistent problem – one that confuses the more with the less and ignores differences of kind. When we think of the idea of the possible, we fall prey to thinking of the possible pre-existing existence or the real itself. This pre-existing idea of the possible is a kind of pre-history that is a result of realizing the possible as opposed to actualizing the virtual. In realizing the possible we allow a possibility for the real to be more than possible:
Realize the Possible or Negative Genetic Condition: this way uses a notion of the possible and await a realization through a retroactive movement – firstly, we think of the real then add to it the negation of its existence (the possible) which results in an image containing both the real and the possible; secondly, we take this image of the real and possible and project it into the past; thirdly and finally, we reverse this image creation procedure and think of the real as something more than the possible.
Actualize the Virtual or Positive Genetic Condition: this way rejects the use of a notion of the possible by actualizing the virtual. That is to say a movement of recognition that the virtual is fully real in a kind of genesis instead of awaiting a realization of some retrospective movement through a notion of possibility. In this genesis of the actualization of the virtual, the virtual is taken as a condition of real concrete experience. The fundamental characteristic of the virtual, that which defines its terms of actualization rather than realization, is its differential makeup.
In actualizing the virtual, it opens an alternative path that rejects the notion of the possible in favor of a positive genetic condition. It is in this positive genetic condition that the confusion of the notion of the possible is avoided – instead of ignoring differences in kind. Deleuze uses Bergson here to escape the conditional notions of representational knowledge (the idea of possible) by substituting it with the conditional notion of genesis of the real instead. Deleuze’s Bergsonian move is contextualized by the history of philosophy because he is invoking the ‘post-trio’, that of Nietzsche, Bergson, and Maimon to criticize Kant. Kant presumed the existence of knowledge as ‘facts’ and sought their conditions of possibility in the transcendental. This is a mechanism that uses hierarchy and needs to be flattened into immanence. Deleuze declares that a method of genesis is needed to save us here – this genetic method would need to account for the production of knowledge and reason to reach the conditions of the real instead of the appearance of possibility.
When we ask ‘why is there something rather than nothing?’; or ‘why is there order rather than disorder?’; or ‘why is there this rather than that (when that was equally as possible)?’ – we fall into fallacious more/less thinking and can rest assured we are firmly on the grounds of a nonexistent problem. In this way equally though, we mistake the more for the less by behaving as though nonbeing existed before being; or disorder before order; and the possible before existence. As though being came to fill in a void; order to organize a preceding disorder; the real to realize a primary possibility (does the tail wag the dog?). Being, order, or the existent are truth itself; but in the false problem there is a fundamental illusion, a retrograde movement of the true. According to which being, order, and the existent are supposed to precede themselves, or to precede the creative act that constitutes them, by projecting an image of themselves back into a possibility, a disorder, a nonbeing which are supposed to be primordial. This is a central theme in Bergsonism and sums his critique of the negative and of negation, in all its forms as sources of false problems.
Badly Stated False Problems
Badly stated problems are the second type of false problems, they introduce a different mechanism: that of badly analyzed composites that arbitrarily group things that differ in kind. For example, let us take the question ‘is happiness reducible to pleasure or not’ – perhaps the term pleasure subsumes very varied irreducible states, just like the idea of happiness. If the terms do not correspond to ‘natural articulations’ then the problem is false, for it does not affect ‘the very nature of things’. Here again Bergson’s analyses are famous: an especially famous one is the one in which he condemns intensity as a badly analyzed composite (arbitrary grouping of differ in kind). Whether the quality of the sensation is confused with the muscular space that corresponds to it, or with the quantity of the physical cause that produces it, the notion of intensity involves an impure mixture between determinations that differ in kind, so that the question ‘by how much does the sensation grow?’ always goes back to a badly stated problem. Likewise, the problem of freedom, in which two types of ‘multiplicity’ are confused: that of terms juxtaposed in space and that of states which merge together in duration (simple location).
In the first type of false problem, the nonexistent problems, Bergson says not only can we mistake the more for the less but we can just as equally mistake the less for the more: just as doubt about an action only apparently adds to the actions, when in reality it indicates a half-willing; negation is not added to what it denies.
“For we feel that a divinely created will or thought is too full of itself, in the immensity of its reality, to have the slightest idea of a lack of order or a lack of being. To imagine the possibility of absolute disorder, all the more the possibility of nothingness, would be for it to say to itself that it might not have existed at all, and that would be a weakness incompatible with its nature, which is force… It is not something more but something less; it is the deficit of will.” Bergson
Is there a contradiction between these two formulations, where:
Nonbeing is sometimes presented as a more in relation to being
Nonbeing is sometimes presented as a less in relation to being
Bergson says there is no contradiction if we bear in mind that what he is condemning in nonexistent false problems is the obsession in all its aspects with thinking in terms of more and less. The idea of disorder appears when, instead of seeing that there are two or more irreducible orders (for example, that of life and that of mechanism, each present when the other is absent), we retain only a general idea of order that we confine ourselves to opposing to disorder and to thinking in correlation with the idea of disorder. The idea of nonbeing appears when, instead of grasping the different realities that are indefinitely substituted for one another, we muddle them together in the homogeneity of a Being in general, which can only be opposed to nothingness, be related to nothingness. The idea of the possible appears when, instead of grasping each existent in its novelty, the whole of existence is related to a preformed element, from which everything is supposed to emerge by simple ‘realization’.
Each time we think in terms of more or less, we have already disregarded the differences in kind between the two orders, or between beings, or between existents (reality, possibility). It is in this way that we can see how nonexistent false problems rest, in the final analysis, on the second: the idea of disorder emerges from a general idea of order as badly analyzed composite, etc. And conceiving everything in terms of more and less here, seeing nothing but differences in degrees or differences in intensity where, more profoundly, there differences in kind is perhaps the most general error of thought – the error common to science and metaphysics.
Mirages
We are therefore victims of a fundamental illusion that corresponds to the two aspects of this false problem (nonexistent and badly stated). The very notion of the false problem implies that we have to struggle not against simple mistakes (false solutions), but against something much more profound: an illusion that carries us along, or in which we are immersed, inseparable from our condition (is this going to be forever?). A mirage to Bergson then, is a type of backward projection of the possible. This idea Bergson borrows from Kant, although he completely transforms it: it was Kant who showed that reason deep within itself engenders not mistakes but inevitable illusions, only the effect of which could be warded off. Although Bergson determines the nature of false problems in a completely different way, and although Kantian critique itself seems to him to be a collection of badly stated problems, he curiously treats the illusions in a way similar to Kant. In a way in which the illusion is based in the deepest part of the intelligence – not strictly speaking dispelled or dispellable, rather it can only be repressed. We tend to think in terms of more and less, that is, to see the differences in degree where there are differences in kind. We can only react against this intellectual tendency by bringing to life again in the intelligence another tendency which is critical. But where, precisely, can we pull this secondary tendency from? This is where Bergson pulls the help from our favorite concept, intuition – only intuition can produce and activate this secondary tendency because it rediscovers differences in kind beneath the differences in degree. And in this way conveys to the intelligence the criteria that enable it to distinguish between true and false problems. Bergson shows clearly that intelligence is the faculty that states problems in general, the instinct however is the faculty for finding solutions – but only intuition decides between the true and the false problems that are stated, even if this means driving the intelligence to turn away and back into itself.
Nomadic Notes: Echoes of Deleuze-Bergson-Maimon-Nietzsche-Leibniz
In 1789, Salomon Maimon found a solution to the Kantian problem – our method of genesis. Deleuze identifies this as a principle of difference, identity is the condition of possibility of thought in general; it is difference that constitutes the genetic and productive principle for real thoughts. Therefore we can speak of two Maimon Exigencies:
Principle of Difference: the positing of a productive principle of difference in kind for real thoughts or real experience rather than possible thoughts or possible existence
Genetic Condition: embark on a search for genetic conditions of real experience according to the productive principle of difference, a speculative flight of discovery
This is where Nietzsche comes in for Deleuze. Deleuze uses Bergson along with these two Maimon Exigencies to suggest that Nietzsche had completed and subsequently inverted Kant by “bringing critique to bear”. Now the two Maimon exigencies fully become two Bergson-Nietzsche-Maimon exigencies:
Nietzsche’s Will to Power = Principle of Difference, as the differential element
Nietzsche’s Genealogy = Genetic Method,
Differential Relations
Let us consider Maimon further, because it is needed to gain a fuller understanding of the two exigencies and their ramifications. To do so we need to introduce a term, Differential Relation, that is a conscious perception had when combining two series of sense data such as the combining of two colors, that results in a new entity which is a different color. If we bring blue and yellow together to make green, does the blue and yellow disappear from the green? When you close your hand into a fist, does your hand disappear and your fist appears as if out of thin air? Two heterogenous parts into a singularity of homogeny, blue and yellow into green – but if the perception of these two vanishes by a dent of progressive shrinking, they enter into a Differential Relation. This Differential Relation determines the green; and nothing impedes either blue or yellow, each on its own account likewise determined by the Differential Relation of two colors that we cannot detect.
Differentials of Consciousness
Such is the case of hunger, where there is a lack of the entirety of microscopic parts that engage a kind of unconscious Differential Relation which determines hunger as something that needs to be brought attention to. Another example would be someone sleeping, the position of the sleeper, the sheets, the bed, etc., that engage relations such that an attitude or Affect is produced of a harmonious habitat (habitus) and a great sinuous fold as a good position that can bring sleep (microscopic brought into unity or Good macroscopic form). Good macroscopic form in this context is always contingent on microscopic processes. All consciousness, then, is a matter of threshold in this manner, in each case we must state why the threshold is marked where it is (task-at-hand). Yet if we were to take these thresholds to be so many minimal ‘units’ of consciousnesses, let us call these minimal units monads – tiny perceptions of these monads are in each instance smaller than the virtual minimum and, in this sense, infinitely small. Those (monads) that are selected for their respective tiny perception are those engaged in Differential Relations, and hence they produce the quality that issues forth at the given threshold of consciousness - like with the color green (the Differential Relation determines the green but also determines the parts that make up the green, and through this the parts are not impeded but we cannot detect). We can now define these inconspicuous perceptions that are thus not parts of conscious perception, but requisites or genetic elements – let us call them differentials of consciousness.
Maimon’s Reciprocal Determination of Differentials
Maimon was the first post-Kantian who returned to Leibniz, and by doing so draws all the consequences from this kind of ‘psychic automatism of perception’. Reciprocal Determination of Differentials brings about the complete determination of the object as perception, and the determinability of space-time as a condition – this is far from having perception presuppose an object capable of affecting us and conditions in which we would be apt to be affected. Beyond the Kantian method of conditioning, Maimon restores an internal subjective method of genesis:
Outer: between ‘red’ and ‘green’ there is given empirically outer difference
Inner: an inner concept of difference such that the mode of the differential makes up not only the particular object and the relations of differentials but also the relations among different objects
The physical object and mathematical space both refer to a transcendental (differential and genetic) psychology of perception (Locke, Kant, Descartes). Space-time in this way ceases to be a pure given in order to become the totality or the nexus of Differential Relations in the subject; and the object ceases to be an empirical given in order to become the product of these relations in conscious perception. Thus there exists ideas of understanding, that is, the color green as a quality of being as much as an actualization of an eternal object (form) or idea in the subject as a given figure is a determination of space. If with Kant, it is objected that such a conception reintroduces infinite understanding, we might be compelled to remark that the infinite is taken here only as the presence of an unconscious in finite understanding, of something that cannot be thought in finite thought, of a nonself in the finite self (buddha nature). The presence that Kant will himself be forced to discover when he will hollow out the difference between a determinant and a determinable self. For Leibniz and Maimon, however, Reciprocal Determination of Differentials does not refer to any divine understanding, but to tiny perceptions as representatives of the world in the finite self – of course the infinite understanding devolves from it, but not the inverse. The infinite present in the finite self is the position of the Baroque Equilibrium or Disequilibrium.
Perception in the Folds
Leibniz declares it a moral necessity that we have a body. And in the first place, I must have a body because an obscure object (monad) lives in me. With this Leibniz gives us some tremendous novelty through his originality – he is not saying that only the body explains what is obscure in the mind, to the contrary, the mind is obscure and the depths of it are dark– it is this dark nature that explains and requires a body. Primary Matter or our passive power and limitation of our activity: we say that our primary matter requires extension, but also resistance or antitype (a person or thing that can symbolize the opposite of someone or something else), and yet an individuated requirement to possess a body that belongs to us. It is because there is an infinity of individual monads that each require an individuated body; each body resembling the shadow of other monads cast upon it.
“Nothing obscures lives in us because we have a body, but we have a body because there is an obscure object in us.” Leibniz
Microperceptions versus Macroperceptions
Microperceptions, or representatives of the world, are little folds that unravel in every direction, folds in folds, over folds, following folds – and these are minute obscure, confused perceptions that make up our Macroperceptions, which are our conscious, clear, and distinct apperceptions (assimilation). How could a feeling of hunger follow one of satisfaction if a thousand tiny, elementary forms of hunger (like salts, sugars, butter, etc.) were not released at diverse and indiscernible rhythms? And inversely, if satisfaction follows hunger, it is through the satiating of all these particular and imperceptible hungers. Tiny perceptions are as much the passage from one perception to another as they are components of each perception. They constitute the animal or animated state par excellence: disquiet. These are ‘pricklings’ or little foldings that are no less present in pleasure than in pain. These little pricklings are the representative of the world in the closed monad. The animal that anxiously looks around, or soul that watches out, signifies that there exist minute perceptions that are not integrated into present perception, but also minute perceptions that are not integrated into the preceding one and that nourish the one that comes along retrospectively.
The macroscopic distinguishes perceptions, and appetites that are passage from one perception to another – such is the condition of great composite folds, or draped forms but the microscopic level no longer distinguishes minute perceptions and minute inclinations. Pricklings of anxiety render all perception unstable, the theory of minute perceptions is based on thus two causes:
Metaphysical Cause: according to which every perceptive monad conveys an infinite world that it contains (by necessity for novelty)
Psychological Cause: according to which every conscious perception implies this infinite of minute perceptions that prepare, compose, or follow it
“From the cosmological to the microscopic, but also from the microscopic to the macroscopic.” Leibniz getting awfully close to the Hermetic dictum, “as above so below”
The task of perception entails the pulverizing of the world, but also one of spiritualizing its dust (like the phoenix rises from the ashes). The point is one of knowing how we move from minute tiny perceptions to conscious perceptions, or from molecular perceptions to molar perceptions. Is this a process of totalization, when for instance I grasp a whole whose parts are imperceptible to me? Thus I apprehend, first by physical prehension, the sound of the sea, or of an assembly of people – but not the murmur of each wave or person who nonetheless is part of the whole. Although Leibniz states the point in terms of totality, the question involves something other than the sum of homogenous parts. We are not dealing with a relation of parts-and-whole because the totality can be as imperceptible as the parts: such as when you become accustomed to a certain sound and begin to tune it out in your mind (mind’s eye?); buzzing or deadening effects are whole without necessarily being perceptions. The relation of the inconspicuous perceptions (unconscious perceptions, to not see the parts in the whole as they seemingly disappear even though we know rationally they must be there) to conscious perceptions does not go from part-to-whole but from ordinary to what is notable or personally meaningful or remarkable. There are countless inconspicuous perceptions for which do not stand out enough to be aware of or to remark as notable. The nature of a conscious perception is that of a production between two heterogeneous parts enter into a Differential Relation that determines a singularity (such that in a Whitehead Natural Event).
Differentials of Order
For Leibniz, clarity comes from obscurity, this is how the same argument can appeal to both obscurity and clarity. Inconspicuous perceptions constitute the obscure dust of the world, the dark depths at the heart of each monad. There are Differential Relations among these presently infinitely small perceptions that are drawn into clarity in a Cartesian Cartography Mapping Method of darkness-clarity-confusion-distinction. That is to say, establish a clear perception (such as the color green) with certain tiny, dark, evanescent perceptions (like perceiving the inconspicuous perceptions such as the colors yellow and blue from the conspicuous perception such as the color green). And no doubt, the colors yellow and blue here can themselves be conspicuous perceptions — but only if they are drawn into clarity themselves, each from its own position by Differential Relations among other minute perceptions respective to their Differentials of Order. Differential Relations always select minute perceptions that play a role in each case, and bring to light or clarify the conspicuous perceptions that come forth. Differential Calculus is the psychic mechanism of perception, the automatism (moving mechanical device) of this kind is to be taken in two ways:
Individually or Differentiation: cutting the whole into infinitely many of the tiniest conceivable parts
Universally or Integration: bringing all the tiny parts into a whole
Will to Power
What is will to power? What does it mean that is a principle of difference of a differential element?
“The victorious concept ‘force’, by means of which our physicists have created God and the world, still needs to be completed: an inner will must be ascribed to it, which I designate as ‘will to power’.” Nietzsche (Practical Philosophy p. 49)
The will to power is thus ascribed to force, but in a very special way: it is both a complement of force and something internal to it – a two-fold nature. A predicate is not ascribed to it, however. If we pose the question, ‘which one’, we cannot say that force is the one that wills. The will to power alone is the one that wills, it does not let itself be delegated in any way, or alienated to another subject; even to force.
“Who therefore will power? An absurd question, if being is by itself will to power…” Nietzsche
But how then can it be ‘ascribed’? We must remember: that every force has an essential relation to other forces; that the essence of force is its quantitative difference from other forces; and that this difference is expressed as the force’s quality. Now the difference in quantity understood in this way necessarily reflects a differential element of related forces – which is also the genetic element of the qualities of these forces. The will to power has a two-fold nature and can simultaneously be described as having both:
Genetic genealogical element of force - differences in quantity of forces, an internal principle of the quantitative determination of the relation itself (Differential Relation)
Differential genealogical element of force - differences in respective qualities of forces, an internal principle of the determination of its quality in a relation (Differentials of Consciousness?)
Will to power is simply a relation between forces, but a relation as a differential element. The will to power is the differential element from which derive both: the quantitative difference of related forces; and the quality that devolves into each force in this relation. The will to power here reveals its nature as the principle of the synthesis of forces. In this synthesis – which relates to time – forces pass through the same differences again or diversity is reproduced. The synthesis is one of forces, of their difference and their reproduction; the eternal return is the synthesis which has as its principle the will to power.
Will to power is inseparable from particular determined forces, from their quantities, qualities, and directions. Never superior to the ways that it determines a relation between forces, it is always plastic and changing. The notion of inseparable here does not mean identical (difference > identity). The will to power cannot be separated from force without falling into metaphysical abstraction. But to confuse force and will is even more risky. Force is no longer understood as force and one falls back into mechanism – forgetting the difference between forces which constitutes their being and remaining ignorant of the element from which their reciprocal genesis derives. Force is what can, will to power is what wills: what does this distinction mean? The concept of force is, by nature, victorious because the relation of force to force, understood conceptually, is one of domination: when two forces are related one is dominant and the other is dominated. Even God and the universe are caught in this relation of domination. Regardless, this victorious concept of force needs a complement and this complement is internal, an internal will. It would not be victorious without such an addition, this is because relations of forces remain indeterminate unless an element which is capable of determining them from a double point of view is added to force itself. Forces in relation reflect a simultaneous double genesis:
Reciprocal Genesis: difference in quantity of forces
Absolute Genesis: difference in respective qualities of forces
Will to power is thus added to force, but as the differential and genetic element, as the internal element of its production – more precisely, it is added to force as:
Integration (x + dx): internal principle of the determination of its quality in a relation
Difference (dy/dx): internal principle of the quantitative determination of the relation itself
The will to power must be described as the genealogical element of for and of forces. Thus it is always through the will to power that one force prevails over others and dominates or commands them. Moreover it is also the will to power (dy) which makes a force obey within a relation; it is through will to power that it obeys.
Kantianism
The will to power is both the genetic element of force and the principle of synthesis of forces. Through further analysis we will be able to see that this synthesis forms the eternal return, and how the forces in it necessarily reproduce themselves in conformity with its principle. Whereas on the other hand, the existence of this problem reveals a historically important aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy; its complex relations between Kantianism. Kantianism centers on the concept of synthesis which it discovered. Now, we know that the post-Kantians reproached Kant, from two points of view, for having endangered this discovery: from the point of view of the principle which governs the synthesis and from the point of view of the reproduction of objects in the synthesis itself. They demand a principle which was not merely conditioning in relation to objects but which was also truly genetic and productive – a principle of eternal difference or determination. They also condemned the survival, in Kant, of miraculous harmonies between terms that remain external to one another. With regard to such a principle of internal difference or determination they demanded grounds not only for the synthesis but for the reproduction of diversity in the synthesis. If Nietzsche belongs to the history of Kantianism, it is because of the original way in which he deals with these post-Kantian demands. Nietzsche turned synthesis into a synthesis of forces – for, if we fail to see synthesis in this way, we fail to recognize its sense, nature and content. He understood the synthesis of forces as the eternal return and thus found the reproduction of diversity at the heart of synthesis. He established the principle of synthesis, the will to power and determined this as the differential and genetic element of forces which directly confront one another. There is in Nietzsche, a Kantian heritage but it is a half brotherly love, half brotherly hate kind of rivalry. This is not the same relationship Nietzsche holds towards Schopenhauer mind you, for unlike Schopenhauer, he does not attempt an interpretation which would separate Kantianism from its dialectical avatars and present it with new openings. This is because, for Nietzsche, these dialectical avatars do not come from the outside but are primarily caused by the deficiencies of the critical philosophy. It is here Nietzsche has found in the will to power and eternal return a radical transformation of Kantianism, a re-invention of the critique which Kant betrayed at the same time as he convinced it a resumption of the critical project on a new basis with new concepts.
Deleuze offers us two Kantian critiques, the first Kantian critique using Bergsonian synthesis of passive/active habit; and the second Kantian critique using the method of intuition as seen in the deployment of the Nietzschean-Maimonian exigencies. To touch upon this second Kantian critique a little further let us speak of Nietzsche’s Philology. Deleuze speaks of using Nietzschean ontology of Pure Difference to focus on the productivity of the non-dialectical differential forces termed by Nietzsche ‘noble’. These forces affirm themselves, and thereby differentiate themselves first, and only secondarily consider that from which they have differentiated themselves. Nietzsche’s philosophy uses critical elements from Philology, so much so that he truly elevates both disciplines to unseen heights. We have on our hands a world of symptoms that themselves reflect states of forces that appear as phenomena, things, organisms, societies, consciousnesses, and spirits that we can refer to as signs in the Greek sense of semeion. For Nietzsche, this is the origin of a philosopher – as a physiologist but in a similar way to Philology and Evolutionary Biology. We can ask for any given thing, what state of exterior and interior forces it presupposes. Nietzsche was responsible for creating a whole typology to distinguish active, acted, and reacted forces, thus to analyze their varying combinations. In particular, a delineation of a reactive type force constitutes one of the most original points of Nietzschean thought. A kind of general semeiology that includes linguistics or better termed, Philology as one of its parts.
Evaluation
Nietzsche would say that Kant did not go far enough with his critique and did not pose the problem of critique correctly – it was a badly stated problem according to Bergsonism. This is because Kant did not pose the question in terms of values. This is to Philosophize with a Hammer for Nietzsche, that is a notion of value implies a critical reversal (two-fold nature):
Phenomena-Referential: values given as principles; evaluation presupposes values on the basis of which phenomena are appraised
Self-Referential: values that presuppose ‘evaluations’; perspectives of appraisal from which their own value is derived
The problem of critique is that of value of values, of the evaluation from which their value arises – Creation. For Nietzsche, Evaluation is defined as the differential element of corresponding values that is both: Critical and Creative. Evaluations are modes of existence of those who judge and evaluate, serving as principles for the values on the basis for which they judge. These Evaluations are ways of being though, not to be confused with values themselves. If we were to have two values, value A and value B we could say that value A corresponds with value B if a differential element separates the two. It serves as a principle of difference critically, but also as a genetic element creatively. In this way, these differential elements can be thought of as Leibniz’s monads through a virtual multiplicity pluralism. Just like with Leibniz, a thought/idea/belief/feeling was coherent proportional to the coherence/complexity of the monads that make it up. For Nietzsche, why we have belief/feelings/thought is because of the differential element at the heart of Evaluations – we act out our way of being through Evaluations. In this way, we are almost given our being or style of life like Ram Dass speaks of a Karmic DNA that allots us our karmic predicaments (that we fall into affirmatively). There are things that can be said, felt, or conceived through values which can be adhered to, on condition of base evaluations, base living or thinking. High or low delineations in language and society constitute the same value as the noble/base distinction, these are not values but represent the differential element from which the value of values themselves derive. Critical Philosophy, as opposed to Creative Philosophy, has two inseparable moments:
The referring back to all things and any kind of origin to values – e.g. Kant’s removal of value from criticism, or Schopenhauer’s criticism in the name of established values.
The referring back of these values to something which is their origin and determines their value – e.g. utilitarians deriving values from single facts and denoting them as ‘objective facts’
In both of these cases, philosophy moves in the indifferent element of the valuable-in-itself or valuable for all. Nietzsche equally attacks both the ‘high’ ideas of foundation which leaves values indifferent to their own origin and the idea of a simple causal derivation or smooth beginning which suggests indifferent origin for values.
Hesiod, or Philosophical Laborers
For Nietzsche, the philosopher is now the Genealogist, not a Kantian tribunal judge or Utilitarian mechanic (e.g. Hesiod). To this end, Nietzsche substitutes the pathos of Difference or distance (differential element) for both the Kantian principle of Universality and the principle of resemblance of the Utilitarian’s. Genealogy in this sense means both the origin of values and the value of origin – value of content and value of form. Genealogy is as opposed to absolute values as it is to relative or utilitarian ones. Genealogy also signifies the differential element of values from which their value itself derives – concerning itself with origins or birth but also difference or distance in the origin. The noble/vulgar, high/low, distinctions are the ‘true’ genealogical and critical elements, but understood in this way critique is as it most positive and powerful. The differential element is simultaneously both:
Principle of Difference: Critique of the value of values
Genetic Condition: Positive element of a creation
This is why Nietzsche believed critique was action not reaction. Reaction is where resentment, grudge, and revenge operated on; Zarathustra however operated on the plane of active expression rather than passive expression, and living through an active mode of existence rather than passive. This way of being is that of a philosopher because allows for a wielding of the Differential Element as a critic, and a creator, and thus as a powerful nomadic tool. To Nietzsche, this way of thinking is a kind of science, philosophy, and a way to determine the values of the future.
Chance
The genealogical element of force is the will to power. In this context genealogical means differential and genetic as previously stated. To describe the will to power in a slightly different way, it is a differential element of forces – an element that produces the differences in quantity between two or more forces whose relation is presupposed. The will to power is the genetic element of force, that is to say the element that produces the quality due to each force in this relation. The will to power as a principle does not suppress chance but, on the contrary, implies it, because without chance it would not be neither plastic nor changing. Chance is the bringing of forces into relation, the will to power is the determining principle of this relation. The will to power is a necessary addition to force but can only be added to forces brought into relation by chance. The will to power has chance at its heart for only the will to power is capable of affirming all chance.
The difference in quantity and the respective qualities of forces in relation both derive from the will to power as genealogical element. Forces are said to be dominant or dominated depending on their difference in quantity. Forces are said to be active or reactive depending on their quality. Thus, there is will to power in the reactive or dominated force as well as in the active or dominant force. Now because the difference in quantity is irreducible in every case, it is pointless to want to measure it without interpreting the qualities of the forces which are present. Forces are essentially differentiated and qualified – in this way they express their differences in quantity by the quality which is due to them. This is precisely the problem of interpretation (semieoun, Greek for interpret as a sign): to estimate the quality of force that gives meaning to a given phenomenon, or event, and from that to measure the relation of the forces which are present. In every case, interpretation comes up against all kinds of delicate problems and difficulties, extremely fine perception is necessary here (microperceptions), of the kind found in chemistry and the quantum world.
The principle of the qualities of force is the will to power. And if we ask, ‘which one interprets?’ we reply with the ‘will to power’ because it is always the will to power that interprets. But in order to be the source of qualities of force in this way, the will to power must itself have qualities, particularly fluent ones, even more subtle than those of force.
“What rules is the entirely momentary quality of the will to power.” Nietzsche (VP II 39)
These qualities of the will to power which are immediately related to the genetic or genealogical element, these fluent, primordial and seminal qualitative elements, must not be confused with the qualities of force. It is essential to insist on the terms offered up by Nietzsche here:
Active and reactive designate the original qualities of force
Affirmative and negative designate the primordial qualities of the will to power
Affirming and denying, appreciating and depreciating, express the will to power just as acting and reacting express force (even the will to deny is the will to power). This distinction between two kinds of quality here (Active/Reactive and Affirmative/Negative) is of the greatest importance and is always found at the center of Nietzsche’s philosophy.
In the next installment we will further our analysis of Deleuze’s Bergsonism, the first critique of Kant to dive into passive and active synthesis of habits and memory. And further on link back to Spinoza and continue the mapping out of the Ontology of Immanence as signaled by Deleuze, the metaphysician.
Sources
Bergsonism, Gilles Deleuze
Nietzsche and Philosophy, Gilles Deleuze
The Fold, Gilles Deleuze
Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Nietzsche
La Volonte de Puissance (Will to Power), Nietzsche translated by G. Bianquis (VP)