Widder the Rights of Simulacra Deleuze and the Univocity of Being

7/30/2019 Widder the Rights of Simulacra Deleuze and the Univocity of Being

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437THERIGHTSOFSIMULACRA: DELEUZEANDTHEUNIVOCITYOFBEING

Continental Philosophy Review 34: 437453, 2001. 2001Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

The rights of simulacra: Deleuze and the univocity of being

NATHAN WIDDERDepartment of Politics, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK

E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract. Alain Badious recent monograph on Deleuze argues that Deleuze does not reverse

Platonism but instead presents a Platonism of the virtual that appears in his unswerving at-

tention to the univocity of being, and for this reason Deleuze is not truly a thinker of multiplic-

ity but of the One. But this interpretation, which is not unknown in Deleuze literature, rests upona mistaken conflation of the univocity of being with a Platonist conception of the One. This

paper reconstructs the medieval Aristotelian debates around univocity and analogy as they re-

late to Deleuzes thesis, found primarily in Difference and Repetition, in order to show that

Deleuze does indeed reverse Platonism and restore the rights of simulacra and multiplicity.

Introduction

Alain Badious recent monograph on Gilles Deleuze is now in English trans-

lation asDeleuze: The Clamor of Being. Attacking the superficial doxa of

an anarcho-desiring Deleuzianism,1

Badiou declares that Deleuzes funda-mental problem is most certainly not to liberate the multiple but to submit

thinking to a renewed concept of the One (DCB, p. 11) in which The rights

of the heterogeneous are . . . simultaneously imperative and limited (p. 15).

Despite his aversion to a Platonism that is in fact only a caricature, Deleuze

presents a Platonism of the virtual (p. 46), signalled by his unswerving

adherence to the univocity of Being: A single and same voice for the whole

thousand-voiced multiple, a single and same Ocean for all the drops, a single

clamour of Being for all beings.2 As a virtual sense or voice speaking in all

beings, Deleuzes One appears only through a multiplicity of names the pairs

of virtual/actual, nomadic/sedentary, deterritorializaiton/reterritorialization,

and so on that must be given in order to make clear the univocity between

them. This dualism is therefore only a first step that thinking must overcomein order to restore the rightful order of the One and its products, so that two

names are required for the One in order to test that the ontological univocity

designated by the nominal pair proceeds from a single one of these names

(p. 43). The final arrangement is one in which the second name embodies a

multiplicity of heterogeneous differences related by disjunction that, because


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it cannot be subsumed by any order of identity, points to the One signified inthe first name as a foundation beyond all representation.3 Because it is a

disjoined multiplicity, however, it is reduced to not even an image of the One,

but rather a simulacrum, a difference without a real status (p. 26).

Badiou thus declares that Deleuzean multiplicity can be no more than simu-

lation, or being will be said in two senses (One and Many) and the univocal

thesis will be disrupted. But the resulting denigration of the multiple then

leaves Deleuze wavering between the unreality of actual beings and their re-

ality, while reintroducing the notion of image when he speaks of a virtual image

of actual but unreal beings. Rather than affirming the rights of simulacra, he

only verifies their subordinate status. Ultimately Deleuzes virtual remains a

transcendence (DCB, p. 46), which domesticates the contingency of events

by submitting them to a virtual Event,4 and is therefore incapable of thinking

genuine revolution.5 And so, Badiou concludes, it is necessary to present a

different song in which the One is not, there are only actual multiplicities

and the ground is void (p. 53).

This text certainly presents a challenge to those readings of Deleuze that

tend to lack ontological rigour. But Badious often overt intention to rival

Deleuze as the more genuine thinker of multiplicity should at least raise sus-

picions of his portrait. It is a joke to suggest that for Deleuze actual multi-

plicities are unreal, and Deleuzes words are never used to substantiate this

claim.6 Further, it is certainly questionable whether the virtual can adequately

be characterized as a realm of Oneness and not of disjoined multiplicity, and

Badiou finds himself hard pressed to sustain this assertion in the face ofDeleuzes explicit analyses of multiplicities that are constitutive (and so not

merely simulacral in the sense Badiou uses).7 This difficulty explains Badious

own vacillations between a conception of the One as a single voice and as

a self-differentiating Whole, and in the latter case between this differentia-

tion as the production of simulacra by the One and as a real plurality that

actual multiplicities simulate.8 Finally, there is certainly room to distrust the

mapping of Deleuzean vocabulary onto the terrain of the One and the Many

when Deleuze himself speaks of a multiple that exceeds such terms.9 To the

degree that Badiou admits that the virtual is in fact irreducibly multiple, so

that the relation between virtual and actual is one of multiplicity on top of

multiplicity, it seems that the attempt not only to align Deleuze with thePlatonism that interests Badiou, but also to counterpoise Badious conception

of multiplicity to this now Platonized Deleuzeanism, falls apart.

Badious entire critique rests upon a conflation of the univocity of being

with a Platonist conception of the One. It is through this move that he inter-

prets the single voice in Platonist terms. Similar readings have appeared


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before in Deleuze literature, often taking the form of an insistence on either aunity underlying multiplicity or a reduction of multiplicity to the self-differ-

entiation of the One.10 But univocity, far from being a Platonist doctrine, is in

fact an Aristotelian one, even if historically it has been adapted to service a

Platonist-Augustinian theology. And even under such circumstances, univocity

has little to do with Oneness understood in terms of either a hierarchy of the

One over the Many or a self-differentiating One-All. Badiou and others ig-

nore this point, and the effect is a serious misinterpretation of Deleuzes

thought. In contrast, a restoration of the meaning of univocity makes clear that

Deleuze does indeed execute a reversal of Platonism, affirming the reality of

simulacra as well as their foundational status.

What follows will provide an overview of the philosophical controversy

between analogy and univocity as it relates to Deleuzes highly compressed

account in the first chapter ofDifference and Repetition. The latter provides

the key articulation of the central Deleuzean thesis of the univocity of differ-

ence, which is often misunderstood by those who do not appreciate the medi-

eval debates upon which it is premised. As will be seen, univocity is hardly

concerned with establishing a unity among differences, but rather with link-

ing differences through their difference. This disjoining remains limited as long

as theological and other considerations maintain the primacy of substance over

the other categories of being. Once this primacy is overturned, however, uni-

vocal being can come to signify difference in itself as an excess implicated

in all beings and constituting a simulacrum that overturns any model based

on identity or unity.

Univocity versus analogy

It is true that Deleuze proclaims: There has only ever been one ontological

proposition: Being is univocal . . . from Parmenides to Heidegger it is the same

voice which is taken up, in an echo which itself forms the whole deployment

of the univocal. A single voice raises the clamour of being (DR, p. 35).11 None-

theless, it is equally clear that it is in the context of Aristotle and his medieval

interpreters that the issue of univocity versus analogy must be approached. It

is thus with Aristotle that Deleuze begins the chapter on Difference in Itself

inDifference and Repetition. Aristotle, Deleuze argues, attempts to sustain aparadigm of organic representation by proclaiming contrariety to be the great-

est and most perfect difference. In this schema, difference has the function of

specifying or delineating identities within larger, indeterminate genera: thus,

for example, the specific differentia rational and winged define the spe-

cies man and bird, respectively, within the genus animal. As Deleuze


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notes, this arrangement does nothing to determine a concept of difference.Rather, assigning a distinctive concept of difference is confused with the

inscription of difference within concepts in general the determination of the

concept of difference is confused with the inscription of difference in the iden-

tity of an undetermined concept (p. 32). Conversely, a concept of difference

in itself will only come to light by examining those differences and relations

that are incompatible with identity and representation.

The fragility of the schema just described becomes clear when one inquires

beyond the level of genus and species, in one direction toward the individual

and in the other toward the highest categories. In the first case, the problem

of defining the individual emerges: Socrates and Plato are both men, but are

ultimately distinguished according to differences that signify the irreducible

thisness of each of them, and that cannot be understood with reference to

higher categories. Socrates, for example, might be understood as a man with

certain characteristics and who is made of this particular materialorwho is this

particular man. This last predication of Socrates is not a general category, so

that in the end Socrates is not defined but rather designated,12 which is why

Aristotle proclaims that one can have knowledge of more general categories such

as species, but only recognition of individuals as belonging to a species.13A dif-

ference thus appears within the individual that, precisely by making the indi-

vidual unique, prevents it from being subsumed under the identity of its species,

except through abstraction. Socrates and Plato may in one sense belong together

in the same species, but in another sense they are irreducibly diverse.

The second difficulty, on which Deleuze initially focuses, introduces theproblem of the categories: above the genera are the highest categories of sub-

stance, quantity, quality and so forth, but there is no category that unifies all

of them there is, in short, no highest genus. For as Aristotle notes, neither

being nor oneness (unity) can operate as a highest identity because unlike a

genus they are predicated of differentia themselves. In other words, while the

genus animal is predicated of species such as man and bird, it is not predi-

cated of differentia: we say man is an animal, but not winged is an animal.

This is because the genus denotes what is common among its members, not

what differentiates them. But being and unity are predicated of specific dif-

ferences thereby signifying both identity and difference precisely because

concepts such as winged are equivocal, functioning as differentia within onegenus but also as subjects predicated of other genera incommensurable with

the first genus, which they divide. And so we do say winged is.

But it is impossible for either Unity or Being to be one genus of existingthings. For there must be differentiae of each genus, and each differentia


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must be one; but it is impossible either for the species of the genus to bepredicated of the specific differentiae, or for the genus to be predicatedwithout its species. Hence if Unity or Being is a genus, there will be nodifferentia Being or Unity.14

Being and unity remain the most common attributes, applying to all beings,

but neither functions as the highest set. Nonetheless, the categories are not

left simply diverse and disconnected. Being is not merely homonymous or

equivocal: it is not a common predicate whose several meanings are unrelated,

such as the word dog, which signifies both a barking animal and a star. Rather,

it carries a common sense that can be glimpsed, for example, in the univer-

sality of the law of contradiction: whether it be a substance, quality or some-

thing else, no being can both be and not be at the same time and under thesame relation. As Deleuze says, this common sense is in no way collective, as

an identity would be, but is rather distributive and hierarchical (see DR, p.

33). It connects irreducibly heterogeneous differences, and so points again to

a difference that is incompatible with identity. But the form of this coupling

is left undetermined within Aristotles texts.

As is well known, the reintroduction of Aristotles full corpus to the Latin

West in the 13th century fomented a crisis in both philosophy and theology,

challenging the command that the latter held over the former. But it also pro-

vided material to resolve a lingering difficulty within Platonist-Augustinian

Christianity concerning the relation between God and the world. For God is

not the apex of his created order, but rather transcends it, and this indicates a

radical difference between divine and created, such that the former cannot be

known through the latter. As a result, any natural or positive knowledge of

the divine is imperilled, which in turn reverberates against any rational un-

derstanding of the created world. The epistemological dilemma here is simi-

lar to that of Platos divided line, in which the Forms can be known and thus

an order of physical objects can be determined based on degrees of participa-

tion but the Form of the Forms, the Good, remains opaque, because it is not

an object of knowledge but rather the source and medium for knowledge, as

light is the medium for vision. Since knowledge of this medium would require

another medium, and so on ad infinitum, it is strictly speaking impossible to

know the Good, the result being that there is no basis for the metaphysical

order of Form/copy/image, which is oriented by it.15

In the same way, Augus-tinian theology lacks the grounds for establishing an order of beings accord-

ing to their differing distances from a God infinitely removed from all of them.

The need, in short, is to establish a relation of the divine to the world that

maintains their irreducibility and disjunction. Together with the diversity of


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individuals within a species and the relation among irreducibly distinct cat-egories, there are thus three axes in medieval Christian thought upon which

the question of heterogeneous difference is raised. The answer drawn from

Aristotle to the problem of the categories analogy or univocity determines

the way in which these other problems may be resolved. Hardly subsumable

to the Platonist One, univocity is rather deployed by a Platonist theology seek-

ing to relate the One to the Many.

Given that being is neither univocal like a genus, nor simply equivocal,

Aquinas maintains an analogical conception of being in which various senses

are proportioned to one another.16 Such a proportion is clear among the cat-

egories, where only substance is capable of self-subsistence, and the other cat-

egories gain their being only by adhering to substances. Aquinas extends this

idea to the relation between Gods attributes and those of the world, since the

latter are contingent upon his existence. Concepts such as wisdom can thereby

be said of God in a primary way, and in a subsidiary but related way to his

creations, similar to the way a word like healthy applies to organisms (in a

primary sense) and to diets (as causing health) or complexions (as displaying

it).17 In this way analogy offers a middle position between pure univocity and

equivocity of meanings. It further makes possible the establishment of a uni-

directional resemblance, whereby creatures, as products of Gods power, are

marked by and so resemble him, though God in no way resembles his crea-

tions.

When men reproduce themselves, agent and effect are of one species andtheir likeness is a specific likeness. But when the agent is outside the spe-cies, there is likeness of form but not specific likeness: the things the sun

produces bear a certain likeness to the sun [being sources of energy] butthey are not of the same species. If the agent were outside even genus, itseffect would bear an even remoter resemblance to the agent, presenting onlythe sort of analogy that holds between all things that have existence incommon. And this is how everything that receives existence from Godresembles him; precisely as existing it resembles the primary universalsource of all existence . . . But we would not say that God resembles crea-tures.Mutual likeness obtains between things of the same order but notbetween cause and effect, as pseudo-Denys says: a portrait can take after aman but a man does not take after his portrait. (ST, 1.1.4.3, pp. 1718)

Analogy thus enables Aquinas to maintain a hierarchical relation between God

and creatures while allowing human reason to approach the divine through

his productions. The order of the world presents man with exemplars of good-

ness, truth, and perfection that deficiently point towards the infinite perfec-

tion of their source. Even though the mode of Gods wisdom eludes our


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understanding because this attribute in no way compromises the simplicityof his substance there is still the possibility of an incomplete knowledge of

the divine on earth, which can be fulfilled entirely only through grace.

But as Deleuze makes clear, the analogical solution does nothing to answer

the question of the diversity of individuals within a species, for these are re-

lated by simple commonality and not according to any proportion: what makes

Socrates this particular man does not make him more of a man than Plato. As

a result, the source of an individuals unique reality will have to be assigned

to a nonessential factor, such as matter in Aquinass theory. But since the in-

dividual is obviously more real than the species to which it belongs, the ana-

logical relation falters on this point, since it can only understand the being of

the individual as an accident.

It is henceforth inevitable that analogy falls into an unresolvable difficulty:it must essentially relate being to particular existents, but at the same timeit cannot say what constitutes their individuality. For it retains in the par-ticular only that which conforms to the general (matter and form), and seeksthe principle of individuation in this or that element of the fully constitutedindividuals. (DR, p. 38)

It is for this reason that Deleuze proclaims univocity to be the only ontologi-

cal proposition. The univocity of being makes available an alternative distri-

bution of difference no longer tied to the proportion marking the relation

between a transcendent One and a derivative multitude, so that Univocal

Being is at one and the same time nomadic distribution and crowned anar-chy. (p. 37) Here Duns Scotus is the figure who both sets a direction for a

philosophy of difference and represents the first error it must overcome, for

Scotus still deploys the univocity of being to sustain a Christian divinity.

As Deleuze notes, analogy is germane to the realm of judgment.18 In Aris-

totelian terms, judgment is a form of understanding based upon complex

propositions, such as Socrates is white. But judgment, which assigns at-

tributes to a subject, refers back to apprehension as a simple cognition of being,

and here there is no room for analogy: between the statements God is [a

being] and Socrates is [a being] there can be only univocity or equivocity,

and Scotus maintains that in the latter case no natural or rational knowledge

of the divine is possible.19 And this means that being as a quidditative (in quid)

predication that is, a predication of essence, applying specifically to sub-

stances must be univocal between finite and infinite beings.20 Analogy

certainly has a role to play in describing the relation of creatures to a God

heterogeneous from them but serving as their common measure. But an analo-

gous relation, Scotus maintains, can only be drawn between two things com-


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beings as divisions within the categories, and which are not quidditative predi-cates but qualifications of essence (in quale). There is no univocity between

the quidditative and non-quidditative senses of being, but instead a virtual

primacy of the quidditative sense, whereby non-quidditative senses are not

reducible to it but nonetheless refer to it through adherence to substances: these

other senses fall under the umbrella of the quidditative as that which has the

power (virtus) to give them being.23 Thus, while Scotuss univocity establishes

a relation between finite and infinite substances that otherwise share nothing

in common, it is not applied to the third form of heterogeneous difference

individual difference.

This exception to univocity has the effect of circumscribing Scotuss an-

swer to the problem of individual diversity. Against theories that posit matter,

quantity, or some other accident as the principle or individuation, or that de-

fine individuation as the power to negate difference without accounting for

how a particular individual is this individual, Scotus proffers haecceity as a

positive difference exceeding human cognition, which contracts the deter-

minate unity of a species into the numerical unity of the individual.24 This

haecceity, he says, is neither matter nor form nor a combination of them, be-

cause matter and form are constitutive of quiddities, while haecceity con-

stitutes a material reality beyond the quidditative.25 Scotus thus affirms the

excessive nature of individuating haecceity, but still subordinates it to the

common quidditative substance it individuates, holding although this com-

mon nature is a product of the individuals themselves, it is indifferent and

therefore prior to any particular individual.26 This priority, which in no wayorganizes individual differences according to a common sense but only af-

firms that fully-formed individuals fall within the higher identity of their spe-

cies, is treated as if it were sufficient to answer the problem of diversity within

species. And because Scotus holds the individuality of God to be based not

on any combination and contraction, but rather his infinity and simplicity,

haecceity is left to apply only in the realm of finite beings, thus lacking suf-

ficient status to be considered for univocity. In this way, divine transcendence

is secured. For without the rule of indifference to limit the univocity of being

to transcendentals, it would be impossible to delineate the concepts that can

and cannot be said of God, and the result would be either pantheism or nega-

tive theology, which Scotus finds incoherent (see PW, pp. 1516).It is here that Deleuze highlights the enemy he [Scotus] tried to escape in

accordance with the requirements of Christianity: pantheism, into which he

would have fallen if the common being were not neutral (DR, p. 39). The

result, however, is that a move to an ontology of difference is foreclosed. What

is required, Deleuze says, is


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a plastic, anarchic and nomadic principle, contemporaneous with the processof individuation, no less capable of dissolving and destroying individualsthan of constituting them temporarily; intrinsic modalities of being, pass-ing from one individual to another, circulating and communicating un-derneath matters and forms. The individuating is not the simple individual.In these conditions, it is not enough to say that individuation differs in kindfrom the determination of species. It is not even enough to say this in themanner of Duns Scotus, who was nevertheless not content to analyse theelements of an individual but went as far as the conception of individuationas the ultimate actuality of form. We must show not only how individuatingdifference differs in kind from specific difference, but primarily and aboveall how individuation properlyprecedes matter and form, species and parts,and every other element of the constituted individual. (p. 38)

In other words, it is essential to overturn the primacy of substance, of the self-

subsistent or identical, and so too any infinite being that transcends and gov-

erns the world of finite beings and becoming. It is necessary to situate an

originary web of difference from which individual identities both appear and

dissolve. Accomplishing this would not only demolish the Christian God, but

affirm the differences by which individuals always exceed categorization

according to similarity and sameness. These differences could be neither in-

different to one another for this would imply their being self-contained

nor related through a common identity. They would instead have to be linked

through their difference a disjoining that univocity has always embodied.

Univocity might still imply a sameness, but it is nothing other than this same

excessiveness of all beings. In this way, univocal being is said no longer in-differently of fully-constituted beings that share nothing in common, but of

the difference immanent to them that escapes representation and compels their

self-overcoming. It is said, in short, of difference itself.

This task marks out the place of Spinoza and Nietzsche in the unfolding of

the thesis of univocity. Spinozas univocity between substance and modes is

expressive rather than indifferent. Nevertheless, substance retains an independ-

ence over and against the modes, and this can be overcome only at the price

of a more general categorical reversal according to which being is said of

becoming, identity of that which is different, the one of the multiple, etc. That

identity not be first, that it exist as a principle but as a second principle, as a

principle become; that it revolve around the Different (DR, p. 40). And this

reversal is achieved by Nietzsches ontology of constitutive forces and the cor-

responding movement of eternal return. A thing for Nietzsche is a product of

heterogeneous forces whose differences cannot be mediated forces are, in

short, always in a relation of disjunction and this is why the relation of force

to force is always one that affirms difference.27 Forces can be reduced neither


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to equality nor unambiguous hierarchy, since these options reinstate standardnotions of identity, and so they are always in relations of domination and

submission, but also power and resistance. And though the combination of

these forces can give rise to a slavish will to power that denies heterogeneity

and wills a world constituted in terms of identity and opposition, this in no

way eliminates the affirmation of a noble will that stretches beyond good and

evil. The affirmative movement that correlates with this will to power is that

of eternal return, which submits forces to a synthesis that continually moves

them out of joint. The eternal return thus means, as Deleuze often says, not

that the same or the identical returns in this movement, but rather that it is the

returning that is the same: returning, as disjoining, is the being or sameness

of becoming.

The eternal return has no other sense but this: the absence of any assign-able origin in other words, the assignation of difference as the origin,which then relates different to different in order to make it (or them) returnas such. In this sense, the eternal return is indeed the consequence of a dif-ference which is originary, pure, synthetic and in-itself (which Nietzschecalled will to power). (DR, p. 125)

Here again, the univocity expressed in this sameness is not to be confused with

the Platonist One, even where this One is internally self-differentiating. Rather,

it is what overturns this very model, affirming simulacra as the multiplicity

that escapes the One and the Many.

The overturning of Platonism

The reversal of Platonism does not mean simply that the Many is elevated

over the One; nor does it mean showing, in a Neoplatonist sense, that the One

is always already Many. Such routes may advance thought beyond represen-

tation, but since they come at the price of positing a transcendence, they fail

to advance thought towards a concept of difference in itself. Further, as Deleuze

says, a simple reversal has the disadvantage of being abstract; it leaves the

motivation of Platonism in the shadows . . . to reverse Platonism must mean

to bring this motivation out into the light of the day, to track it down the

way Plato tracks down the Sophist.28 We have already seen how univocity is

worked out in the terms of Aristotelian organic representation. But there is

still a need for a step back to Plato, where The Idea has . . . not yet chosen to

relate difference to the identity of a concept in general: it has not given up

hope of finding a pure concept of difference in itself (DR, p. 59). While


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Aristotle puts difference in the service of specifying indeterminate genera,criticizing Platos dialectic for failing to satisfy the requirements of this project

(see DR, p. 59; PS, p. 254), Plato is concerned with an earlier battle to separate

the legitimate difference of the copy from the disingenuous difference of the

simulacrum. Both encounter an excessive difference, but it is Plato who is con-

cerned to track it down, to pinpoint the sophist as the false pretender as such,

in order to define the being (or rather the nonbeing) of the simulacrum (PS, p.

256). In this way, Plato refuses to treat this non-being as a simple negation of

being. As a result, he indicates the direction needed to execute a reversal.29

The significance of simulacra is displayed in their power to demolish the

hierarchy of original and copy. According to this model a physical object, for

example, is a copy of its Form, while simulacra such as shadows, reflections,

mirages, and even artwork, are copies of the physical object. But the charac-

ter of a good simulation is precisely that it appears to be as realas the thing

it copies, and this duplicity cannot be accounted for according to an order that

defines the simulation as merely a copy twice removed. And so the simulacrum

must be understood further as an unfounded pretension, concealing a dissimi-

larity which is an internal unbalance (PS, p. 257). While a legitimate copy

retains an internal resemblance to its Form, the simulacrum contains a dissimi-

larity, albeit one that affects an appearance of resemblance or correspondence.

The simulacrum is built upon a disparity or upon a difference. It internal-izes a dissimilarity. This is why we can no longer define it in relation to amodel imposed on the copies, a model of the Same from which the copiesresemblance derives. If the simulacrum still has a model, it is another model,a model of the Other (lAutre) from which there flows an internalized dis-semblance. (p. 257)

The simulacrum only appears as the lowest order of reality, as the unreal it-

self, when it is vilified within the model of the Same and the order of repre-

sentation, where it is only a simulation and designates only the external

and nonproductive effect of resemblance, that is, an effect obtained by ruse

of subversion (ibid.). This same denigration remains operative in Badious

reading of Deleuze, whereby he accuses Deleuze of reducing the multiple to

unreal simulacra, explaining this in terms of the needs of a conception of

univocity he manifestly misunderstands.

If the simulacrum follows a model of the Other, then it in fact follows no

model at all, for the Other connotes a flux and impurity inconsistent with any

notion of a design or archetype. But then simulacra are never anything more

than simulations of simulacra. They are not actual but unreal simulations of a

virtual and real One, as Badiou suggests. Rather, At least two divergent se-


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ries are internalized in the simulacrum neither can be assigned as the origi-nal, neither as the copy (PS, p. 262) would be a far more accurate rendition

of the relation between virtual and actual. The reality of simulacra follows from

an inversion of substance over difference, and the elevation of a single voice

by which differences are both related and disjoined. Certainly this reversal

presents us with the same of the different, the one of the multiple, the resemblant

of the dissimilar (DR, p. 126). But this sameness or oneness must be distin-

guished from another that is now reduced to a mere illusion or abstraction by

a power of selection that Deleuze says is effected by the eternal return, one

that ensures that Only the extreme, the excessive, returns (p. 41).

We should say of this identity and this resemblance that they are simulated:

they are products of systems which relate different to different by meansof difference (which is why such systems are themselves simulacra). Thesame and the similar are fictions engendered by the eternal return. This time,there is no longer error but illusion: inevitable illusion which is the sourceof error, but may nevertheless be distinguished from it. (p. 126)

That identity as well as the correlate forms of difference inscribed within

its concept is not real, but instead has a status traditionally assigned to

simulacra, is perhaps the most profound lesson in Deleuzes philosophy, with

implications for politics and ethics as well as ontology. There are certainly

parallels with a Platonist or Neoplatonist project that is also concerned to move

beyond identity, which seeks a One or a self-differentiating One-All exceed-

ing all representation. But such a project is not Deleuzes. To suggest other-wise is to portray Deleuze as the very sort of beautiful soul he criticizes, who

believes that there are only reconcilable and federative differences, far re-

moved from bloody struggles. The beautiful soul says: we are different, but

not opposed. . . (DR, p. xx). That the univocity of being would be interpreted

as a transcendence domesticating the heterogeneous would seem the natural

consequence of such an error. When it is corrected, it becomes clear that

univocity, far from designating the power of the One beyond representation

to produce an unreal simulacrum, is rather what makes simulacra real by vir-

tue of an unrepresentable difference. And this is precisely what makes Deleuze

a thinker of both immanence and multiplicity.

Notes

1. Badiou, Alain,Deleuze: The Clamor of Being, trans. Louise Burchill (Minneapolis and

London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). Translators Preface, p. xii. Cited hereafter

as DCB.


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450 NATHANWIDDER

2. Deleuze, Gilles,Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York and London:The Athlone Press, 1994), p. 304, quoted in Badiou, p. 11. Cited hereafter as DR.

3. The One is not here the one of identity or of number, and thought has already abdicated

if it supposes that there is a single and same Being. The power of the One is much rather

that beings are multiple and different, they are always produced by a disjunctive syn-

thesis, and they themselves are disjoined and divergent, membra disjoncta (DCB, p.

24).

4. One wonders whether this Event with a capital E might not be Deleuzes Good (DCB,

p. 27).

5. [I]f the only way to think a political revolution, an amorous encounter, an invention of

the sciences, or a creation of art as distinct infinities . . . is by sacrificing immanence

(which I do not actually believe is the case, but that is not what matters here) and the

univocity of Being, then I would sacrifice them (DCB, pp. 9192).

6. Indeed, Deleuzes theme of immanent causality, worked out through Spinoza, in which

effects are no less real than their causes, should be enough to dismiss this idea. See

Deleuze, Gilles,Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin (New York:

Zone Books, 1992), pp. 169174.

7. See, for example, the reference to the chaotic interference of all the virtualities in the

One (DCB, p. 71), and the description of the diagram of outside forces, which causes

the disjointed objects . . . to enter into a formal composition, which rests characterized

by exteriority, but now activated by its forceful seizure (p. 87).

8. See, for example, reference to the virtual as the deployment of the One in its immanent

differentiation whereby it is its own process of actualization (DCB, p. 49).

9. Badiou acknowledges Deleuzes claim that there is neither one nor multiple only to

declare: But, as always with Deleuze, going beyond a static (quantitative) opposition

always turns out to involve the qualitative raising up of one of its terms (DCB, p. 10).

10. Todd May (Difference and Unity in Gilles Deleuze in Boundas, Constantin V. and

Olkowski, Dorothea, eds., Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy (New York andLondon: Routledge, 1994), pp. 3350) argues that while Deleuze opposes transcenden-

tal principles of unity he is not opposed to an underlying unity or sameness per se, and

that he articulates such a unity through the concept of a surface organizing diverse

singularities. Indeed, May says, Deleuze becomes incoherent at those times in which he

posits differences as prior to this unitary surface, which is to say when he gives primacy

to difference over identity. Rather, May contends, unity and multiplicity must be con-

sidered equiprimordial. Peter Hallward (Gilles Deleuze and the redemption from inter-

est,Radical Philosophy, 81 (Jan/Feb, 1997), pp. 621) argues that Deleuzes philosophy

is one of redemption structurally similar to St. Pauls, seeking an escape from this world

to a Real beyond all representation and finitude, and understanding this Real not as a

multiplicity but rather the self-differentiation of the One: Invariably, multiplicity with

Deleuze is the predicate of a radical, self-differing singularity. His multiple is not the

plural, but the internal consequence of univocity . . . With Deleuze, we know that eve-

rything is Real, that all inheres on the same plane. Yet the redemptive movement remains.

The enabling conclusion follows necessarily: everything is Real but some things are

more Real than others. Univocity guarantees the integrity of a single quantitative scale

of reality, a single matrix of salvation (the more or less redeemed). In a way, this matrix

is more damming, more inclusive, than Pauls dualism. Deleuzes redemptive phi-

losophy, coupled with his ontological univocity, ensures a hierarchy of beings every bit


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as dizzying as the vertical layering of Lights in Suhrawards cosmology (p. 18). BothMay and Hallward severely distort the theme of univocity, and May in particular forces

on Deleuze the spurious alternative of affirming either a co-relation of unity and differ-

ence or some sort of oxymoronic pure difference in which differences are merely in-

different to one another.

11. The very reference of Heidegger should serve notice that this sameness is not to be

understood in terms of any unity. For in Identity and Difference Heidegger conceives

the sameness between thought and being proclaimed by Parmenides as a belonging

together of differences that exceeds any synthesis of identity: If we think of belonging

togetherin the customary way, the meaning of belonging is determined by the word

together, that is, by its unity. In that case, to belong means as much as: to be assigned

and placed into the order of a together, established in the unity of a manifold, com-

bined into the unity of a system, mediated by the unifying center of an authoritative

synthesis. . . However, belonging together can also be thought of as belongingtogether.

This means: the together is now determined by the belonging. Of course, we must still

ask here what belong means in that case, and how its peculiar together is determined

only in its terms. . . Enough for now that this reference makes us note the possibility of

no longer representing belonging in terms of the unity of the together, but rather of expe-

riencing this together in terms of belonging (Heidegger, Martin,Identity and Difference,

trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York, Evanston and London: Harper & Row, Publishers,

1969), p. 29). This text figures prominently in one of Deleuzes most focused and af-

firmative engagements with Heidegger; see DR, pp. 6466.

12. As Aristotle says of any definition, [T]he reality of a thing is the last such predication

to hold of these atoms, but these predicates must belong further than the subject predi-

cated, even though all will not further (Posterior Analytics,

trans. Jonathan Barnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), II.13).

13. But when we come to the concrete thing, e.g. this circle which is a particular indi-

vidual, either sensible or intelligible. . . of these individuals there is no definition; weapprehend them by intelligence or perception; and when they have passed from the sphere

of actuality it is uncertain whether they exist or not, but they are always spoken of and

apprehended by the universal formula. But the matter is in itself unknowable (Aristo-

tle,Metaphysics, 2 vols., trans. Hugh Tredennick (Cambridge, MA and London: Loeb

Classics, 19331935), 7.10, pp. 361363).

14. Metaphysics, op cit., 3.3, p. 119. See also 11.1, p. 57. Cited hereafter as MP.

15. See Plato, The Republic, trans. GMA. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Com-

pany, 1974), 506d511.

16. As Aristotle writes: The term being is used in various senses, but with reference to

the one central idea and one definite characteristic, and not as merely a common epi-

thet (MP, 4.2, p. 147).

17. Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation, edited by Timothy

McDermot (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1989), 1.1.13.5, p. 32. Cited hereaf-

ter as ST. The analogy of divine attributes, however, is commonly differentiated from

that of health as being a metaphysical analogy, meaning that the attributes are not in-

trinsically held only by one thing and then attributed to others by act of intellect alone

what is termed an analogy of attribution. It also differs from a physical analogy in which

several beings intrinsically share the same trait in the same manner or more, but accord-

ing to different degrees of perfection, so that man and dog, for example, are both ani-


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452 NATHANWIDDER

mals, but one is a more perfect animal than the other. Against this standard reading ofthe analogy of being, see McInerny, Ralph, The Logic of Analogy: An Interpretation of

St. Thomas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961).

18. Now, if we ask what is the instance capable of proportioning the concept to the terms

or to the subjects of which it is affirmed, it is clear that it is judgment (DR, p. 33).

19. Aquinas accepts equivocity here as the limit to human knowledge of God, holding that

reason can demonstrate Gods existence, and a set of predicates that can be analogically

attributed to him, but that the divine essence remains opaque (on this point see Gildon,

Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. L.K. Shook, CSB (Notre

Dame: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1956), pp. 107110). However, it is un-

clear that this distinction can be sustained. It functions on the Thomist division between

essence (ens) and existence of act-of-being (esse), whereby only the latter can be dem-

onstrated by the rationalist arguments for the first mover. But as a result, the famous five

proofs of Gods existence violate Aristotles rule that demonstrative proof requires a

definition of the thing in question (that is, its essence) as a middle term in its syllogism.

Aquinas maintains that Aristotles requirement is applicable only when arguing from

cause to effect, not effect back to cause, where the central link is not what the cause is

(since we cannot even ask what a thing is until we know that it exists) but what the name

of the cause is used to mean (ST, 1.1.2.2., p. 12). To this, Duns Scotus replies: There

is no point in distinguishing between a knowledge of His essence and a knowledge of

His existence. . . For I never know anything to exist unless I first have some concept of

that of which existence is affirmed and therefore being must be a univocal concept with

sufficient unity to serve as the middle term of a syllogism (Duns Scotus, John,Philo-

sophical Writings, trans. Allan Wolter, OFM (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Pub-

lishing Company, 1987), pp. 16, 20. Cited hereafter as PW).

20. According to [Henry of Ghent], by conceiving wise we grasp a property or quasi-

property which perfects the nature after the manner of a secondary act. In order to con-

ceive wise, therefore, it is necessary to have a conception of some prior subject, becauseI understand this property to be verified existentially. And so we must look beyond all

our ideas of attributes or quasi-attributes, in order to find a quidditative concept to which

the former may be attributed. This other concept will be a quidditative notion of God,

for our quest for a quasi-subject will not cease with any other kind of concept (PW, p.

19). On the significance of these attacks being directed at Henry rather than Aquinas,

see Wolter, Allan B., The Transcendentals and Their Function in the Metaphysics of Duns

Scotus (New York: The Franciscan Institute, 1946), pp. 3233; Prentice, Robert P., The

Basic Quidditative Metaphysics of Duns Scotus as Seen in His De Primo Principio

(Antonianum, 1970), pp. 2123.

21. Hence the Philosopher, inIII Metaphysics [ch. 3, 998b 2227] does not show that be-

ing is not a genus because of any equivocation, but because it has a greater commonness

and univocation than the commonness of a genus (Scotus,Lectura, I, d. 3, p. 1, q. 12,

quoted in Prentice, op cit., p. 54).

22. See Gilson, Etienne,History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (London: Sheed

& Ward, 1955), pp. 456457.

23. Hence, all to which being is not univocal in quidare included in those to which be-

ing is univocal in this way. And so it is clear that being has a primacy of commonness

in regard to the primary intelligibles, that is, to the quidditative concepts of the genera,

species, individuals, and all their essential parts, and to the Uncreated Being. It has a


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virtual primacy in regard to the intelligible elements included in the first intelligibles,that is, in regard to the qualifying concepts of the ultimate differences and proper at-

tributes (PW, p. 4).

24. The criticisms of other theories and the argument for the theory ofhaecceity are found

in Duns Scotus, John, Six Questions on Individuation from His Ordinatio, II. d. 3, part

1, qq. 16 in Spade, Vincent, editor/translator,Five Texts on the Medieval Problem of

Universals (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), pp.

57113. Cited hereafter as SQ.

25. As an essence, it is still characteristic of quiddity that it can be predicated of several things:

quiddity marks a thing as a thing, but does not make it this thing. See SQ, nn. 181182,

pp. 104105.

26. Every quidditative entity (whether partial or total) in some genus is of itself indifferent

as a quidditative entity to this individual entity and that one, in such a way that as a

quidditative entity it is naturally prior to this individual entity insofar as it is a this

(SQ, n. 187, pp. 106107).

27. In Nietzsche the essential relation of one force to another is never conceived of as a

negative element in the essence. In its relation with the other the force which makes it-

self obeyed does not deny the other or that which it is not, it affirms its own difference

and enjoys this difference (Deleuze, Gilles, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh

Tomlinson (London: The Athlone Press, 1983), I.4, pp. 89).

28. Deleuze, Gilles, Plato and the Simulacrum in The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester

with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V. Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press,

1990), pp. 253266, p. 253. Cited hereafter as PS.l

29. Was it not inevitable that Plato should be the first to overturn Platonism, or at least to

show the direction such an overturning should take? (DR, p. 68).


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Documents

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