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The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2009) Vol. Z V I I

On Post-Heideggerean Difference: Derrida and Deleuze Daniel Colucciello Barber LaGuardia College (CU.)

Abstract

This paper takes up the Heideggerean question of difference. I argue that while Heidegger raises this question, his response to the question remains ambiguous and that this ambiguity pivots around the question of time. The bulk of the paper then looks a t how Derrida and Deleuze respectively attempt to advance beyond Heideggers ambiguity regarding the questions of difference and time. Derrida is able to demonstrate the manner in which time-as delay-is constitutive of any at tempt to think difference. I argue, however, that his innovative articulation of differance maintains a n extrinsic ra ther than intrinsic relation to difference in-itself. To achieve a n intrinsic relation, it is necessary to turn to the work of Deleuze, particularly to his discussion of nonsensen and singularity.

1. The Ambiguity of Heideggerean Difference

It may be asserted, without controversy, that the philosophical endeavor of Martin Heidegger is extremely important for contemporary thought. Equally uncontroversial, however, is the assertion that Heideggers thought, in spite of the possibilities i t has generated, is inextricable from certain limits. Here we face the banal mode of reception that intends to encapsulate a philosophical effort by pronouncing i t to be simultaneously promising and limited, both an opening and a dead end. We

Daniel Colucciello Barber received his PhD from Duke University wi th a dissertation entitled, The Production of Immanence: Deleuze, Yoder, and Adorno (2008). He has recently publ i shed articles on political ontology and philosophy of religion in Political Theology and Modern Theology. His current work focuses on the relation between philosophies of immanence, biopolitics, and secularism. He teaches in the philosophy department a t LaGuardia College (CUNY).

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Daniel Colucciello Barber

might observe, for instance, how Heideggers novel insistence that the question of being is fundamentally inseparable from the question of difference has now become common sense, but also how this common sense is marked by ambiguity. Indeed, despite the apparently widespread acceptance of a link between being and difference, the precise nature of this link still remains in question.

This essay, which attempts to step outside of a paradoxically epochal and confused Heideggerean inheritance, rests on two propositions. First, it proposes that, in order to make an advance beyond Heideggers formulations, the question of the being- difference relation must itself be brought into relation with the question of time. In other words, while Heidegger rightly makes the relation of being and difference that which matters most for thought, we must still make time that which matters most for being and difference. Second, this essay proposes that the philosophical efforts of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze may be understood as attempts t o draw upon and exceed Heideggers own work. These two attempts, despite being divergent and even mutually exclusive, proceed by attending to the question of time. The ultimate aim of this essay, then, is to investigate and evaluate the respective manners in which Derrida and Deleuze elaborate the nexus of being, difference, and time. In order to fulfill this aim, however, it is first necessary to articulate the ambiguity of such a nexus within Heideggers own thought. This articulation can be achieved in brief by attending to the problematic of Heideggers Identity and Difference and, in particular, to the role of the unthought.

The unthought is of paramount importance for Heidegger because it names an open relation between thought and being. I t is that which is exterior to thought, insofar as it has not been thought, yet it is also that which is intrinsic to being. Thus the possibility of a novel configuration between thought and being will s tand or fall on thoughts endeavor to understand and encounter the unthought. This endeavor can be understood as a dynamic of reduction and donation: reduction names the need to bracket the given thought-being relation, in order to discover what is unthought in this relation; donation names the sought- after, novel thought-being relation, the emergence of which depends on an encounter with the unthought. The unthought thus has a negative and a positive significance: negatively, it stands as what thought has failed to think; positively, it may furnish, when encountered by way of reduction, the donation of a new relation between thought and being.

For Heidegger, the particular determination of the unthought is ontological difference. Its negative and positive aspects are delineated rather tersely in one of his declarations: We speak of the difference between being and beings. The step back goes from what is unthought, from the difference as such, into what

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On Post-Heideggerean Difference

gives us thought [Das zu-Denkendel .z Ontological difference is the unthought difference of being and beings, and ontotheology is the blockage that must be reduced. Ontotheology names the tendency of thought that joins ontology (as science of being) and theology (as science of God, the ground of being) through a certain complicity between the grounded (ontos) and the ground ( theos) . One cannot think the difference between being and beings directly, for both being and beings are thinkable only by way of their inherence in God, the being that grounds being. Heidegger draws the evident conclusion that, in order for thought t o encounter directly the difference of being and beings, the ontotheological, identitarian account of being must be reduced.

Thought, by thus moving into the between of ontological difference, can move into what Heidegger calls the Same; the Sameness of thought and being can be appropriated only by way of difference. Heidegger appeals to an idiosyncratic interpre- tation of Parmenides: for the same perceiving (thinking) as well as being.3 Whereas the doctrine of metaphysics (in the improper, ontotheological sense) states that identity belongs to Being, Heidegger develops a more fundamental condition where thinking and Being belong together in the Same and by virtue of this Same.4 The Same distinguishes itself from the identical insofar as the Same is a belonging together where belonging determines together. The benefit of this distinction is the possibility of no longer representing belonging in the unity of the together, but rather of experiencing this together in terms of bel~nging.~ The Same, in other words, frees the sense-and experience-of thought and beings belonging together from the presuppositions of identity. At stake is a reduction of identity in virtue of unthought difference, and consequently a new articulation of the relation of thought and being (a relation vaguely invoked by the belonging together of the Same). Reduction thus puts identity out of play in order to advance toward an event of appropriation-an event in which thought encounters ontological difference and appropriates the concomitant possibility of thought and beings belonging together.6 Thus the Heideggerean reduction opens ua more originary way-a way prior to the identity that is reduced-and moves out of [improper, ontotheological] metaphysics into the essential nature of metaphysics, a n essence encountered through unthought difference.I

Two critical questions arise in the wake of Heideggers analysis, and the points they present are those around which any Heideggerean inheritance pivots. First, there is the matter of constitution. The fact that, with the Same, belonging determines togetherness-rather than vice versa-undoubtedly suffices, at least in an initial manner, to separate thinking from identity and representation. There are, however, places where the nature of this separation remains vague. We experience,

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rather than represent, sameness-yet what is it that takes place in experience? It involves a belonging together where belonging is the experience of thinking. But one must ask whether the Same is already there and then enters into the experience of thinking, or whether there is some sense in which the experience of thinking genuinely constitutes the Same? We have Heideggers ambiguous claim that the event of appropriation moves us from (improper) metaphysics to the essential nature of the metaphysical, yet this essential nature is indeterminate. A thinking of the Same, by way of unthought difference, seems both to open a new thought-being relation and to return t o a yet more primordial and originary metaphysics. Accordingly, we must ask whether the event appropriates what is already constituted, or whether the event genuinely constitutes what it appropriates?

Second, there is the temporality of thinking-or of coming to think-the event of appropriation. The relation between the reduction of being-as-identity and the donation of being-as- difference must be temporalized. On one hand, being is already available since it arrives neither incidentally nor only on rare occasions, but on the other, i t is not present in the proper manner (due t o ontotheological blockages).8 I t is therefore a matter of enabling being t o emerge otherwise, as difference rather than as identity. Crucial to this process, however, is the question of time. The donation of a belonging together of thought and being is promised, through the reduction of identity, but it is not something that could be achieved in a day ... it must take its time, the time of thinking.g It is within this indeterminate time of thinking that the processual dynamic of reduction and donation is located. Accordingly, the event of appropriation, the passage from the reduction of identity t o the donation of the Same, is set forth not only by the thought of unthought difference, but also by the time of thinking. This means a novel relation between thought and being pivots not only around the question of difference, but also around the question of time. In order to advance further into these questions, or into the link between the question of difference and the question of time, we must move from Heideggers ambiguous formulation of this problematic to the development of this problematic as i t is found in Derrida and Deleuze.

2. The Delay of the Event of Appropriation

We can first turn to Derrida, who offers a significant elaboration (or renovation, perhaps) of the theme of difference. Derridas elaboration, like Heideggers own thought, has a phenomenological provenance. Yet while Heidegger moves straightforwardly from phenomenology t o ontology (due to phenomenologys

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inability t o answer the question of being), Derrida seeks to delineate the exact degree to which phenomenology truly permits an opening onto being. For Derrida, in other words, the validity of Heideggers discourse on being must be crossed by a phenomenological analysis of the move from phenomenology to ontology.

Derrida argues tha t phenomenology, while attempting t o distance itself from (improperly) metaphysical philosophies by subjecting every (first) principle to the principle of principles- that is, the principle that evidence lies solely in the immediacy of lived experience-still remains (improperly) metaphysical in tha t i t conceives lived experience according t o a notion of presence. Derrida demonstrates that presence can come to be only on the basis of what amounts to an absence, such that absence is just as much a part of experience as is presence. The very criterion that phenomenology uses in order to separate real experience from baseless metaphysical presupposition is itself presupposed-or, a t the very least, not given in experience. If phenomenology seeks t o break from the (improperly) metaphysical by perceiving things according to lived experience, or to their mode of appearance (i.e., presence), then it must also carry out a further critique (or phenomenology) of notions of experience and appearance-a phenomenology of phenomenology. In this sense, one could say tha t Derrida turns the impetus of phenomenology against phenomenology proper.

The argument that absence is a condition of appearance opens a layer of experience that might be named as the inapparent.l0 But if phenomenology sets the conditions of possibility for appearance, and that which is is such only because it presents itself according to the conditions of phenomenality, then phenomenology itself enters an undecidable state-for the determined conditions of appearance necessarily carry a layer of experience that cannot finally present itself according to these conditions. The phenomenon is essentially prevented from presenting itself as a phenomenon due to the irreducibility of the inapparent. For this reason, it is insufficient to say that Derrida preserves the phenomenological method while discarding phenomenology. He calls into question the methodological criterion itself. Furthermore, the phenomenological evidence is doubled: on one hand, it shows nothing, but on the other (if we follow Derrida), the failure to show is not a lack-this would be the case only if we retain the metaphysical presupposition of presence. Phenomenology shows nothing, but this nothing is not simply nothing; what it shows is inapparent, and this inappearance is neither appearance nor not-appearance.

The ambiguity of the inapparent is extended by Derridas claim that the polemical unity of appearing and disappearing [is] irreducible. This polemos signifies the authenticity of phenomenological delay and limitation.12 Phenomenology thus makes valid the reality of the between of appearing and dis-

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appearing, a between that makes temporality and spatiality ineluctable. I t is through this temporalization and spatialization that differance is articulated. The verb differer, Derrida points out, has two valences: first, it indicates a deferring, the action of putting off until later, a delaying; second, it indicates a differing, a discernibility or nonidenti~a1ity.l~ The former valence implies a temporalization of difference, while the latter implies a spatialization of difference. Therefore difference is said in two valences, one of which must be foregrounded. Differance, however, says both valences at once by putting them in circulation. It can do this because it adopts the middle voice ( -ance) , which refuses the choice between active and passive, and thus prevents a situation in which either spatial difference (discernibility) or temporal difference (delay) is the effect of the other. Derridas differance affirms this middle voice by articulating the becoming-time of space and the becoming- space of time.14 Now, if it is this play of differance-f appearance and inappearance, of presence and absence-that phenomenology makes irreducible, what are we t o say of a phenomenological path into being?

Derrida both affirms and critiques Heideggers path. He affirms the necessity of a phenomenological opening onto the question of being. If one commits oneself t o the phenomenological approach and attempts to fulfill the phenomenological task, one finds tha t phenomenology opens onto a question it cannot resolve from within its own resources. This question is the question of being. Such a question also involves the question of a history of being. This is the case because, as thought poses the question of being, it rearticulates or modifies the thought- being relation. The various emergences of these modifications of the thought-being relation are dependent on the manner in which the relation is exercised through questioning, and they make up beings history. I t is in this sense, Derrida says, that phenomenology can be articulated, without confusion, within philosophy posing the question of being or Hi~tory.~ In this moment we are beyond phenomenology, but legitimately so. However, if we are to grasp Derridas critique of Heidegger, we must understand what makes the advance from phenomenology t o ontology legitimate. Heideggers advance is illegitimate insofar as it assumes that phenomenology, because i t cannot answer the question of being, may simply be discarded in favor of ontology. Against Heideggers ontological supercession of phenomenology, Derrida argues tha t the question can never simply precede transcendental phenomenology as its presupposition or latent ground.lG One may-indeed, one must-move from phenomenology to the question of being, but one must do so by following phenomenology all the way to the end, such that the question would mark within philosophy in general the moment wherein phenomenology terminates as the philosophical

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propaedeutic for every philosophical d e ~ i s i o n . ~ All this, however, raises the question, why is it so important to pursue phenomenology to its limit, if indeed it is limited? We must do so, Derrida argues, because phenomenology still retains the capacity to articulate conditions for ontological decisions. Even though phenomenology cannot make such decisions, ontology cannot ignore certain phenomenologically delineated structures of experience. For Derrida, one key structure that Heidegger ignores is temporalization.

The decisions made by thought are what modify the thought- being relation and, thus, the history of being. These decisions, however, cannot be separated from their condition. Decisions determinative of the thought-being relation, and thus of the history of being, are themselves conditioned by a fundamental temporalization of the thought-being relation that is decided. We return here to what Derrida highlighted as the authenticity ojEphenomenologica1 delay and limitation. This delay, far from being that which may finally be overcome by a decision-such as is found in Heideggers event of appropriation-is that which must itself be appropriated. The delay is no longer the time until appropriation, nor the time it takes to appropriate, it is now the very object of appropriation. Reduction is only pure thought as ... delay, pure thought investigating the sense of itself as delay within philosophy.l* Derrida thus resolves, or perhaps complicates, the Heideggerean ambiguity between the event of appropriation and the temporality of this appropriation. It is resolved insofar as time is not just that which lies between (improperly) metaphysical thought and thought tha t appropriates the essence of metaphysics; rather, it is that which itself must be thought in order to accede to any appropriation. But is this still the same event of appropriation? Here the ambiguity remains. Derridas reformulation claims that delay and limitation are irreducible, and this seems to turn the event of appropriation in a very different direction. Yet he also claims that, within this delay, there appears an alterity of the abso- lute rig in,"'^ and this certainly corresponds (even if only loosely) to Heideggers essence of metaphysics.

3. What Comes After Diffhrance?

Derrida, we can now see, pushes phenomenology to its limits, as well as to its most fundamental insights, through the discovery of a polemical play between appearance and disappearance (or between presence and absence), and of a delay intrinsic to the temporality of reduction. Differance names the condition in which the s e p h e nom e n o 1 og i c a1 structure s become full y operative. I t radically temporalizes and spatializes difference, such that difference cannot be equated with the differentiation of an organic whole or the teleology of a dialectical negation of

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negation. Differance is anterior to these paradigms, which are then grasped as stoppages or inadequate resolutions of differential play. In this sense, the movement of differance is irreducible and cannot be surpassed (although we will qualify this below). One could say that we find ourselves in the movement of differance. At the same time, the play of difference articulated by differance does not unfold according to an eternal law-on the contrary, i t is historical. Derrida notes that if the word history did not in and of itself convey the motif of a final repression of difference, one could say that only differences can be historical from the outset and in each of their aspects.20 How, then, are we to negotiate differances dual status as phenomenological structure and historical openness?

We have already discussed Derridas complicated proximity to Heidegger. This proximity is further evinced-and in an especially direct manner-when Derrida claims that differance is irreducible to any ontological or theological-onto-theological- reappropriation and is the very opening of the space in which onto-theology-philosophy-produces its system and its history.21 In other words, Derridas differance, like Heideggers ontological difference, is prior to and effects a reduction of ontotheology. What, then, is the relationship of priority between differance and ontological difference? It initially seems possible to lean toward either of two alternatives. In the first alternative, differance is simply a deployment or unfolding of ontological difference, a way of giving ontological difference more precision. In the second alternative, differance is the very condition of thinking the difference of being and beings, such that ontological difference amounts to an effect of differance. Here differance requires the thinking of an unheard-of thought, that is, one not yet called for by Heidegger. I t marks the very possibility of an ontological difference and is thus, as Derrida says, older than being.22 This second alternative would initially seem preferable, though i t might be imprecise to derive i ts propriety from its transcendental antiquity. Perhaps it would be better to say that differance, though not older than being, is faster-not in the sense of a quantitative speed, but in the sense that differance is able to think its temporalization. Differance puts difference and time in circulation. The delay of phenomenological reduction, which is at the essence of the movement of differance, makes the question of difference unthinkable apart from the question of time. In doing so, it interweaves the problems of temporalization and constitution. Differance, then, does not deploy ontological difference, for it is the delay that constitutes ontological difference.

Let us return to the question of history. If differance names the movement that constitutes and temporalizes the passage of reduction and donation, and if this movement-that is, deconstruction-is irreducible, what then does i t mean to say that

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this play of difference is itself historical from the outset? If differance is historical, then does this mean differance can be reduced to history? Certainly not, if this involves forgetting that differance is the condition for thinking history. History only emerges as history through diffkrance. This means not tha t differance is the essence of history but, rather, that differance is the condition for thinking history as genuinely history, as the openness of difference. No history without differance, then, but where this is true it seems that differance need not be the final word. And this is actually quite literally true when Derrida remarks that differance is neither a word nor a concept, but a strategic name.23 He wish[esI to emphasize that the efficacy of the thematic of differance may very well, indeed must, one day be superseded, lending itself if not to its own replacement, at least to enmeshing itself in a chain that in truth it never will have commanded. Whereas, once again, it is not theologi~a l .~~ The relation between the name differance and the (historical) differential movement it marks out is determined by strategy. It is important t o note the slippage between a movement-here determined as the play of difference-and its strategic name (differance). This slippage is conditioned by the manner in which (historical) differential movement produces an exteriority that cannot be named beforehand. This is the reason not only for the strategic origination of its name, but also for the possibility- indeed, the necessity-of this strategic names nonfinality.

All Derrida wishes to observe by this strategic name-a name that is ultimately conditioned, and in principle exceeded, by the very character of the movement it describes-is that any replacement for it cannot belong to a thought that would resolve differential play in virtue of a preconceived manner of identifi- cation. Granting this, there is still the question of whether the gap between differance and the differential play it strategically names requires a further deconstruction of diffbrance itself? One cannot reduce differance in any basic manner, but one can pass through it, in virtue of the differential play that exceeds it. In this passage one may exceed differance not by way of identity but, rather, by way of differential play. We can, therefore, see how a history conditioned by differance may surpass differance as a result of the historical openness that differance strategically names.

Perhaps the essential question is: What comes after differance? This question can be posed in two senses. First, we view it in the obvious relation to chronological position. If the name of diffkrance will be replaced, then what replaces it? Yet what truly matters is a second, more fundamental question concerning differances role as a transcendental-that is, as a condition of the movement or play of difference. If differance must be replaced (though in a manner consistent with the sort of conditions i t delineates), then there is a condition belonging t o

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differential play that exceeds differance itself. In other words, if differance can or must be replaced, then there is a capacity of differential play-which thought must encounter-that is not named by the transcendental condition of differance. The question of after-differance would be not simply historically after, but transcendentally before. That which is donated in the movement named by differance may exceed, and thus cause us to replace, the reduction articulated by differance. There is, intrinsic to the passage of reduction and donation, a n open relation between thought and difference tha t exceeds the articulation of differance.

Derrida, in a critique of Edmund Husserls phenomenology, stresses the need to make this excess-described here in terms of time and matter-into the essential object of thought. Derrida argues that Husserl, despite his attempts to integrate structural and genetic phenomenology, failed to grant sufficient attention to the latter. A specific point of contention is Husserls division of labor between morphe and hyle. Derrida remarks tha t , for Husserl, hyle indicates the sensate . . . material of affect before any animation by intentional form. I t is the pole of pure passivity without which consciousness would be severed from its outside and receive only itself.25 In this sense, consciousness is dependent on hylt7. Yet even as Husserl requires hyle in order for phenomena to emerge, he does not adequately thematize this condition of phenomenal emergence. Husserls hyle, Derrida says, is primarily temporal matter and the possibility of genesis itself.26 But despite hylZs value, Derrida continues, Husserl arranges phenomenological concepts such that hy le is always placed in a derivative relation to morphe. HylF provides the material necessary to morphe and, in this sense, concerns the genesis of morphe. Nonetheless, Husserl makes the sense of what is generated the property of morphe, rather than of hyle. Consequently, the genesis of phenomena, by means of hyle, is subordinated to a predetermination by morphe. Because morphe holds a privileged position in a structural phenomenology, we can see how the structural delimitation of the genetic turns on morphes delimitation of hyle. To grant proper weight t o hyle would be to mark the (phenomenological) necessity of moving from a structural to a genetic phenomenology. Derrida signals the distance between Husserls account and what is required by his own strictures by asserting that there must be a break or a conversion toward the genetic.27 Thought must, in other words, attend to the alterity presented by time and matter, which belong to the genetic and are constitutive of phenomena.

At the heart of Derridas criticism of Husserl is the claim tha t thought must take primarily temporal matter as its essential object. Husserls exclusion of time and matter from the object of thought rests on the baseless presupposition that form is primary. Derrida argues, on the contrary, that the formlessness

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of temporal matter, rather than forms givenness, is primary. Husserl, by granting form primacy over temporal matter, effectively grants the generated primacy over the condition of possibility for its generation. This formless, temporal, material condition of generation, we should add, is the play of difference. Accordingly, we can see that Derrida, in strategically naming differential play as differance, repeats Husserls mistake. Husserl indicates the role of time and matter, but he fails to grant primacy to this role. He does not achieve a point of view intrinsic to time and matter, preferring instead to maintain an extrinsic point of view. Similarly, Derridas differance remains extrinsic to the differential play it strategically names, failing to provide a point of view intrinsic to differential play in-itself.

4. From an Extrinsic to an Intrinsic Relation to Difference

In order to find a point of view intrinsic to difference, it is necessary to turn to Deleuzes work. I will first attend to his theory of language, noting i ts affinity with some of Derridas claims, before showing how Deleuzes theory of difference advances beyond that proposed by Derrida.

Deleuze argues that, in addition to the three conventional dimensions of a proposition-denotation (or indication), manifestation, and signification-there is a fourth dimension, which is that of sense. Denotation, manifestation, and signification form a circle. When we move from one conditioned dimension (D,) to its conditioning dimension (DJ, we also move from the condition back to the conditioned, for the conditioning dimension (D,) is conditioned by the third dimension (D,)-which itself is conditioned by the conditioned dimension (D,) with which we began. To escape this turning about, it will be necessary to have something unconditioned capable of assuring a real genesis of denotation and of the other dimensions of the proposition. Thus the condition of truth would be defined no longer as the form of con- ceptual possibility, but rather as ideational material or stratum, that is to say ... as sense.28 This fourth dimension, sense, is that which conditions all three dimensions of our circle without being conditioned by any of them.

The truth of a proposition, then, lies not in what it denotes, manifests, or signifies, for all of these are conditioned by sense, or ideational material. A propositions sense is irreducible to any of these conditions. Accordingly, to judge a proposition as nonsensical in virtue of its failure to denote, manifest, or signify something logical or recognizable is to miss the point. Such a judgment addresses the proposition from the point of view of a logical form of sense, rather than from the unconditioned ideational material upon which the proposition depends. Judgment of this kind gets it backwards, for the imperative is not to subject

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the proposition to forms of sense, it is instead to subject these forms of sense to the unconditioned. At stake is a reduction of forms of sense, such that unconditioned sense-the ideational material upon which forms of sense depend-might be donated.

The reduction of sense sets forth the emergence of nonsense. Importantly, nonsense appears not as the privation of sense-as the judgment set forth by forms of sense would have it-but rather as the excess of sense. The fact that nonsense is the generative condition of sense can be highlighted by contrasting the sense-nonsense relation with the true-false relation. The judgment of a proposition as true or as false is dependent upon its accord or lack of accord with a determined form of sense. Yet sense, when understood in terms of its nonsensical generation, is unconditioned and formless. While the false is derived from its disaccord with a form of truth, nonsense is derived from the formless condition of all forms. Nonsense belongs to the excessiveness of sense; when a proposition has no sense, this is not due to a lack. As Deleuze remarks, Nonsense is that which has no sense, and that which, as such and as it enacts the donation of sense, is opposed to the absence of sense.29 Sense, as the unconditioned, is excessive, and the non- of sense names this intrinsic excessiveness. A proposition is not sensible for adherents of common forms of sense, but this not is prior to the very form of sense that would exclude such a proposition from the sensible. Common forms of sense are thus rendered accidental o r secondary, for they presuppose a donation of sense in relation to which they are epiphenomenal.

Deleuze is thus far in close proximity to Derrida, who argues that morphe functions in Husserl according to a logic analogous to what Deleuze calls common sense. Derridas demand that Husserl convert to a genetic phenomenology resembles Deleuzes call t o move from conditioned forms of sense t o an unconditioned, formless dimension of sense. I t is in fact Derridas additional achievement to show that Husserls phenomenology of language is still too formal, for the latter ties sense, or the quality of being logical, to classical notions-those that are formal or already fully constituted, apart from open temporality-of knowledge, objectivity, and reason. A phenomenology stripped of these unfounded constraints, Derrida argues, would have to affirm the signifying force of such formations as Abracadabra or Green is where.30 The point is simply that Derrida-not unlike Deleuze-wants to grant sense to nonsensical propositions. Both Derrida and Deleuze call for a reduction of those formal conditions that would distinguish sense from nonsense. For both thinkers, reduction effects a donation of nonsense, such that the real primacy of the nonsensical is asserted. The ensuing task, however, is to find a way not only to assert the primacy of the nonsensical, but also t o make the nonsensical into the object of thought.

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While Derrida and Deleuze are basically in agreement with regard to the imperative of reduction, they diverge with regard to the possibility of becoming adequate to what is donated. For Derrida, the donation of nonsense is set forth through differance. Nonsense exceeds given sense in virtue of the play of difference. Differance articulates the irreducibility of this differential play to any form or telos. What is nonsensical is the play of difference, and differances essential function is to affirm the impossi- bility of resolving this differential play from a point of view extrinsic t o difference. What remains, however, is the task of providing a point of view intrinsic to the play of difference. Derrida himself asserts that differance does not provide such an intrinsic point of view. We can see this by recalling his admission that differance must be superceded. I t must be superceded because its relation to differential play is strategic and extrinsic. Differance articulates a strategic denial of any thought that would resolve and foreclose differential play, but i t does not articulate the play of difference itself. Its strategy is to draw a border around differential play, such that differential play is secured against any resolution of difference from the outside. In doing so, however, differance itself remains extrinsic to the differential play it secures. Again, i t is for this reason that Derrida admits the necessity of differances replacement, and it is in view of this necessity that we have spoken of an after- differance. What, then, comes after differance? It would have to be a manner of thinking that sets forth a point of view intrinsic t o differential play. I contend that such an intrinsic point of view can be found in Deleuze.

In order to understand how Deleuze provides a point of view intrinsic to the play of difference, we can turn to his theory of singularity. For Deleuze, difference consists of and persists as a transcendental field of preindividual singularities. These singularities constitute a field of pure difference, of difference in-itself. Therefore individuals are not singular, they are on the contrary resolutions of the pure difference set forth by the field of singularities. As transcendental, the differential play of singularities furnishes the condition of possibility for the constitution of individuals. Similarly, this transcendental field sets forth the condition of possibility for the constitution of sense. If nonsense exceeds every presumed form of sense, it is because the transcendental field of singularities, as pure difference, remains nonsensical and formless in-itself. Singularities thus provide the ideational material that Deleuze points to as the unconditioned dimension of sense.

Unlike Derrida, however, Deleuze proceeds not simply t o secure the donation of difference against its occlusion, but also to envision a manner in which thought might engage with, and perhaps become adequate to, this donation. Deleuze does this by emphasizing the objectively problematic character of difference.

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The transcendental field of singularities poses a field of differences, a differential field that is objective and determinate. To be objective and determinate, however, is not to be closed. The great advance of Deleuze here is to bring together objective determinacy and openness. Singularities make difference objective, but the manner in which they do so makes objectivity problematic. Objectivity, as the intensive difference of singularities, is immediately open or problematic-that is, the problem posed by difference opens beyond the given solutions furnished by common forms of sense. Thus the field of singularities, as nonsensical, formless difference in-itself, provides a problematic horizon in excess of any predetermined sense or form. At the same time, however, the singular determination of a differential problematic sets forth the conditions for the generation of new senses and forms. The play of difference, objectively determined by singularities, certainly refuses any thought driven by given sense and forms, but it simultaneously provides the object of a new kind of thought. This new kind of thought is one that begins from the nonsensical and formless, one that finds in the nonsensical and formless a possibility for the constitution of novel senses and forms. The objectivity of singularly determined difference in-itself does not become something to be negatively secured against what is already given, it becomes-more affirmatively-that which must be thought. Here we find a point of view intrinsic to difference, for difference becomes the matter of thought.

Deleuze gestures at this possibility when he describes the unconditioned dimension of the proposition-sense, o r more precisely nonsense, as senses excess over every conditioned dimension of sense-as ideational material. Difference is the objective material of thought, but because this material is problematic and nonsensical, the only manner in which thought gen- erates ideas adequate to difference is through creation. The aim of ideas is not to correspond to difference, but rather to create new ideas out of the ideational material of difference. Ideas cannot achieve isomorphism with difference, since difference is formless. Nevertheless, this formless material provides a horizon for creation, whereby the created senses and idea-objects are generated by the composition of differences problematic ideational material. It is in view of this compositional process of differential creation that Deleuze can say that problems are Ideas themselves, and that Ideas are the differentials of Thought achieves a point of view intrinsic t o difference, for it affirms difference in the same moment that it creatively composes it.

5. Time

Let us now return to the question of time. I argued, at the outset of this essay, that the essential ambiguity of Heideggers efforts

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resides in the question of constitution, and particularly in the question of the temporality of constitution. Heidegger aims at the constitution of a new relation between thought and being, and he makes this constitution pivot around a thinking of what has remained unthought-namely, difference. A new relation between thought and being thus calls for a reduction of an identitarian (or ontotheological) thought-being relation. What is donated by this reduction is difference, which makes possible the sought-after novel thought-being relation. But again, it was unclear whether the temporality of thinking difference reveals a novel thought-being relation that is already there yet presently occluded, o r whether the temporality of thinking difference actually constitutes a novel relation.

Derrida argues convincingly that the temporality of thinking difference cannot be accidental to what it constitutes. He demonstrates that difference involves some manner of deferral, such that the thought of difference must become a temporal thought. Accordingly, the temporality of thinking difference must truly constitute the donation of difference. Derrida, in support of this point, goes so far as to install a delay into any attempt to think difference. He does this through his articulation of differance, which names the play of difference, but in doing so affirms a gap between this naming and the play of difference in-itself. The gap between the name of differance and difference in-itself is a temporal one-it is in virtue of this temporal gap that Derrida observes the necessity of a supercession of the name of differance. Accordingly, the articulation of differance is also an articulation of after-differance, or also an articulation of a temporality of thinking difference that exceeds differance.

The significant benefit of Derridas differance, I argued, is tha t i t secures the play of difference in-itself from any pre- mature attempt t o capture, foreclose, and resolve difference. Putting this benefit in terms of the question of time, it becomes clear that Derrida, in securing difference in-itself from its pre- mature closure, also secures the temporality of difference. The gap between the strategic name of differance and difference in- itself is a temporal one. I argued, however, that difference in- itself is secured by Derrida only by way of an extrinsic point of view on difference. We can now see that, similarly, the temporality of thinking difference is secured only by way of an extrinsic point of view on time. For Derrida, time-as perpetually indefinite delay-names the measure of the gap between the present and the play of difference, but this prevents time from ever naming the process by which we encounter and enter into the play of difference. What is needed, then, is a manner of achieving a point of view intrinsic to difference and to time.

Deleuzes account addresses this need, for it makes formless, nonsensical difference not only the irreducible excess of every predetermined form of sense, but also the problematically objec-

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tive matter of thought. Difference in-itself, as unconditioned ideational material, makes possible novel encounters of thought. Importantly, with regard t o the question of time, this means that the temporality of thinking difference becomes the temporality of creatively composing difference. Deleuze affirms, with Derrida and against Heidegger, that time is essential rather than accidental to the constitution of difference. He departs from Derrida, however, by envisioning time in a creative manner. Derrida secures difference in-itself by conceiving time as the insuperable delay between thought and differential play. Deleuze, on the contrary, conceives time affirmatively-he conceives it not as tha t which opens a gap between thought and differential play but, rather, as that by which thought enters into differential play. The temporality of thinking difference thus becomes the temporality of encountering differential plays problematic objectivity. Because this problematic objectivity becomes the essential matter of thought, thought can creatively compose difference. Derrida, of course, might fear that such compositional endeavors would amount to a foreclosure of time, and thus of difference. But this fear has no ground in Deleuzes account, for thought creates only by composing, and it composes only by returning, temporally, to the objectively differential and problematic ideational matter of thought.

Notes

I t should be noted t h a t , in making use of t h e language of reduction and donation, I am borrowing from the work of Jean-Luc Marion (see especially his Reduction and Givenness, trans. Thomas A. Carlson [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 19981, but also his Being Given, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 20021). While I do not find the entirety of his work compelling, I do think tha t this language of reduction and donation provides an excellent way of getting at the heart of what is at stake in the work of Heidegger and Derrida (and, I would add, beyond Marion, in the work of Deleuze).

Mart in Heidegger, Ident i ty and Difference, t rans . Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 2002), 50. Stambaugh, in a corresponding footnote, aptly comments t h a t this key term, Das zu - Denkende, is tha t which gives thinking to us and it is tha t which is to be thought.

Ibid., 27. Ibid. Ibid., 29. Ibid., 39. Ibid., 40, 51. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 41.

lo The concept of t h e inapparent, like those of reduction and donation, may be derived from t h e work of Marion. I n th i s case, however, I would note t h a t t h e l ineage described by Dominique

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Janicaud-in Toward a Minimalist Phenomenology, Research in Phenomenology 30, no. 1 (2000): 89-106-provides a better point of reference for the concept.

l 1 Jacques Derrida, Edmund Husserls Origin of Geometry: A n Introduct ion, t r a n s . J o h n P. Leavey, Jr. (Lincoln: Universi ty of Nebraska Press, 19891, 153.

l 2 Ibid. l3 Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, t rans . Alan Bass

l4 Ibid. l5 Derrida, Edmund Husserls Origin of Geometry, 150. l6 Ibid. l7 Ibid. l8 Ibid., 153. l9 Ibid. 2o Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, 11. 21 Ibid., 6. 22 Ibid., 22, 26. 23 Ibid., 7. 24 Ibid.; my emphasis. 25 Jacques Derrida, Writ ing and Difference, t rans . Alan Bass

26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., 164. 28 Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, t rans . Mark Lester (New

29 Ibid., 71. 30 Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on

Husserls Theory of S igns , t rans . David B. Allison (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press), 99.

31 Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetit ion, t rans . Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 19941, 162, 181.

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 8.

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19781, 163.

York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 19.

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