Somers-Hall, (2.6), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘2.6 The Third Synthesis 2: Two Different Paralogisms (85–7/107–10)’, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos and other distracting mistakes. Somers-Hall is abbreviated SH and Difference and Repetition as DR.]

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself 

2.6 The Third Synthesis 2: Two Different Paralogisms (85–7/107–10)

 

 

Very brief summary:

To elaborate on his third synthesis of time, Deleuze turns to Kant’s cogito argument. We can only know that we exist if we have some experience of ourselves. But any such experience will be of an empirical self that varies continuously through time. What unifies that temporally various self is a transcendental self-awareness that is merely the formal unity of our ‘I’, which is the grounds for the unity of all representations. For Kant, then, there is an active synthesis by the transcendental ego that we never experience, since we only experience our passively synthesized empirical self. Deleuze thinks that in fact what gives synthetic unity to us and to the world is not a transcendental subject but rather a passive synthesis of some kind.

Brief summary:

For Deleuze, there are three syntheses of time, and the third is the synthesis of the pure empty form of time, which he elaborates with his notion of ‘time is out of joint’. One way he further develops this concept is by commenting on Kant’s critique of Descartes’ cogito argument: I think, therefore I am. Descartes might be saying that because at this moment you are thinking, that means you know there is an I who is doing that thinking. And furthermore, this I [for some reason] is self-same and self-identical, and thus it does not vary over the course of time. Kant observes that Descartes is forgetting that in order to determine ourselves, that is, to determine our ‘I’ as being because it is thinking, we need some determination. Now, our ‘I’ formally speaking is no more than the unity that provides the glue for all variations through time we experience in the world and in our own selves. So this formal unity itself does not tell us more about who we are. Instead, in order to find out about and thus determine ourselves, we need to actuallty experience ourselves. [Recall also that for Kant, concepts require intuitions for there to be cognitions. We can only have cognitions of ourselves if we also have intuitions of ourselves.] Yet, we can only have such self-experiences in a flow of continuously varying experience. This means that we are never self-same from moment to moment. This also means that we never actually cognize that pure formal self that Descartes seems to think we have mental access to. That formal self is what actively syntheses all empirically given variations, including both intuitions of the world and of ourselves. Deleuze, however, does not think that we and the world are synthesized actively by some transcendental self. Rather, we will see that the unity of both ourselves and the world are the product of some passive synthesis.

Summary

 

[We previously examined Deleuze’s third synthesis of time in terms of time not being understood in the sense of a regular motion measurable by comparing steady cyclical movements but rather as an a priori form of sensibility which provides the conditions allowing us to grasp events as happening in succession.] Deleuze will now explain time being out of joint by looking at subjectivity and in particular the different conceptions of subjectivity found in Descartes’ vs. Kant’s ‘Cogitos’. “Descartes’ claim is that in doubting, the I which doubts can at least be known with certainty” (76). Kant says that Descartes makes the mistake of subtracting time from the ‘I think, therefore I am’, since all thinking must be conducted in time. [I quote in case I miss something here.].

Kant’s claim in the paralogisms is basically that Descartes has made the error of assuming that time is an inessential determination of thinking. That is, the I that doubts is able to reflect directly on its nature as a thinking thing (‘Descartes could draw his conclusion only by expelling time’ [DR 86/109]). In fact, as we saw in the transcendental deduction, all thinking has to take place in time. It is an essential determination of thinking.
(SH 76a)

[The following material is some of the most challenging that I personally have encountered in Deleuze’s philosophy. SH will give us a remarkably efficient and elegant summary. SH first has us note the category of substance. We use it to construct a world that is amenable to judgment, I suppose because of the idea that we form judgments by means of the predication of subjects, and that structure matches a substance-property sort of relation. It seems SH’s purpose for this is that Descartes and perhaps also Kant are saying that we are making a judgment, that “I am”, and so the I is both the subject and substance, and the determination/predication/property is something like, “being a thing that exists” or something like that. This of course could also hold similarly for the “I think”, in that it could be, “I am a thing that thinks”. The next important point SH raises is that “substance is a way of organizing something which is given.” I suppose here the given is one’s own self, which is substantialized as something, as an ego or ‘I’, with such properties as ‘being a thing that thinks’ and ‘being something that exists’. SH then explains that for Kant it is important to note how it is that the subject, the self, I, or ego in this case, is determined. I suppose we might say that it is not determined through some intellectual exercise, like if we were to deduce that Socrates is an animal because he is a man. Rather, we can only know what the determining features of our own self are by means of actually experiencing our very own self. This means we can only base our determinations of ourselves by means of our intuitions. But as Kant already established in his “Transcendental Aesthetic”: “Time is a necessary representation that grounds all intuitions” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason A31/B46; p.162). In other words, so long as we have intuitions of ourselves, we do so by having intuitions of ourselves as we appear to ourselves in the experienced flux of temporal variation. But, the “I am” in Descartes’ formulation is not such a temporalized determination. (I am not exactly sure why this is so. Perhaps Descartes thinks our existence is not of a temporal sort. But I never thought about this. Is it not possible that Descartes’ “I am” can be understood to mean “I am something existing in the flow of time and therefore something capable of such actions as thinking”? What else could the “I am” mean? Is it just merely, “I am self-identical” or “I can be identified” or some other non-temporal sort of determination?) I am also not sure I follow SH’s next point, because I am not sure how it builds from this idea that intuitions of the self are temporal in some way. The next point is that when we introspect, we are not given as an object. SH writes: “As Kant notes, when we introspect, we don’t find the self as a given object: ‘No fixed and abiding self can present itself in this flux of inner appearances’ (Kant 1929: A107).” From that quote I did not gather that we are not given as an object, but rather that we are not given in a fixed and abiding way through the flux of time. Perhaps they means the same. At any rate, SH’s next point seems to be that since Descartes’ “I am” does not apply to a temporally variable substance, and yet the self as given in intuition is temporally variable, then Descartes misapplies the determination “I am.” This paragraph gives a very elegant explanation to this tricky idea, so let me quote it.]

Here we come to Descartes’ essential problem. Objects conform to our cognition, and in this sense the category of substance is something we use to construct a world that is amenable to judgement. As the transcendental deduction shows, it is one of the categories that makes thinking about objects possible. Now, Descartes is attempting to apply a determination (‘I think’) to an object that is undetermined (the ‘I am’), but according to our notion of substance, substance is a way of organising something which is given. According to Kant, the mistake is that Descartes hasn’t considered how the object can become determinable (under what form it can be given). For Kant, the answer is that objects are given in intuition, and therefore that the ‘I am’ can only be determined provided it is given to us by the intuition of time. But clearly the ‘I am’ that Descartes introduces as a thinking thing is not an object which is given to us in intuition. As Kant notes, when we introspect, we don’t find the self as a given object: ‘No fixed and abiding self can present itself in this flux of inner appearances’ (Kant 1929: A107). Descartes is therefore guilty of attempting to apply a determination outside of its proper sphere of application, by not using it as a form for synthesising intuitions, and it is this that leads him into error.
(SH 76)

[Let me continue by first quoting Somers-Hall.]

This brings us to the split in Kant’s philosophy. We can see what is going on here by relating the situation back to the transcendental deduction. There, Kant made the claim that ‘it must be possible for the “I think” to accompany all my representations’ (Kant 1929: B131). What made this possible was a prior synthesis by the transcendental unity of apperception. This prior synthesis was something about which we couldn’t say anything, as it was the ground for the categories (it was prior to notions such as substance).
(SH 76)

[The part above that I do not follow so well is when SH says that what makes it possible for the “I think” to accompany all representations is a prior synthesis by the transcendental apperception. I would think that it is possible for the ‘I think’ to accompany all representations without the transcendental apperception; however, the unity of those experiences requires it. In words, I had thought that it could be a different empirical “I” in each case. Let us first define apperception. “Consciousness of itself (apperception) is the simple representation of the I” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason B132, p.246). We have two apperceptions, the empirical and the transcendental. The empirical apperception (that is, our empirical self-consciousness and empirical representation of our ‘I’) is our intuitive awareness of ourselves as we vary continuously through the flux of time, I suppose like how we might notice ourselves change from happy to sad upon hearing the news of a loved one’s death. The transcendental apperception may be more difficult to conceptualize. We first note that anything we sense, imagine, or conceive will be a synthetic unity, since it will be made of parts that have been brought together. With regard to intuitions, as we noted, they are given to us at different moments. We also said that our empirical apperception (our consciousness of ourselves as varying continuously through time) does not give us exactly the same self each moment. If all we had were the empirical apperception, then we would not be able to synthesize intuitions given at different moments, since they were not given to one same consciousness but rather to a series of different consciousness. So, there needs also to be a mode of self-consciousness of a self which does not vary over time, but rather which has a formal (or perhaps we can just say, a ‘structural’) unity such that no matter how our own selves are given to us as self-inconsistent appearances in our intuitions, still it is one same “I” whose self-unity allows for it to remain the same regardless of its empirical variations through time. Kant calls this self-consciousness of a formally unified self the “transcendental apperception”: “Now no cognitions can occur in us, no connection and unity among them, without that unity of consciousness that precedes all data of the intuitions, and in relation to which all representation of objects is alone possible. This pure, original, unchanging consciousness I will now name transcendental apperception” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason A107, p.232). Kant then continues explaining this idea that the transcendental apperception is needed for us to unify our temporally varied intuitions.

Just this transcendental unity of apperception, however, makes out of all possible appearances that can ever come together in one experience a connection of all of these representations in accordance with laws. For this unity of consciousness would be impossible if in the cognition of the manifold the mind could not become conscious of the identity of the function by means of which this manifold is synthetically combined into one cognition. Thus the original and necessary consciousness of the identity of oneself is at the same time a consciousness of an equally necessary unity of the synthesis of all appearances in accordance with concepts, i.e., in accordance with rules that not only make them necessarily reproducible, but also thereby determine an object for their intuition, i.e., the concept of something in which they are necessarily connected; for the mind could not possibly think of the identity of itself in the manifoldness of its representations, and indeed think this a priori, if it did not have before its eyes the identity of its action, which subjects all synthesis of apprehension (which is empirical) to a transcendental unity, and first makes possible their connection in accordance with a priori rules.
(Kant, Critique of Pure Reason A108, p.233)

So, I understand how the transcendental apperception is responsible for there being one same “I” in all the temporally varied “I am thinkings” of our empirical awareness. But, I still do not understand so well the reasoning for why it is that the “I think” must accompany all representations. Here is one explanation Kant gives: “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representation would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing for me” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason B131-132, p.246). He seems to be saying that if there were no “I think” accompanying a representation, it would not be thinkable. I am not sure exactly what that means. Is it not possible to have a mindless sort of experience and then later think about it by trying to remember it (using hypnosis for example)? In fact, I would not know how to give a definition for the ‘I think’. Hector-Neri Castañeda’s way of dealing with this seems to be to consider the ‘I think’ as like an implied prefix that is affixed to all our representations, but more in the form of ‘I think that …’. So if we see a red ball, perhaps the idea is that even though it is an intuition and thus not something conceptual, there is still somehow implied in the structure of that intuition something that would allow us to articulate it as ‘I think that the ball is red’, or at least, ‘I think that I am experiencing something red [or just redness]’. At any rate, Kant continues that such an unthinkable representation would be either impossible or at least be nothing for me. I do not know why a representation that cannot be thought is impossible. I also do not know why it would be a problem if the representation “would be nothing for me”. Can it not exist as a representation but never be of any significance or consequence whatsoever? I do not know how we can be certain.] Kant’s criticism of Descartes is that he conflates these two kinds of apperception.

Now, Descartes’ error therefore emerges because he conflates two different levels: ‘the unity of apperception, which is subjective, is taken for the unity of the subject as a thing’ (Kant 2005: 240). This means that since we can only be given to ourselves in time, when we reflect, what we observe isn’t the activity itself (which is | transcendental), but merely the empirical after-effect of it (the ‘I think’ is merely an analytic result of an underlying process of synthesis) [the following up to citation is Deleuze quotation]:

The spontaneity of which I am conscious in the ‘I think’ cannot be understood as the attribute of a substantial and spontaneous being, but only as the affection of a passive self which experiences its own thought . . . being exercised in it and upon it but not by it. (DR 86/108)

When we introspect, therefore, what we encounter is not an active subject, but a subject intuited under the form of time, and subject to the same patterns of determination that any temporal object is subject to: a passive self.
(SH 76-77)

[The last paragraph is fascinating but as well a bit difficult. It seems the point is that for Kant, a synthesis must be actively performed by a transcendental subject. But Deleuze will offer an alternate account where synthesis is passive, and it constitutes a subject. What is responsible for this synthesis is somehow time itself, which constitutes both the passive self and the world we experience.]

Kant argues that in order for us to be able to accompany all of our representations by an ‘I think’, there must be a prior, active synthesis, as the unity of the manifold is experienced through the passive form of time. This inference to the conditions of possibility of the ‘I think’, however, rests directly on the notion that all synthesis involves an active subject. His definition of synthesis as ‘the act of putting different representations together, and of grasping what is manifold in them in one act of knowledge’ (Kant 1929: A77/B109) implies that the elements of time are simply passively given, and that all synthesis takes place by an active self. Given the passive nature of the ‘I think’, which is determinable under the form of time, Kant is therefore obliged to posit a transcendental ego which makes the ‘I think’ possible. Deleuze has an alternative explanation of how we are able to confront a unified world, which is that syntheses can also be passive. As we have seen, passive syntheses are constitutive of a subject, rather than the result of a subject’s activity. In this regard, what makes the ‘I think’ possible for Deleuze is ‘a synthesis which is itself passive (contemplation-contraction)’ (DR 87/109). In this sense, Kant posits the transcendental unity of apperception simply because he has ruled out a constitutive role for time itself by assigning all organisation to the understanding. If the transcendental unity of apperception isn’t responsible for unifying our world of appearances, what is? For Deleuze, time itself is going to be responsible for constituting both the passive self and the world that the passive self encounters. In order to explain how this occurs, he will introduce a new moment: the eternal return. There are two doctrines of the eternal return to consider: the exoteric doctrine which provides us with a symbol of the eternal return, and the esoteric doctrine which, as we shall see, we have already encountered in Chapter 1.
(SH 77)

 

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.

Or if otherwise noted:

DR:
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994/London: Continuum, 2004.

 

Kant 1929:

Kant, Immanuel (1929), Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith, London: St. Martin’s Press.

Kant 2005:

Kant, Immanuel (2005), Notes and Fragments, trans. Paul Guyer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Or Kant in my comments:

Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Eds. & Transls. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.