Somers-Hall, (1.11), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘1.11 Phenomenology (55–7/67–9)’, 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 1. Difference in Itself

1.11 Phenomenology (55–7/67–9)

Brief summary:

Many philosophical systems explain reality by means of such concepts as limitation, negation, and opposition. Deleuze showed these to be flawed concepts. However, there is a reason they arise. Our knowledge of the things in our world is limited to our perspectival knowledge of them. In perception we can only view an object from our perspective, and we never see it from all possible perspectives at once. Nonetheless, we regard it as a whole thing, even though our phenomenal data can only constitute it partially. Deleuze thinks that the way we do this is by placing the partially constituted object into oppositional relations with other objects, so to define its boundaries and to constitute it negatively. In reality, the object can be no more than our perspective on it. Merleau-Ponty’s perspectival phenomenology could perhaps be not based on identity, but in fact it is, since the body is taken as a center of perception and thus to have a fixed identity.

 

Summary

[Previously we noted that Deleuze for the most part is against difference understood in terms of opposition. We now learn that, nonetheless,] “Deleuze does have a place for the notion of difference as opposition, although he says that ‘negation is difference seen from its underside, seen from below’ (DR 55/67)” (SH 50). And it is “only ‘the shadow of the more profound genetic element’ (DR 55/67)” (SH 50). Negation is often understood spatially, since something’s not being something else can be thought of as it standing outside it. “This pencil is not this piece of paper to the extent that they occupy different positions within the same space” (SH 50). [The basic reasoning here seems to be this. Most basically there is not extensive difference but rather there is only intensive difference. How that can be so will hopefully be clarified. What would that mean in physics for example, which studies the motion of objects through extensive space? At any rate, take that claim to be true. Extensive space is an illusion, and  is not fundamentally real. The next step in the reasoning seems to be that you cannot have oppositional difference without extensive spatiality. Since extensive spatiality is an illusion, then oppositional difference would be illusory too. The question we might raise is, ‘Is there really no other way to conceive oppositional difference except on the basis of extensive spatiality?’ I cannot think of any. It does seem that opposition requires an external relation between separate entities, and that externality carries with it a spatial sort of relation. Is it possible to have self-opposition without the self becoming two selves, or without that opposition being internal, like two warring components of oneself (which would be external to each other even though internal to the self they compose)?]

We can see that the same is true of the concept of negation. If we think about something not being something else, then we normally think of them as being spatially separated from one another. This pencil is not this piece of paper to the extent that they occupy different positions within the same space. Deleuze argues that extensive space is an illusion, but one that emerges quite naturally from the way in which we relate to the world. Intensive difference is generative of our notion of objective space, and it is this space which forms the basis of oppositional difference. If we forget the fact that this conception of space is generated from something more primitive, then we end up in a situation where it is possible to introduce the notions of opposition and negation. The world thus has a tendency towards oppositional difference, but we make a mistake when we take this tendency to be a completed state of things.
(50)

So somehow we generate the illusion of [negation and opposition and thus] identity. Deleuze explains how this is so by revising one of Merleau-Ponty’s central phenomenological claims. Deleuze will give a ‘genetic account’ of how this illusion of identity comes about. To follow his reasoning, we need to look first at three statements Deleuze makes in DR. [The first is that there are an infinity of representations in infinite representation. This can take two forms, depending on whether it is an infinity of the Large as with Hegel or an infinity of the Small as with Leibniz. With Hegel, the whole of the dialectic’s movement is infinite in that it is ceaseless (although I am not sure how to explain the fact that it begins in pure being and ends in the absolute). For Leibniz, each smallest part of the world expresses the entirety of the rest of the world, which is infinite. The next two quotes I cannot explain on the basis of what we have learned so far.]

1. Infinite representation includes precisely an infinity of representations – either by ensuring the convergence of all points of view on the same object or the same world, or by making all moments properties of the same Self. (DR 56/67)

2. The immediate, defined as ‘sub-representative’, is not therefore attained by multiplying representations and points of view. On the contrary, each composing representation must be distorted, diverted and torn from its centre. Each point of view must itself be the object, or the object must belong to the point of view. (DR 56/68)

3. Difference must become the element, the ultimate unity. (DR 56/68)
(SH 51)

SH then moves directly to a passage in Merleau-Ponty that Deleuze refers to. It comes from Phenomenology of Perception, and in it Merleau-Ponty gives “his account of the movement from our own perspective on the world to a positing of objective being” (SH 51). [In this quote, Merleau-Ponty first notes that our understanding of a phenomenal object is always limited by the fact that we can only see it from one perspective at a time. It is impossible to grasp it from all the infinitely many perspectives at once. This is not mentioned, but we might also think of how the object is internally composed and yet our vision often cannot penetrate most objects’ surfaces to see inside them. We might also note that there are many temporal perspectives as well. Nonetheless, instead of seeing the object itself as incomplete and unformed and missing the elements we cannot perceive, we instead ‘posit’ it as a whole object. Merleau-Ponty says this is a sort of ek-stase, which in other contexts he means a going outside of oneself. In this case it is perhaps us going outside the limitations of our own perspectival grasping of things and entering into a more third-person sort of position in relation to the objects of our experience]:

But, once more, my human gaze never posits more than one facet of the object, even though by means of horizons it is directed towards all of the others . . . If I conceive in the image of my own gaze those others which, converging from all directions, explore every corner of the house and define it, I have still only a harmonious and indefinite set of views of the object, but not the object in its plenitude . . . If it is to reach perfect density, in other words, if there is to be an absolute object, it will have to consist in an infinite number of different perspectives compressed into a single coexistence, and to be presented, as it were, to a host of eyes all engaged in one concerted act of seeing . . . The positing of the object therefore makes us go beyond the limits of our actual experience which is brought up against and halted by an alien being, with the result that finally experience believes that it extracts all its own teaching from the object. It is the ek-stase of experience which causes all perception to be perception of something. Obsessed with being, and forgetful of the perspectivism of my experience, I henceforth treat it as an object, and deduce it from a relationship between objects. (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 69–70)
(SH 51)

SH then explains what this passage means with regard to the limitations to perspectives. He also observes that when we posit the object, we seem to be treating all the perspectives on the object as inessential and logically posterior to the object itself. [It seems that originally the perspectives are essential to the object. I suppose we mean here essential to the phenomenal constitution of the object synthesized by means of our object-constituting consciousness.]

Merleau-Ponty’s point is that perception is always originally from and of a certain perspective. I can never see such a thing as a totalised object. As I move around the object, I begin to notice that although my | perspective on the object changes, when I return to my original position, something similar to the original perspective returns. On this basis of the fact that my own memory appears to preserve some perspectives, I posit what Merleau-Ponty calls ‘the memory of the world’ (Merleau- Ponty 1962: 70), which includes all possible perspectives on the object. Now, with an understanding of the object based on an infinite number of possible perspectives, my own view ceases to be relevant (I become ‘forgetful of the perspectivism of my experience’). I now suppose that rather than the object emerging from the accumulation of perspectives on it, the perspectives are in fact inessential, and logically posterior to the object itself.
(51-52)

[It seems that in order to move to the next point, we need to recognize that “the object is not considered to be constituted by perception”. We saw above that it is ‘posited’, but we never have sufficient perception to constituted it as a whole object. I suppose that is not controversial, but I assume that in phenomenology the object is still constituted in consciousness, using data from perception. I am not sure if the question is: using what other data is the object constituted? The remainder of this section I find very perplexing. I will go through it gradually.]

The final stage is to recognise that now the object is not considered to be constituted by perception, we need another explanation of how it is constituted.
(52)

[SH will now explain that one way the object can be constituted is by deducing it by means relationships between objects. It is not clear to me if we are still talking about phenomenal object constitution or some other sort of constitution, like physical constitution. But it seems safe to assume that it is phenomenal constitution. So we begin by noting that we cannot see a table for example from all spatial  perspectives both outside and within it, during this moment and all others of its existence. Still somehow the table becomes fully constituted in our mind even with that missing information. Supposedly now we understand it by means of its relationship with other objects. I will try to find some ways to understand this. One way is that we see that the table is not the floor and it is not the air around it. So while we do not know all of the table, we can maybe see a lot of what it is not, and by that means we can develop a negative or a relational sense of the table’s constitution. The table is not a whole phenomena in the sense that it is a thoroughly and completely determined phenomena, but it is whole in the sense that it has boundaries that we can discern, or it has determinate relations to other things which help define its boundaries. The only other way I would offer for making sense of this has to do with Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on the interconnectedness of all phenomena. I will not get into the details here, but if you want them you can read more in section 2 of my paper “Body and World in Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze”. The basic idea is similar to what we said in the prior section about Leibniz and the perspectival expression of the entire world in each monad. We look at the floor. It has certain shadings of color that tell us there is something obscuring the light falling on it. We indirectly perceive that there is a light and also a chair blocking that light, for example, even though we do not look up and see these other phenomenal objects yet. Each part of our phenomenal awareness is phenomenally connected with each other part, and they make a dense fabric. We in a way do perceive all corners of the cosmos, but just very, very implicitly. This is because the phenomenal traits of any part of our awareness are conditioned by phenomenal traits of nearby phenomena, which are conditioned by their nearby phenomena, and thus transitively the entirety of the phenomenal world is implied in each part. Perhaps SH means something else, but I cannot figure out what yet. He then says that these relationships are based on opposition and limits. So perhaps we might say that whatever other phenomena one phenomenon implies would lie outside its constitutional limits. (However, in the second possible interpretation I offer above, the absolutely thorough interpenetration of all phenomenal objects with all others would call into question the boundaries between any).

The final stage is to recognise that now the object is not considered to be constituted by perception, we need another explanation of how it is constituted. We thus alight on the idea that it can be deduced ‘from a relationship between objects’. This relationship is, of course, the relationship of opposition and limit. At this point, therefore, negation enters our world, as a precondition for limit.
(SH 52)

[The next point is interesting. So the reasoning again seems to be that perspectival perception is inadequate to constitute objects in their entirety, yet we still somehow do so, and we do so on the basis of negations, limits, and oppositions. For the next part of the reasoning, we need to assume that this negation, limit, and opposition were not already there, but were instead fabricated somehow by our consciousness. This seems perfectly possible, but it would help for some reasoning to understand why this might be. We seem to need to take it as an article of faith that negation, limit, and opposition are not inherent in the world. As far as I can tell, the reason we have to conclude this is that because these notions lead us to unresolved problems in explaining reality in its broadest and most specific senses (the problems of the Large and the Small), they must not be real. Therefore any instance of them must really be an illusion. But we seem to be begging the question here. How do we know that negation, limit, and opposition are phenomenal illusions or fabrications superimposed onto a world where there are none? Can it not be that they really are there, and that we are also phenomenally aware of them or that we phenomenally reconstitute them in our awareness? Our eyes move from left to right. We see a range of variations. We then draw lines in our world where before there was a continuous variation of visual information. But still, what we see on the left is different from what we see on the right. How could it possibly be that there is in reality not extensive space, with certain parts being external to other parts? I can understand how on the most local level of variation, for example our eyes just in the act of moving see a pure variation, that there can be no externality between parts but rather just pure intensive variation. However, our eyes make a wide sweep. How can it be that we see a different left from a different right side unless they are spatially distinct or somehow external to one another? Is it just because of the continuity of variation between one and the other makes them inseparable? At any rate, we are to regard the genetic conditions of negation and limit as being perspectivism. I am not sure, but I think what SH means here is simply that the limits of perspectivism create the conditions for us generating the illusion of negation and limit. Perspectivism does not however explain the actual genesis of negation and limit. This is perhaps irrelevant anyway. SH then asks how this fits in with Deleuze’s account, which implies I think that before we were indeed sticking with a Merleau-Pontian phenomenological sort of account.]

At this point, therefore, negation enters our world, as a precondition for limit. This account is therefore the account of the generation of an illusion, which, as Deleuze puts it, is nonetheless well founded. It shows how negation and limit enter the world through representation ignoring its genetic conditions (perspectivism). How does this then fi t in with Deleuze’s account?
(52)

[SH then will return to the three Deleuze quotations we began with. He says this account we give above fits in with what was said in those quotations. The first quote was: “1. Infinite representation includes precisely an infinity of representations – either by ensuring the convergence of all points of view on the same object or the same world, or by making all moments properties of the same Self. (DR 56/67)” (SH 51). SH says this account fits with “Deleuze’s characterisation of infinite representation as the convergence of all points of view (quotation 1)” (SH 52). I think I should try to make this clear, even though it seems quite clear already. The account we just gave said that we do not have all points of view. We compensate for this lack by fabricating oppositions. So perhaps this account ‘fits’ not in the sense that it matches up with its conclusion, but rather that it matches up with a claim that the account rejects. The only other explanation I can think of is that we are dealing with the thorough interpenetration of all phenomena that we discussed in our commentary above. That we noted is very much like the infinite representation of Leibniz. In that case, the need for negation and limit comes from the implicit/explicit distinction. Each phenomenal object is in fact thoroughly determined by means of its relations to all other phenomenal objects. However, much of our awareness of these infinitely many determinations is implicit and never comes to the surface of our consciousness. So perhaps it is on the basis of that implicit/explicit limitation somehow that we fabricate negation and limit.]

Such an account fits with Deleuze’s characterisation of infinite representation as the convergence of all points of view (quotation 1).
(SH 52)

[The next point is a bit difficult to grasp. The first part of it says that “Opposition comes into play through the gradual elimination of perspectives” (SH 52). I am not sure what is meant by ‘gradual elimination’. In the account as it was explained, there are perspectives that we have and those we do not have. We make up for our lacking knowledge by making use of fabricated limits and oppositional negations. I do not recall how any of those perspectives were eliminated. I can think of two ways this was so. First was that the other perspectives were possibilities or were otherwise hypothetical, and thus we eliminate them since they are not phenomenally available. The other way I can think this is so is that in fact we have all these other perspectives, but they are too implicit to make ready use of them in our object constitution, so we eliminate them. But in neither case do I understand how this elimination would be ‘gradual’. The next part of this point is that the account “fits with Deleuze’s desire that each point of view instead be the object, or the object must belong to the point of view (quotation 2)” (SH 52). This is not clear for me. Perhaps the reasoning is like this. We first take if for granted that for some reason the negation, limit, and opposition are illusory. That means the object is not fundamentally constituted by means of negation, limit, and opposition. That further means that we are left only with what we started with, our limited perspectival phenomenal data of it. On that basis, we noted, we cannot have the object as a unified and complete thing. At best, the object is little more than what is given in that limited perspective. Recall the quoted Deleuze passage was: “2. The immediate, defined as ‘sub-representative’, is not therefore attained by multiplying representations and points of view. On the contrary, each composing representation must be distorted, diverted and torn from its centre. Each point of view must itself be the object, or the object must belong to the point of view. (DR 56/68)” (SH 51). I am still not sure what is meant by the representation being distorted, diverted, and torn from its center. I was assuming that we are left with just our limited perspective. How is it torn away from us? Is it on account of the interpenetration of phenomena?]

Opposition comes into play through the gradual elimination of perspectives. It also fits with Deleuze’s desire that each point of view instead be the object, or the object must belong to the point of view (quotation 2). Such a view is a return to a form of perspectivism such as that found in Merleau-Ponty.
(SH 52)

[Merleau-Ponty was saying that we are limited to our perspectives (although this is only with explicit phenomena). Deleuze says that there is a “superior empiricism” that helps us understand “the reason behind the qualities and the being of the sensible”. I am not sure why from a perspectival phenomenology we would be unable to understand how the qualities of the sensible are given. (Also, I do not know what is meant by the ‘being of the sensible’). The issue as I understood it was that the perspectival phenomenology was unable to account for the phenomenal object in all its phenomenal properties. Also, Merleau-Ponty’s claim was that we do in fact go beyond our limited perspective to posit the object in its wholeness. Perhaps the difference here with Deleuze is that the positing is done without recourse to limitation, negation, and opposition. But I am not sure. Please judge for yourself.]

What about Deleuze’s final claim that ‘difference must become the element, the ultimate unity’? In the next paragraph, Deleuze claims that ‘the intense world of differences, in which we find the reason behind the qualities and the being of the sensible, is precisely the object of a superior empiricism’ (DR 57/68–9). This suggests that Deleuze’s analysis is going to go beyond the kind of perspectivism Merleau-Ponty proposes.
(SH 52)

[Also, it is still not clear to me how for Deleuze difference will be the element and ultimate unity. Is it that reality is somehow fundamentally a continuous intensive variation; since it is continuous, it is a unity, and because it is intensive variation,  it is differential? I think we will learn this later.]

[The next paragraph is also very difficult for me grasp. For Merleau-Ponty, as perhaps for Husserl too, the body is the the orienting center of all our perceptions. The first point SH seems to be making is that because it is a center, it is singular and has an identity. And because it is conceived as having an identity, it is improperly conceived, since we have rejected the possibility that things can fundamentally have an identity (again, perhaps on account of the problems of the Large and Small which tell us this identity is an unsuitable basis for our accounts). SH’s next point is that Deleuze will “explore what makes possible the kind of account Merleau-Ponty gives” (52d). I suppose this means Deleuze will explain on what basis we are able to incorrectly build a theory of phenomenal givenness that has a perspectival center of orientation, namely, a body which has an identity. Somehow that deeper basis is intensive difference. To get to the final point, it seems we need to regard certain assumptions phenomenologists make, such as that we have a body as a center of perception, as being byproducts of more basic genetic elements. Thus these assumptions are really “epiphenomena.” But I am not sure if by this Deleuze means that the more basic elements are themselves phenomenal, and the higher flawed ones are also phenomena but secondary and thus epiphenomenal. That does not seem right, so perhaps the ‘phenomenal’ here does not mean ‘phenomena’ in the sense of ‘givenness to our awareness’, but rather more like how it is used in science to refer to observable events.]

For Merleau-Ponty, what makes possible the field of perspectives is the body, but the notion of a body operates as an identity. Instead, Deleuze is going to try to explore what makes possible the kind of account Merleau-Ponty gives. Such an account will be what Deleuze calls elsewhere a ‘transcendental empiricism’, since it will deal with the | conditions of real experience. Intensive difference will therefore take the place of identity as being generative of our experience of the world. This means that while Deleuze can accept the phenomenological criticism of the objective understanding of the world, he can also reject phenomenology’s own account as not truly explaining the genesis of its own account. Phenomenology rejects the notion that the self-identical object gives coherence to perception, but fails to recognise that perspective itself still needs an explanation, this time in terms of difference. Phenomenology provides a description of phenomena, but what is needed is a genealogy of phenomena. Thus, Deleuze claims that ‘the whole of Phenomenology is an epiphenomenology’ (DR 52/63).
(SH 53)

 

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1962), Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.