fragilekeys

Generic Hopes
(Loose remarks on Laruelle and Badiou)
Dated: March 26, 2017

For Alain Badiou, the One is not, because the one is always the result of the count of a multiple. Why? Because the only access to being is through the multiple. Being presents itself, in the first place, as an inconsistent multiple, what is called a pure multiple-presentation. However, this inconsistent multiple is unthinkable, precisely because thought takes place in a situation, and a situation already implies the operation of counting-for-one. The situation is structured such that every presented multiple belongs to it and can be counted as “one” element of the situation. Only retroactively can we say that, “upstream” of the situation, there is only inconsistency, and that presentation is an inconsistent multiple. “Downstream” there are consistent multiples, i.e., multiples that count for one, the many-ones that make up the situation which structures them.

The radicality of Laruelle’s approach is perhaps best illuminated when set beside this equally brilliant, though differently conceived, thought of the one. Non-philosophy stakes everything on the axiomatic posture it takes. At the simplest level, this posture posits that the undivided One is given without any operation of givenness – without any mediation by presentation, appearance, reception, or being. Vision-in-One means that all thinking about being and presentation, ones and multiples, the appearance and transcendence of the world, subjectivity and affectivity, takes place in-One, in the One as immanent a priori: the immanent real-One which causes thought in-the-last-instance, whereas thought never causes it or even thinks it, properly speaking. Here, the multiple is not thought with a view to being-qua-being or the count, but according to the One-in-One. The multiple could only be the One-in-superposition, the One that “remains” One without leaving itself. Continue reading →

Translation of: Alain Badiou, The Immanence of Truths, Section III, Chapter c11, parts 1-4 (out of 12)

Four accesses to the infinite

1. Objections concerning the set-theoretical concept of the infinite

I demonstrated previously that the ontology of every oppressive figure organizes itself based on an imperative of finitude. Now I launch into the counterpart of this negative observation: the aim is to establish that wherever human action liberates itself from the order that constraints it, it is a matter of an encounter with the infinite, in the figure of a work.

It is only natural to begin with what in any case we know about the infinite, a knowledge constitutive of mathematical thinking. This initial course will still be very approximative for two reasons. First, the dialectic finite/infinite is at the heart of the system [dispositif] of this entire book, and we will only see this clearly little by little. Second, the mathematical theory of the infinite is not only complex, but it is still today in the midst of evoltion.

For now it is only a matter of considering “in broad strokes” the challenge we are faced with, in its massiveness.

Objections concerning the infinite such as this book presents it – in the framework of set theory, the concept and the adequate formalisms – appear in two principle forms, instances of which we detailed in the first two sections but which deserve to be recalled here. Continue reading →

Bi-furcations of whatever sort – nature versus spirit, mind versus body, ultimate reality versus appearance, etc. – have their usage at the level of entrance into metaphysical ‘issues’ and as heuristics making it easier to investigate, discuss, and perhaps solve them, alone and together. Complication and nuance of the bifurcations, perhaps leading to zones of non-duality, come after contemplation of the basic dilemma, whereupon the either/or nature of the duality can be superseded.

Given how widespread these bi-furcation dilemmas are in human history, it is unlikely that they are just fabrications of this or that philosopher who happened to get stumped. When they receive canonical definition, for example by folks like Descartes and the mind-body problem, the drawback is that thought can then suffer from adherence to that definition as though it were an authority. Mental effort is then exerted to comprehend the canonical definition, rather than employing it for the sake of inner metaphysical discovery. Such definitions can provide coordinates to help orient in the conceptual territory, and so they can allow progress toward refutation, reformulation, and perhaps resolution of the dilemma, but only if enough time and contemplation is taken for them to become more than ‘intellectual’ exercises driven by the desire to be ‘right’.

In my experience, it is best to gain exposure to as many definitions of the dilemma as possible, both the canonical and the marginal, the obsessive and the dismissive, and to receive them all without bias, valuing whatever is unique about each model. That way contemplation avoids sticking to one specific model or definition and does not fall into the error of thinking that one specific model or conclusion – a merely external, discursive solution – will somehow resolve the issue. Rather, exposure to a multiplicity of models allows one to be experientially open to a creative transformation of the problem itself and especially its articulation. This can only happen once one feels in some way unbound from the dilemma as stated, once the original coordinates are well underway to reconfiguration. In other words, once a sort of non-discursive ‘resolution’ has been perceived or understood, through extended contemplation, thought can then freely enter back into the discourse without feeling detrimentally entangled by its many historical and conceptual referents. This is perhaps a resolution in ‘simplicity’; but it is also the grounding of thought in the non-temporal actuality that motivates the problem to begin with and which has been occluded by its contingent, imperfect articulation.

From such simplicity and grounding, a greater degree of conceptual and expressive innovation can take place; and one can do so playfully, perspicaciously, ‘indifferently’. This is not to detract from the importance of the operation, however, since those who earnestly undertake it often become innovators in the field, having transcended it enough towards actuality that they are able to play upon it differently and perhaps even rewrite the rules. It goes without saying that this ‘rewrite’ and its results are ever an invitation to future participants in the field to exert themselves similarly in the direction of inner metaphysical experience and simplicity in expressive freedom.

The emotion to such a procedure is, manifestly, joy: the pleasure of participating in the actuality of God. Such is not belabored by merely rationalist distinctions, by canonical grinding of gears, or by any need to reference tradition or gain authority from it. For now the articulation of the dilemma has gained the boldness to stand in the bifurcation without angst as a catalyst for novel future investigations. Its intention now derives not from the ‘imposition of view’, but from love: love of the contemplation and love for those who are still fruitfully animated by the bi-furcation dilemmas, those who have realized that these are necessary for the progression of speculative thought. This is the stance of a ‘loving circumstantialist’ who addresses each individual context of utterance with care, tied to none of them except to the extent that it is exactly those contexts which are to be worked with creatively, for the sake of being metaphysically unbound.

See more:
Spirituo-materiality
Descent to Higher Ground
Nihilism and the Absolute
Run-on Sentence

Peter Doig, Blotter, 1993