The Experience of Freedom

TH E EXPERI ENCE OF FREEDOM

Jean-Lue Nancy

Assistance for this translation

was provided by the French Miniscry of'Culture

The Expmm« -fFtWdtJm was originally published in r-rmdt in 1988 under the tide 1. ~t tk I4libml, e 1988 Eciitions Galil«. The Translator's Norc: and endnotcs and t~ Foreword were prepared cspecially for this edition. Stanford University Press Stanford, California

by the Board ofT rust«s of the leland Stanford Junior University

«:I199}

Primed in the United StaIn of America ClP

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data are at

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"For the issue depends on frccJom; anJ it is in the power of frccdnm to pass bcrond any and every s~ificd limit."

- Cririqllt ofPllrt' RMJOn. T r.J !1self unJcrstood, at the limit of comprehension. as what does not originate in comprehension. The "reali1.ation of heing" (or pYdXi.i?) hit~ no f1bjrct, or diemI'. except itselt: in irs independence with rc~(t to oh;ectality and thcmaticity. Thus, incomprehensible freedom milkc~ itself understood tit tile limit [a Itl limite]. in a very precise scme uf this expression. as a self-comprehension indl'prndent of the wmprt·hemion of understanding [to1lrr"di'mmtV What we comrrdl(·nd. at rhe limit. is that there is this autonomous comprrhemion, which is the realizing [accomplissolllti cumprehension of rl';lliz.uiol1. We cumprehend that realization (omprt'hmtb itll'/f [Sl' (Oil/p'ma] (e"en ifir d<X's not rmdt'Ntanditsdf[stntl'1ld] and even if \\e do not understand it), in its ~cci6c mode. Yet we sec that this ~pc(itic mode strangely resembles that of the- self-com prehensionand of the sel f-rcalizatiun-()f "reason." "thinking," or "theory" as ~lJ[h .••

Our comprehl'n~ion. then. is not meaningless. and it even forms Olle IIf the summits of philosophical comprehension: for it has also (Olll(' to Ill' Ii.mnulated. not accidentally. as the comprehension of the pitilo\opltical ncces~ity of superseding philosophy in the realizatl('1l of philosophy (in the realization of being). Hegel oOers a for1!l1I!.1 t;lr this. and its displaced or transformed meaning could hold tor .leide~er as well:

hhi,." lite is the Idea of frt'edom in ,hiu on ,he one hand it is ,he ~""d h("cume al;'lt'-rhe good ",dot/wl in ~If-consciollsnt'~s with

so

TIN Fr~~ ThinlringofFrmlom

knowing and willing and artuttliud self-conscious action-while on the other hand self-consciousness has in the ethical realm its absolute foundation and the: end which actuates its effort. Thus ethical lite is the concept of frc:edom dllltillptd into tiN fXisting world mullht 1IIltuIT ofs4f~o1lKioumns. 6

Thus, at the self-realizing end of this ethical life: The: state: is the actuality of the ethic:llldc:a. It is ethical spirit ljll4 the substantial will manifest and revealed to itself, knowing and thinking itself, accomplishing what it knows and in so far as it knows it. 7

What above all must not be underestimated is the power of thi, philosophical comprehension of me overstepping of the theoretical limit and. on the reverse side of this limit. of the expansion of praxical self-comprehension. We must not even stop at Hegel's exterior and banal comprehension that would have us admit that philosophy here perf~t1y comprehends a concept of practice which philosophy itself elaborated, and from which it does not escape. For the demand of Hegelian Spirit i.~ precisely the demand to be actualized in an accualit}' that ftm it from its simple being-in-itself. and for Hegel it is indeed only practically and outside of itself that Spirit can comprehend itself in its freedom and as freedom. What discourse (un)comprehends-such is the entire theme of the dialectical sublation of predicative judgment in speculative thinking-is that practit:al at:tuality constitutes the ITal (material. historical. etc.) self-realization and self-comprehension of what discursive comprehension comprehends without. however. being able to penetrate the sphere of authentic self-comprehension. This is also why philosophy. with Hegel, having reached the limit where it i~ actualized, no longer "comprehends," hut "contemplates"-it t:ontemplates, for example. the majesty of the monarch in whose individuali[), of body and spirit the actuality of the State is t:ont:en(fated. This contemplation is the comprehension that surmounu. surpasses. and sublatcs itself in the act of its finally ckployed freedom. Clearly. we must conclude nothing less than that (un)comprehension is in rca1i[)' me supreme stage of the wmprehension mat attains knowledge of self-comprehension as self-realizarion. Not only

51 is fllmrrt·hension gras~, at its limit. outside of itK'lf as in its inllerl1l11 l>t truth, but more profoundly. it grasps itself in this apprehension cnlirdy srrcu:hed out of itself. a... it!! own ptuldg~ into ad;on: it "lll11prehcnds itself as it... own becoming-practical. It it/lOWS that sLU.h is it.. truth, and moreover, it ptlts its~lfto ttsf. at il5limit. as 'llready actualizing. before it is al.:tual. this free act ,hat it would nnt he ,Ihle rigorously to comprehend. There is thus a sclf-comprl'hension ofthe comprehension of incomprehensibility. In this )t'lf.mmprehension, "theory" comprehends "praxis" as il5 truth. It/If( it comprehends itself as practical, which also means that in it pr.1([iu~ is theoretically comprehended as the reali7..ation of the freedom (1I11)comprehendcd by theory. Freedom is therefore, despite cverylhing, comprehended. Yet once again necessity is com prehend".J as freedom. and freedom has been earmarked as necessity. This may take many forms. from Rousseau's or Kant's enthusiasm In M,lrx'S reversal of the dialectic's reversals,· to the weight conferred by Heidegger on the word "thinking" (thinking heing itself thought uf as an "acting"): it should he said, always. that fimJom will Illkr w,(f"p in ,ht n«nsity oliN practiettl "/j;comp"lJmsio,,. ,--.. ()f course. ,his is not all. This is not ,he totality of what there is to dC'Cipher in this K'ries of gestures made by philosophical [octs. Yet we canllot avoid going by way of the preceding analysis if we are unWilling to reserve for freedom a space that risks being revealed as alreally cnclost'd hy nccessity-cven if this should be by ,he neccssiry I)f this very reserving. Must an)'rhing he m~rwd for fr«dom? Must its space be It~PI free? We should ask instead if this is even possihle. h not freedom the only thing that can "reserve" its own space? Would not what is at stake in freedom he the fact that, according to ,I logil.: resolutely separate from every dialectic of (in)comprehcn~ihility, freedom in any caK' precedes the thinking that can or ~annllt mmprchcnd il? Freedum precedes thinking. becauK' thinkIn~ prnl'ceds frol11 freedom and because it is freedom that gives thinking.

,I"

TIll' thinking whose thollghr~ not only do nut l;alculatc but arc ab,.. I\IIdy determined by what i~ "other" than beings might be called

52

J"Iw Pm Thinking ofrn«iom e:sscntialthinking. Instead of calculating beings by means of beings, it npcnds itsdfin Being for the truth of Being. This thinking answers to the demands of Being in that man surrenders his historical essence to the simple reality of the loole necessity whose: constraints do not SO much neceSl;itale as create the: ne:ed (No/] which is realized in the fra:dam of sacrifice: .... Frcc:d from all comtraint. because born of the abyss of frc:c:dom, Ihis sacrifice is the C'Xpenditure of the essence of the human being for the pmt"rvation of the truth of Being in respect ofbeing5.'

In a sense, this declaration is perhaps less novel than it seems. It gathers something that undoubtedly traverses, more or less visibly. the entire tradition in which philmophy has always considered freedom to be the source. clement, and even ultimate c;ontent of thinking. "Philosophy is an immanent, contemporary. and presenr thought and contains in its subjects the presence of&eedom. Whar is thought and rccogni7.ed comes from human freedom. ".0 But how is the co-belonging of freedom and thinking determined when, in Heidcgger's tcrms, thinking is "born of the abyss of fTrcdom" and thus engages "sac;rifice" or engages itself as "the sacrifice of the essence of the human being"? Let us leave aside the implication of sacrifice. which is certainly not insignificant from the point of view of a consideration of the whole of Hcideggerian philosophy (thi~ sacrifice at the altar of (ruth, in which one could easily detect, as Bataille might have, the comedy of the simulacrum where nothing essential is 10lit, or the model of dialectical tragedy that would destroy human beings only in order to find them again elevated to the posrure of the contemplators and celebrators of truth. of philosophers as theoreticians). In spite of all this, there is an· other tacet of sacrifice (one through which. after all, there is perhaps no longer "sacrifice" in any sense): prodigality. Thinking expends what it thinks, free of "calculation," in such a way that in spite of aU the benefits that cannot help bur rerurn, whether to the thinking subject or to the economy of ilS discourse, what is truly thought can only be what is expended (which also means: that of which "thinking" is or ha... "cxperience," and not that of whic;h it elaborates a conception or theory). Thinking ex~nds, since it comes from

Thr F"f Thillking ofr;'t'fdom "the: .lh~~s of frcCt.tom. Above all. freeo of jus rice. which actually makes possil>le. under given conditions. aCH"SS to the incommensurahle). For its pan. rhis incommen.~urability doe~ not mean that each individual possesses an unlimited right [0 exercise his will (moreovcr, if "each" designates the individual. how could such a right be constructed in relation to the singularities thill divide the individual himself and in accordance with which he exim? One would first need to Ie-Mn how to think the "cac;h" on the ha..~is of the series or networks of singular "each times"). Nor does thi~ ilH.:ommel15urability mean that freedom is measured only against itself. as if"it" could provide a measure. a standard of free-, dorn. Rather. it means that freedom m~asum its~/ftlgaimlllothi1lg: it "measures" itself against existence's transcending in nothing and "for nothing." Freedom: to measure oneself against the nothing. Me,lsuring oneself against the nothing docs nOl mean heroically aO"rtJIuing or ecstatically confronting an abyss which is conceived of as the /,Jm;tlld~ of the nothingness and which would seal itself around the sinking of the subject of heroism or of ecstasy. MCJ.suring oneself against the nothing is I1lfasllri1lg ollt'St'/fabsolutdy. or measuring oneself against the very "mea~llren of "measuring one~I.f": placing the "sclf" in the position of taking the mea.~llre of its \ CXlstCIKe. This is perhaps. and even cenainly, an excess [dimmlrrJ. In 110 way and on no register of analysis will one avoid the excess of frl'l·Jnm-for whkh heroism and ecstasy are in fact also figures anJ nJlIles. hut these must not obscure other examples, such as ~t'll'IIily, grace, forgiveness. or the surprises of hlllguage, and others

I\

" ill. !',\s('1Hiall}" this excess of freedom, as the vel)' measure of existence.

72

Sharing F~uJnm

is common. h is of the e;..o;ence of a measure-and therefore of an ctcess-to be common. The community shares freedom's exc.ess._ Because: this excess consists in nothing other than the faa or gesture of measuring itself against nothing, against the nothing. the cornmunity's sharing is itself the common excessive mc:ouure «Ji)mt'suPr] offrc:cdom. Thus. it has a common measure. but not in the sense of a given measure to which everything is referred: it is common in the sense that it is the ~cess of the sharin~f existence. It is the~ of equality and relati()!'\... It is also f~ternilY. if (raternity, it must be said. asTcfc: from every sentimental connotation (bur not aside trom the possibilities of passion it conceals. from hatred to glory by way of honor, love. competition for excellence. erc.). is not the ~ lalion of those who unify a common family, but the relation of those whose Pamu. or common subsrance, has distt,,~ dd~rins them to their freedom and equality. Such are. in Freud. the sons of the inhuman Father of the horde: becoming brothers in the sharing of his dism~mb~nJ body. Fraternity is equality in the sharing of the incommensurable. \VItat we have as our own, each one of "us" (but there is only a singular "us," there again. in the "each time, only this rime" [.a chtIIfIII foist UN s~ fois) of a singular voice. unique/mulriple. which can say "us"). is what we have in common: we share hein.!. It gives itself. such in the very possihility of saying c~s:" th~1 is. ~f pronouncing the plural of singularity, and the singularity of plurals, themselves mul,. tiple. 'Ibe "us" is anterior to the "I." not as a first suhject, but as the I sharing or partition that permits one 10 inscribe "I." It is because Descancs CU1 say ~ know, each and every one of us. thar wt'cxistas each on~ of us-chat he can pronounce tgo sum. (This does nor, however, imply that the "we, at this level. fum;tions simply as the "shifte:r" r~b~TI ofrhe enunciation over its enunciating subject. "We" makes a blocked shifter, distanced from itself, function. One cannot say who enunciates "we:." What would have to be said is this: "one" evidently knows one exists. 4 and it is thus that Wl'eDst, sharing the possibility that I say it at every moment.) If being is sharing. our sharing. thc:n "to be" (to exist) is to share. This is relation: nO( a t("ndenrial relation, need. or drive of por-

SI1ttring FrmltJm

73

!ions of being that are oriented toward their own re-union (this w"uld not he relation. bur a sdf-presence mediated by desire or ",j\Il. but existence delivered to the incommensurability ofbeing-in(oI11I1WII. What measurcs itself against the incommensurable is fn:edom . We could even say that to be in relation is to measure tlnc:~c1f with being as sharing, that is. with the birth or de-liveram.c uf existence as such (as what lhroll~h essence de-livers itself), and it is here that we have already recognized freedom. If it is indcc(t true that freedom bdongs in this way to the ·~5cnce" of hum.1Il beings. it dlles so to the extent that this essence "fhuman heings itselfhelongs to being-in-common. Now, being-incommon arises from sllaring. which is the sharing of being. On the archi-originary re~ister of sharing. which is also that of singularity's "at every moment." there arc no "human beings." This mcam that the relation is 1I0t one between human beings, as we might ~peak of a relation established between two subjects constituted as subject~ and as "securing," secondarily. this relation. In thi~ relation. "human beings" are not given-bur it is relation alone that (an give them "humanity." It is frccdom that gives relation by withdrawing being. It is then freedom that gives humanity, and nm Ihe: inverse. But the gift mat freedom gives is never. insoF.tr a41 it i~ the gift of fir~dom. a quality. property. or essence on the order of "'1I",III1/;",S." Even though freedom gives its gift under the form of;1 as it has done in modern times. in f.Kt it gives a trano;ccndmce: a gift which. :1~ gift. transcentl~ the giving. which docs not e~t;lbli~h itself as a giving. but which hefore all gives ;1S~1fas ~ift. Jlld a~ a gift of freedom which ~ives essentially and gives itself. In the withdr.lwal of being. This is why "man" is ,1150. as we know, a r.~lIrc th.\( is s1l5ct'rriblc to being effaced. F,.utltJ", givn-fi~t­ '/'1111. It only (l('rtains to the "cssence of mall" ill50far as it withJfi\\\S thi, 4.:~~cl\(,:e away from itselt: illlo (·)(istence. And in existCI1~l·. freedom gives itself as the possibililY for the existent of a d"ir,,( ur "ttllilll.dittlJ." ali much :I~ of a "",mulIl;tt's" or ",~j/(u." 1\111 ,lho\'c all. hdcnt-but the "donation of p,.t5e11fl'." This presence ili given. hcld Ollt. offered from irs withdrawal and in its widldr:lwal. and

110

"',,"dam Imd Dt'$tiny

this means the liberation of presence and for presence in the with_ drawal of present rime: a presence which proves to br not prrsmt, but destination. sending, liberation of itself as the infinite sharing 0( existence. Yet "destination" and "liberation" still risk saying too little, as long as these words continue to mark conscious and willed action. In order to try to fTec in words another designation of let us say: a mrprisi1Ig gmerosity ofbeing.

freedom.

§ 12 Evil: Decision

What if thought tlnmd itself harshly summoned to modesty and reduced to powerlessness by evil? More serious still. whar ifir found

itself confronted by evil with its own

worthlcssnes.~?

Au~d\wi'l

dt'mnnmared irrcfurahly that CUlrufl' had failt'd. That this could happen in rhe miJ~t of the traditions of philluophy. of Irt. and of the enli~t('nin~ sc~nc('$ says more than that the5e traditions and their ~I'lit la\.-ked the: poMr to take hold of men and work a change in Ihem. 'l1lC:re is untruth in those field!; tht'mselvt'S. in the autarchy (we would add: fl~ thoughts, thoughts freed. always joined to an essential fl"Ct"'dom llf humanity's thotJWtt) that ~ emphatically claimed for them. All po5t-Auschwirz cuhul"('. including its urgenr critique, is garbage. In 1'C:~lOring itself alit'r the things that happened without resimnce in its own ~()umry5iue. culture has turnN e:ntirely inln ,he iueology it had hn- n 11()te:mi"lIy·- ·hau betn ever sino: it pl'tSlimed. in opposition to rnaf('rial existence. to inspire that existence: with (he: light denied it by lhr ~cpar;ation of the mind from manual labor. Whoever pleads for lhe maintt'nanc(' of Ihi~ radically culpable and shabby culture bccomt's It\ a(fOmplice. while the man who sal's no to culture is directly furlh~'rillg the barbarism which our culture showed it5C'lf tn he.'

A, a I.:on§equcnce of his las[ proposition. Adurnu adds: I:\'en silence gen m out of the circle. In silence we simply usc the col l)hjcctive mllh tn ralionalize our suhjcclive im:ap;K;it)" once more dC~I.ldillg muh into a lie.

\Jilt

~t.lIl·

111

122

Therefore we cannot remain silent. We cannot remain silent be. fore what has blocked "freedom" that was our culture's main thought and before what has almost made us renounce all thOUght of freedom (Heidegger undoubtedly thought he was recognizing this, among other things. when he acknowledged "the greatest fol. Iy of my life";2 however, he: did ke:ep silem.) and this silence, as we have claimed. was also a silence concerning "frttdom"; in the: mean.. time, he never ceased trying to think the "free space" of /;"rrignis: this too meant recognizing the worthlessness and futility of the "cuiture" of freedom. without. however. giving way to . freedom.) If every thought of freedom must be renounced in order to make room for the hastily acquired consensus of a moral and polirical Iibe,clIism, the:n thinking as such must be renounced. This would DOt be a serious maner if thinking were only "some: thought"; on the contrary, it would be to renounce that which can be evil and do evil in thought: illusion, facility, irresponsibility. and intellectuality, which only considers iL~df free and easily affirms freedom as Ion811 freedom does not put it to the test. However, thinking is not inrcllecruality, but the cxperience ofits limits. This experience, as the aperience of freedom, materially and in an unapproachable mrporeality. is nothing other than binh and death. Indeed, to say of birth and death that "we can only think them" means that we an only think in them, and that freedom is at stake in them. Ausdlwiu signified the death of birth and death. their conversion into an infinite abstraction, the negation of existence: this is perhaps above all what "culture" made possible. We cannot remain silent and we do not have to choose. The cx· perience of freedom is not ltd libitum. It constitutes existence and must therefore be grasped at this cxtremity of the negation of existence. Hem:eforth. there is an experience of l'Vil that thought can no longer ignore. In fact. this is perhaps the major experience of all contemporary thought as the thought of freedom, which means precisely as the thought that no longer knows if and how "freedom" could be its "theme," since the negation of exisrt:nce was systematically undertaken freely at the heart of the culture of freedom. Thought thinks nothing ifit is not tested against declarations such as this ope:

me:

Evil: lkcisioll

IlJ

In" 'J 'homas Mann from 19J9: "Yes. we know once again what gouSnCss of the absolute concept's infinity." What is grolllldins is also to rhe same cKtenr. perhaps more "profoundly," what comes-up fllllll nothing, on nothing, what, instead of climbing alit of the ;lhr~. fn.'d,. riscs up. suspended in free air. the simple pulsating of a rdcsoJurc return to self of the consciousn~s that has hot gonc out of itself). In a basically similar way. it is to let withdraw the ego-centrism of Schelling's "ground." The entire tradition has understood evil as ego-ism. and egoism as [he fury that in itself determines [hc undetermined absolute. finitizing the infinite and infinitizing the finite. (Likewise, in Bataille, the freedom of passiOh is in no way egoistical: it is the very place of communication and it is communication. For Bataille. egois[ical freedom annuls itself. BUI at the same time, in ic.~ transgressive unleashing, passion docs notbiDs but unleash itsdf), And yet, if the question of a seem, imperceptible ontodicy is not entirely illegi[imate, it is perhaps also not illegitimate to suspcct, despite everything, a secret cgoity of being:

What properly is, thaI is, what properly dwc:lls in and deploys il1 essence in the Is, i~ uniquely Being. Being alone" is"; only in Being and a.~ Being dOl'S what is called flY "is" appear; what is, is Being on ~ basis of its essence. ll The deploymcnt of Being can cenainly ncver be thought except &om the point of irs withdrawal and irs no-thingncss. But cannot me being-its-self rttIY-propIYF! of being preserving its property always once again withdraw from th~ wilhdrawaJ of bcing, and reappropriate the Errigniswhere it appropriatcs irselfby "vanishing"? One could find the question scandalous in view of the whole logic of this thought, in which being is Ollly the sin!.',lar existence of Dmn", If we must, despite everything, pose this question. this is firsr of all by reason of, if not the logic of this thought, then at lcast its to1l41ily (which also means its tension and intensity, if not its intentions).v With the liberation of the thinking afbnng ar b~;ng as sole exigency, as a kind of paradoxical but inevirable harmonic (at least up to a certain point), this tonality makes possible a certain abandonment of the b~;ng of btings, given over [0 the fate of the deployment of the essence of being, and with it, in an indifferent way, to a fury pr0fH"~Y consubstantial with this essence. This tonaliry docs not arise from a simple criliqU~: rather, one should hear res-onate, like an echo. the tension in the conc",,~d response [0 che

Er,i': /)~dlio" n1.llcrialltransccndental irrllprion of devasrating evil in this epoch of lx,ing, Nor is it a qll('Stion or"rdaxing" this tension: the unbearable .IIIlI lh~ unjustifiable have not ceased. But if we must ask ourselves what cxtelll dtis unjustifiable would risk being justified. this is bcc;1II.'iC the thinking ofbcing offers the demand and resource for this question. as we should have understood from the beginning, '\l1ollu:r tonality is at stake. and we must try to understand it, 111('re is yet another reason to pose the question. whK:h the mt!re logjc uf the thinking of heing (it is a logic. how could it he anything d~c?) will never he ahle to answer: the affirmation of Dm,i11 as the cxistt!l1ce of being will always be answered by the affirmation of bdng's heing-free as the "concealment." no doubt dissymmetrical. bUI always dialecticizable. of good and evil. Tbis is truly why Heidcgger's abandonme11l of the theme of frcc:dom will have been logical: as a power of suhjectivity. freedom will in efi'c(t only have 00'11 the illusion in charge of covering over the profound acceptance of the course of things, And freedom's own factuality will always be disliool\'ed into that of necasity, Freeing oneself from this freedom will have remained a wish suspended at the limit of this logic which itself traced the limb of philosophy,

,II

.---

S/Jorl oftllking II stt'Pforthrr-short of taking a step further. if we \:,111 say this. into the irreducible and singular faC:llIalil)' of freedom. and short of taking a st"" fimher into the very logic of the thinking of treedom. it is one step further to say t"at tI" a"nurr, h,", ;1 ;" tk drfision,

hcoomn is frcooom for good ana evil. Irs decision. ifit is in the ul,,:ision that freedom occurs or happens to itself. is therefore the deci\ioll for good evil. Yet. insofar as it d~'ddes, freedom is this del'i\lOIl, the decision for good or evil. Denying that freedom pre\tllls itself as an arbiter placed before values or norms tranSCCIldell! to its own finite transcendence docs not amount to denying that trl'tUom, in deciding. decides for good 0" evil. Only freedom in .1niun (there is no other). at the limit of thought-where thought i\ in turn finally the act that it is. and consequently. wht!n:' it is also dt:l i\ion-dcddes as it liberates (itself) from good or e\'il. This

""a

136 means that it is necessarily. in its act. or even in the very jllC't in which it ftuly lurpriw itst/f not the united and indifferent unleashing of good and evil. btl( in and through itself good or bad decision. Only unleashing unleashes itsclf, but this docs not mean thai it unleashes indifferently, for it would finally only unleash unleashing itself. "concentrated in itself," and consequently always wickedness. Undoubtedly. this does not mean that it unleashes a little of one and a little of the other. or the one as much as the other. without i.selfbeing implicated in this difference or opposition. In unleashing its~lf-and thereby releasing itself and knowing itself as the possibilicy of evil-it also releases itself and knows it5elf as fury oras liberation. We would at least like to try to show this much. "Decision" does not have merely the irreducibly formal staNs given by its enunciation at .he limit of its cvent (or Errignii Would Ertignis be decision?): we name .he decision. but in so doing we do nor enter it; we describe from without a gesture which can then be interpreted either as the simple passage into action of a considerable potencial freedom for good and evil, or as the decision between a "good" and "cvil" previously furnished by the most classical moralicy, or on the contrary as the arbitrariness. also most classical. of a Me subjectivity d«iding on its "good." Decision does not have merely this formal status because, as it is thought in all the rigor of the thinking of existence, the "concept" of decision itself refers to a tilrilion tjfirtivt/y tttltm in this thought. The thinking of existence cannot think frcc decision without havi ng actUAlly decided for its Dum existence, and not for its ruin-not because of a choice and a moral preference anterior to the development of thought. but in the act of thinking posited at the existing limit of thought. (What then comes to light is not a novelty: there has been no philosophical thought worthy of its name that has not proceeded from chis thinking decision of thought. But henceforrh it has (0 think thought as such.) In Being and Time. the analysis of G~UJiSJm ends up at the thuught of decision altd at a tbcis;on 0/tboughtwhich still remains to be brought to light in this very thought. 24 Gewissm means "conscience" in the moral sense that French sometimes accords to the word cOllscima ['"consciousness" or "conscience"-Trans.] but that

E,·;l· D«is;orr

137

is lIot "morality" in the sense of still having to do with any distincril'lI tit "good" and "evil." In Gtwissrn is attested Daftin's "ownI1l1'~t potf'ntiality-for-Being" insofar as, b«ausc it is unfounded I~lllmtuion, which means "existing as thrown," "it is nt''" in P05sc~~illl1 .. f its ownmost heing," In this "nullity," lw;n is discovered ;1.\ ('~~lIlially "i"dth'ta (schu/d;g, which also medllS uguilty''). The exi~t('nt. 3S existent, is indehted to and guilty for the being-itself whil.:h it i~ nOf and which it does not have:: it is indebted to the withdrawal ofheing. we could say in reassemhling the vocabularies of \'arious periods in Heideggcr. and this debt m,m n,,' IN tlln~/td III //It mode ofII mtitllt;oll ofbring-01lt·s-Stlj. but prrcisrl] in liN m"tlr oj'r.\-isttll('t a"tI of'N dtdJion for mftmcr. Z' Dt:bt is revealed to the existent by the call that is addrcssed to it 11)' the mil:e ofirs own/alien "foreignness," which characterizes its be-

in~ as heing-abandoned-lO-the-world. l6 Wirh originary debt or guilt (wh(l~c connection with Benjamin's tragedy could be pur5ul:d) "being-wicked" is also revealed, "Wickedness" here correspond!'i to heing-indebted. For if. on the one hand, it cannot be a qucstion. at this ontological level. of moral values. which have here nnl~' their "existential condition of possibility." and if. accordingly. the Kantian image of conscience as a "trihunal" cannot be taken up again, 011 the other hand "every experience of conscience begins by experiencing somerhing as a 'debt,''' and this is what. in the "ordinary" experience of conscience. the primacy of "a bad ~on­ scicnce" responds to, In other words, what is ordinarily considered as "bad" io; this heing-guihy of not properly being one's being. or of nm proPl'lly being being, bur (which is not specified but which 111l1~t hecome explicit in order to come to rhe decisive point of this ('mire tllllugln) ofII'" bri1lK bring in tht mod~ ofitt bt'blg. which iJ '''~ ",,,t/l' Oft: hen: is not the choice produced at the end of a ddiberation 21 (the aistent docs not delibcrafe whether it exists or will exist: meanwhile, in another sense. we could say that its existence is in itself esscnrially (}di!Nm«d. in the two valcnc~ of the word), but if it rots [tntndatrl. it don so between an undecided state and a state of decision. It decides for decision and for decidability. This could also come 10 mean that if the existent is not "wrong" in any determinable sense of guilt. it is, meanwhile, wrong (as Hegel knew) in thdt it;s ".,;". noc~"t (literally. not to be in-nocent is to cause harm). It is not innocent. since. as an existent thmwn-into-the-world. it is in the very element of its freedom. it is its flct, and freedom is the freedom 10 decide on good and evil. The non-innocence of freedom consritUtC5 the existential condition of possibility of the decision. which makes the existent exist as "resolute." So: Resoluteness. by its ontological essence. is always the resoluteness of some factual Dascin at a panicular time. The essence of Dascin as an entity is its existence. RC50lurencss "cxisu" only as a decision (E"tJt'~ which understandingly projttts itsc:lf. But on what basis docs Ozein disclose itself in resoluteness? On what i~ it to decide? Dilly the decision itself can give thc answer. 21 That the answer is given only by the decision means thar there is

Evil: Drrisio1l

139

no sensc in deciding. by way of the analysis of the ontological slruc!lift: of t'xislence, on what the singular existent mllst decide. This would be to remove it from its vt'ry decision. (0 fold up its freedom ;Ind suppress the possibility that it rccogni7.c itself as indebted to de,i~i()n by the very fact of its existence-by this fact (pf being its own es.~ence) tlNIt tI~ dfcision presmlJ abOl'r all--and this would thcrt:fore be to have fundamentally missed the originary phenomenon of existence. In proceeding as thinking doe; here, which means in letting be the hcing-free of existing bcing-forthe factual and singular dfCisiollhasn't thinking dedded, in itself and for itsclP. From thf romprt-

"rmitm oftl;, non-innfKmft offrrrdom, "asn~;t decidrd for decision find for itr singulttr j(,cwality? This also means: from the com prehcnsion of the existent's being-itself as tkciJ~ existmcr, h35n't thinking decidl.o for the decision that decides in favor of existence, and nOI f(}f the decision that decide.~ to StllJ indrbud to O;;Slma r(}lI!('qllmt~y to appropriatr itulf ttl tlu mmct outsitk of txisunct? Ha.m't thinking dedded. at the most intimate point of its deci ... ion for decision, in favor of the "grace" of existence, and not of the flll)' of essence? (And mormver. since it is henceforth time to ask the following: can we speak of "graec" and "fury," of "healing" and of "ruin." without having allowed a decision to be made by language. whereas what is at stake is allowing every decision as such. in its fr«dom. to decide for one or the other side of what is equally "conn';lled" in being? For if the existent can dt'cidc on ruin ami Oil its own fuin. and if this possibility is inscribed in the very being of exi~lmce. such a decision is no less what also ruins the decision in its exi\lcntial essence,) This is not written as such in Heideggcr's tt'xt. Here. the stakes are t1l11~e of a decision of reading. less in the sense of a question of inIl.:rpreting the discourse of a thinker more or less correctly and faithflilly. than in the sense of a question ofbcin~ addres..~ed by a frecd'lI11 to freely share his thought. The act of reading is here no doubt III retreat as much from scrupulous review 35 from interpretive vi"knee. It rcads hy sharing the freedom through which thought as (hought is always offiml: held om, pmpmed, III be taken and de-

""d

hi,i': Dl'ris;on cided. at the surfacc of the text. (Now it is in the same context that Heideggcr write;: "It is the authentic Being-onc's-Self of resolutenc:ss that makes leap forth for the first time autheR[ic Being-with. Others"; there is no sharing exccpt of freedom. bur there is abo no freedom except in sharing; the freedom of deciding to be-one's-sc:lf outside of sharing is the freedom, lodged at the heart of freedom. to ruin freedom. We can only come back to this decidability.) Thinking hcre decides for decision. or it decides. if we like. for the in-dccision in which alone decision can occur as such. Decision is singuJar. it is "at every moment that of a factual Das~;n." It is not a decision ofsingularity (since singularity is not a preexisting subject. but is singular "in" the very subject and decides in deciding. g/f), but it is a decision for singularity. which means for freedom itself. if freedom is in the relation of singularities and of decisions. Singularity. as decided and deciding itself. is no longer in the noninnocence of the freedom to decide. Yet neither has it become innoceR[ and "good." It has entered into the decided decidabiliry, so to speak, of existence at each momnrt of its existence. Now decision, as singularly existing and as engaging relation and sharing, engap the withdrawal of being. If decision keeps itself as decision. it also keeps being in its withdrawal, as withdrawn. It "saves· if. as Heideggcr says elsewhere. in the sense that "this means releasing. delivering, liberating. sparing. sheltering. taking into one's protection. guarding."l'} What is thus saved is the finitude ofbcing. It is "the essen rial limitation. the finitude [that) is perhaps the condition of authentic existence. "30 finiTUde is what. in singularity and as singularity. withdraws from the innnite grasp, from the molar expansion and furious devastation. of an ego-icy of being. Being withdraws into finitude; it withdraws from "concentration in itself": it is its very being. yet insofar as the very heing of being is being-free, be-ing cannot be this withdrawal {'Xupt by d~cision. Only decided existence withdraws being from the essential "self" and properly holds back its possibility for devastating fury. Only existence. as the exi~ tence and singular factuality of freedom, offers. if not exactly an ethics. in any case this "shelter" of being which is ill own most tthos tiS fhl' nhos or abodl' of fIJi' human b~i"g UIIIO dwells in Ih~ possibility ofhi! ftl'e d~cijioll.

/:-,,;/: D«ision TIKr"C is therefore an authemk dl"Cision-though it ha5 its audll'nritity in the very decision and without the prior distinl'tion of ;111 in.llHhentic or authentic content of decision. Or there is an aurhenticity of decision. that is to say, an authenticity of freedom. Thl."rc i~ an authentic flftdom. which deddes frcedumforexistence amlli!r the singular relation that ir i!i, and which decides it from the hc.m 01 .111 infinite non-innocence where the in-tiniry of being (which does not have its own essence) can always unleash itself. ami in a sense ha!i always already been unlea.~hed. as fury. There is ,I tree decision that frea flttdom for i~lf, fOr irs flniruM. for its sharing. for equality. fi,r community. fOr fraternity. and for their justicesinttllJ.uly. singularly shawtfdivided. singularly withdrawn from the hat~d of existence.

§ 13 Decision, Desert,

Offering

Would authentic decision then be the good? Then: is no positivity of the "good" and the ~jJtl«iml tis ousiils of Plato's Good must again be understood here. Oec;;ision cannot appear to itself as "good" insofar as it will have truly decided. It cannot. quite simply. appear to itself,1 and it is doubtless less frec= ~ more it wants to appear as such. Nothing therefore can assure it. and even less forewarn it. withow suspending its c:ssc:ncc: of decision. It is delivered to irs freedom as 10 rhat which comes-up to it and surprises it. Every decision surprises itself. Every decision is made. by definition, in the undecidable. In this way. essentially (and it is in this sense that 1 have said "authentic" here. a word taken nom Hcidegger. ill spite of or in defiaac of its moralizing connmation), decision cannot decide without letting being be in its finite singularity. I cannot decide without infinitdy abandoning myself to the finitude of my singularity and thus I cannm. in (he strike and cut of my decision, renounce appearing to myself as the "deciding" subject. This is also why my decision is identically. each rime, a decision for rdation and sharing-to the point that the subjtct of my decision can appear to itself as not being simply "me" (but also a "you" or an "us") without it being any less singularly my own, if it is authentic. Yct it must be repeated the deci~ion docs not appear to ;ts~lf: in this way it rkcUks and is decided. Nothing finishes wirh the decision. but everything begins. It is in-

mat

DfC;sion. Vrsm. (Jjfn'ing drcd only here (hat wickedness C"JIl begin (0 be wicked and it is l1l'fC tllilt rum-innocence can become fury. For fury necrls singularity: \\I~h·dness Il'nntJ to l'njo.y [jollir! the spectacle of its ruin and thus fun Illust maintain its presence. Wickedness too lets existence be, in i't~ own way. in ord\"r to ruin it. Othcrv.'i5e what would it address?! bn't decision also the choice of a line of life. vice or virrue. that it would fix lIpon the existent? Yet decision is the access to letting-be. IXlling-he, which is always the contrary of a "laissez-faire" or "Iettin~-h'lppcn." will ceaselessly have to decide, at ever)' moment. iL~ "ethical" relation to the l'Xistence it lets-be. It will be in rhe dury, or ill the shirking of the duty, in virtlle or in its exhaustion. in malignityor goodnas, in the calculated appreciation of circumstances. or in the srnic mknirin that welcomes the right moment. Yet it cannot avoid acceding to the relation with existence. which means to the rci.uilln in existence: with the: being-singular that alone: txists and that CXi~IS in the withdrawal of being. It can unleash the nothingness of this withdrawal in es..r freedom which is not the dcdsion for the freedom [0 ~Ii'pend fl't'l'dnm. even though in both cases it would be the same frl'ecloll\ thilt decides itself. hcedum is pr«isc:ly what is free for .llld .lgainst itself. It c.mnot be what it is except by remaining, at every I11Olllmt. freedom of "grace" a"eI of "ftl'}·... This chasm is its "foun,l.lIlon • its absence-of-gruuml. But this is also the chasm through whirh the freedom that choo....es itselfand the freedom that destroys it,I/-/rare the same and not the same, And perhaps freedom "is"

Frttgmmts

nothing other than this absolure diffe~nce in ab~olute idenrity. How can one grant that it is an "authentic decision?" The decbion that ~ freedom against itself is the decision to sup. press decision-and consequently to suppress the undecidable that render5 decision possible and necessary. Or rather, it is the suppression of the existentiality of existence itself (a suppression rhat takes a thousand forms. besides murder). The dec~ion for nilwhich remains the possibility essentially conjoined and therefore absolutely proper (0 the decision for good-is a dccision for what leaves nothing more to be decided. Authentic decision is on the contrary a decision for a holdi1lgof decision as such, which is its ~ propriation and reconquest in the indecision that is itself malntained as an opening of the possibility of deciding. And this is why authentic decision dots not know itstJfas such, or as decision for the good. It cannot present itself to itself as "good." It remains in itself different from itself. The decision for evil is what can appear ID itself as "good," as a decision "taken" or "resolved." but not "hdelin the sense indicated above. One has co determine (mznmnj, that io;, one has to derermine!hat we will be able and will always have to determine again. even ifk is only to make this "same" decision every time: because as tkdJint, and not as already decided, decision is at every moment new. Yet qcj. ther dcxs this mean that authentic decision, reopening at every moment in itself the diffcrence of in-decision. never decides except to .. let everything happen rtout laiSJtT foirt!. Letting evert" thing happen is also a way of annulling decision, as much in the 1iberal or anarchist sense that can be given this expression as in the sense oflctting everything be done in the extreme, which completes the whole by exterminating it. The authentic decision is precisely against the possibility of doing "everything," or lerring it be done. But as decision. it chooses not to do "everything." Prescription, obligation. and responsibility remain fastened to it. One will say: now it is without content or ethical norms. No doubt. But did it ever have any of these? Decision i~ the emprr moment of every ethics. regardless of its contents and foundations. Decision. or freedom. is the tlhos at the groundless ground of ever'!

Fnrgmmts ctllks. \'(Ie have to decide on contents and norms. We have to decide I.tws. exceptions. cases. negotiations; but there is neither law 11M e:xn'ption for decision. Its "authenticity" is not on the register of dIe: I.tw. Or rather. it is this law withdrawn from every form of law: dlc cxistentiality of decision, freooom, which is also the decision of cxi~"'nce and fur cxUtence, rc:ccivcd well before every imperative and ever\, law. ',(/e therefore do not have to think in terms of new laws (even though we also have tn make them). and we do not have to invent a "morality" (with hardly any irony, we can say: don't we ha~ all we ne~J in matter?). But above all. what is incumbent on us is an Ilbwl"u determination, an absolutely originary, archi-originary detcm,in;1I iun of ethic:5 and praxis-not a law or an ultimate value, but that hy which there can be a relation to law or to value: decision. freedom. If existence is without essence, this is because existence is entirely in its decision. It is entirely in the free decision to receive and hold itself as decision (a deciding decision. but in the mode of a reeeiving-iuclf. a letting-itself-be-taken by the decision .•• ) IlIlJ/or to tk.'liJe on iudf as such or such essence, Such is the ethos to which we must come. or which we must allow to come to us. This ~thos would not correspond to a "progms of moral conscience." bur would bring to light the archi-originary ethicity without which thcre would be neither Plato's Good. nor Kant's good will. nor Spinulistic joy. nor Marxian revolution, nor Aristotle's mOil poJiljkol~.

011

\Vhy speak of "rc:volution" (for example. in Chapter 7)? In order capridously to oppose the current discredit of this word? Why nO[~ Ideulogy can always benefit from being shaken. But also: don't we lJave the responsibility of thinking the decision that opens onto the very pOS5ibility of deciding? Now which word has carried this tho\ll:\l1[, in a privileged way. through two centuries? Ami which \\'lIld could replace it after two centuries? Enough has been said ahllut how much "revolution" was a tum toward nothing. or even 31l1llhcr tum of the: screw. This is true--but this is also a mOl.:kcry (If hi\tory. Revolution brings to light common freedom. frel't!ulU's

being-in-common. and the fact that this being. as such. is given over to decision. We cannot. d~pite everything. think this word dif. ferenrly. For a long time. the case of reform hat; been heard. and the morc: reform there is. the less anything changes. Revolt is a prisoner of the despair that produces it. Revolution doa not at all adu. sively signify the taking of power by a political faction. It signifies. or at least it signified: the opening uf decision. the community exposed to itself. I know that Fascism and Nazism were also revolutions. as were Leninism and Stalinism. It is therefore a question of revolurionizins revolutions. I understand all [00 well that this "pirouette" might not be appreciated. But what should we: say and do if it becomes 110 less true that we must dtdin. despite everything. decide to brak with the course of things entirely decided? What should be said and done if the intolerable is always present. and if freedom has ro make itself more and more skittish. more and more unbridled? How QJl we think "revolution" without assault divisions or c0mmissars of thc pcople. and even without a revolutionary 11IfJtk/ (but on the contrary. as a reopening of the question of the mood itself)? After all, the word matters little-but we still have not thoroughly thought through all that "revolution" gives to be thought. Above all. people continue to die of hungcr. wars, drugs. boredom. A middle class continues to be generalized with its scruples relating to "technology." masking from ll§ what is in the process [t«hn~ ofbccoming class wcufare. b People die of hunger, drugs. wars, boredom. work. hatred. revolts. revolutions. They die or become mutilated in life. soul. and body. AJiliherations (national. social. moral. §eXuai. aesthetic) ~ ambiguous. and also arise from manipulations-and yet each has its truth. Freedom Manipulated (by powers. by capital): this could be the titlc of our half-ccnrury. Thinking freedom should mean: ~­ ing freedom from manipulations, including. first of aU. those of thinking. This requires something on the order of revolution, and also a revolutiun in thinking. .--...

rragmtlltl

I kOlocracy is less and less exposed to external criticisms or aggr,·~~i(Jns. b~1l more and more preyed l!pon b~ its. internal criti-

li-ms ,111(1 disenchantments. Or rather: forces with makulable effeLtS (nuclear. physical. chemical. genetic) have b«n put into operatinn or unleashed, as we would sa)'. All this leads back to the qllolilln of what "thinking freedom" means today. It means at l~aJI "err dearly that received ideas abom freedom, in all of their syslematic frameworks (opposition to necessity. or assumption of necc~sity, as~i~nation to the free subjeu, reciprocal delimitation and respeLl. rcpartition of the juridical. of the moral and political. of puhlic and private. of the individual and collective. and so on). are themselves either "operative" in thc least liberating practices of this frightening and disem:hamed world. or constantly rendered "ob_ solete" by it. "I:reedoms" are "/10 pieces of "technology." This is whr it is derisory to content oneself with reaffirming. in a Kandan moc.ie. a "regulative ic.ica" of freedom. or, in the mode of a "philosophy of values" (whic.:h we know was also able. morr than othen, to support Na7.ism), an "absolute value" offrecdom ... We alway~ return to this: thinking freedom requires thinking nO! an iliea but a singular fact. just as it requires carrying thought to the limit tlf a fauuality that precedes it. In this essay. I was forced to repeat several times that &ccdom [CI!lld not be "a question." This means that itli thinking must be in srarch of a nonquestioning mode of thinking (hut can we say "scoud,' here? Would if not he too dose to "question"?). Here is a prnfonnd and powerful trait of today'5 thinking: the demand for an atlirmativity (we find it modulated differently from Niet7.sche and l\cuj.unin to Dele!l7-C and Derrida). Yet perhaps nC'ither affirmation nor negation may be substituted 1~lr the ~ucstion. It I.:ould he a qU~. trans. (lndiallapolis: Hackett, 1979). p. 17. On this momentous .ltCIllCIlI, sec lhe: meticulous prescntarion of Jean-lue Nancy. Ego ""lIll'aris: Flammarion. 1979). - See David Hume. A T,~tlt;s~ of /f1ll1ll11l M,tllrr, l.. A. Sdh)·-8i~. l'll.. I'. H. Nidditeh. rev. cd. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). PI" I.

1.

IH-72:

Rook I, §14.

R. This abo capturC5 ,he: analysis of modalif}' th.\[ KaRl UlldenakC's in rhe 5cuiun of the: Criliql" 0/ Purr Rmson emide:J "The Principles of F mpiri(al Thought: but insof.1r a!i the C,iliqllr iudf sers out to expose 175

the "conditions of possibility" of rhe unity of experience. it also alloWs for-if it does not already pre!icnt-an experience of possibility. and it is this allowance that, according to Nancy. marks the decisive dJaracter of Kant's "revolution in the mode of thinking": "The becoming-world of world means that 'world' is no longer an ohject. nor an idea. but the place existence is given to and exposed to. This ficsr happened in philosophy. and to philosophy. with the Kantian revolution and the 'condition of possible experiencc': world as possibly of (or for) an existent being. possibili,y as world for ~uch a being, Or: Being no longer to be: thought of as an eS!iCnce. but to be given. offered to a world as its own possibility" (Nancy. Introduction. WIlo Comts Afur lilt Sub}",. Eduardo Cadava, Peter Conner, Jean-Luc Nancy. eds. [Routledge: london, 1991). p. I). 9. David Hume, All E"'!,,iry COllctrt/ing !lummI Untkrstanding, Eric Steinberg, cd. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977). p. 64; cf. A Trutiu of Human Nail'", pp. '99-418. Hume's attempr to show the comparability of liberry-or. more precisely. the "lihcrty of sponraneity~-with thoroughgoing determinacy has sct the terms in which numerous analyses of freedom havc been em; see the excellent discussion of dUa is!oue in Barry Stroud, Humt (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1977), PP·14 1-54· 10. Civilliherties were nor. for Hume, an overriding concem, and he certainly did nor conceive of their defense on the basis of "reason- as a legitimate philosophical exercise; in fact. his historical studies set out to demonstrate the need for me continuity of authority and to extol the power of precedent. On ,he sense of Hume's uconservativism," whkh. unlike modern conser".ativism, does 1101 result from rejection of the Frcnch Revolution (although perhaps it took impetus from a revulsion for Rousscau), see the remarks of Donald W Livingston. HMmc~ Philosophy ofCOlli mOil Lift (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). pp. 306-42.. II. Hume. A Trmtilt ofHum"" Natrtrr, p. 7. 12..lhid., p. 10. IJ. Ibid. 14. See. in particular. llume's renunciation of his earlier usolutionto the problem of perwnal identity in the appendix to A TrttltiJ~ Hum,,,, N,II"rr. "'n short rhere arc two principles. which I cannot render con~isrC'nr; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, Ihat 1111 ol/r diJtinct p..,.(tptiO/IS art distinct exist(ll(N, and that tIN mi,,4

4

va.

NOln to PdgrS xi»-.'Ct

177

II'" '1''' "f"ff;'~S ttI~)' 1-r,,1 (ORllt'Xion "mong ,Iislina txistflJI-rL Did Oll r per(rpliuns C'ilhcr inhere in sornelhing ~implc and individual. or did the Olin.1 perceive some real !;onnaion among them. there wou'd be no tiillit'ulry in Ihe case. I:or my f',m. J mu~t plead the privilege of a ~ep­ II~ ••1Od confns. Ihal this difficulty i~ too hard tor my understanding" lA rrfl1tisf of Hl/III.III NfI,,"·r. p. 6J6). On this inconsistency and in rchlliun III rhe pmhlem of personal identity. ~ee the well-known discus,ill II h,. Norman Kemp Smith. 77/, Pbi/osopl" of D""irllIulllr (I.on0011: I\.facmillan. 1941). pp. 556-58. I~. The most celebrated account of the alternative between "negarivc" anti "llOsitive" freedom can be found in haiah Berlin's "Two Cnnccpts of Liheny." Fo",. Essa.ys l.iiJr,." (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1969). PI" 118-71. A more nuanced vt'~ion of this alternative is PUrlilied with surprisingly similar r~1I1r5 by Richard E. Flathman. 71" Ph,l"sopby dlUl Ptllit;n of F"m"'m « :hicago: University of Chicago

0"

Prcss.

1987). 16. Ilume. A Trral;st ofH"mlln Nlmm. p. 164. 17. Ihill .• p. 165. In an earlier chaptcr. Humt' had tried to distinguish

imagination from mt'nlo[), and had further di5ringuis~d two sensa of imagination (5ee pp. 117-18,,). h... t"ach of Ihese rurn out to be "founded" on an originary if nevertheless heterogeneous imagination from whidl Ihe othe~ derive. The most exten\ive survey of Hume on the im ...~inalinn is thai of Jan Wilbanks. H,,,,,es 1"'ttlI] ojl",Agi""titm (The H~gue: Nijh()fT. 1968): the n:lation of Hume's faculty of imagination to DC5cartcs's corpon:al imagination and the medical theories it spawned is Ji"uSo\cd by John 1'. Wright. TIl( S"rptiral R,trlism of D""iJ Hume (klilllll:aJlUlis; University of Minnrsma Press. 1933), pp. t87-146. The dio;colIl'K of lh." imagination in rightccnth-cmtury Brilain wa.~ extraord.. naril)· widespr(";'I,1. Along with Hume, Ihe discussion was pu~ued by ,\it-x:lnlirr Gerard. Ahraham Tucker. Adam Smith. F.dmund Burke. Adam h~r~tI~n. and Dugald SleW'Jrt. to name only a few (and to leave (lUI the docto~ mtirdy). It has been a Irdditional topos-or perhaps ide:ClI(J~y-of scholarship [0 see in Ihe di~couJ5e of the imagination the "';,rcshat!owins" of English Romanticism. especially 5ince Coleridge's prL'~clllation of Ihe imagination has hccn 50 often viewed as irs credo. IR. Sec p. 10. Cf. the explication of [he word "experience" in I'l,ilippc l.acoue-Iabanhe. L" I'ols;t fOmlllt f."(plritllt'f (Paris: Bourgois. I')~(,l. lIP. 30-JI. The German word Elfah"" ("to experience") derivcs. ot" lourse. from FlIlJrtn (WIO travel") and is relaled 111 C,"fjaIJr ("dangcr").

NOln 10 PlIgtJ xxi-xxii ofHUmAn Naturt. p. 264The most importam of Nancy's writings in this context is ~ inopt1'lllivt Community. Peter Connor. ed. P. Connor. L. Garbus. M. Holland, and S. Sawhney. trans. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1991). A complete bibliography of Nancy's writings can be found in a volume of PIlTlltp"llph devoted to Nancy's thought and edited by Peggy Kamuf; sec Pilratp"aph (June 199}). 11. Those whom Hume awoke include. at least on the ·continent.~ not only Kant but at least two other no le$.~ significant sleepel'!l: Johann Georg Hamann and Edmund Husserl. When Hamann went to England in 1757. he encountered "the Attic philosopher." David Hume, who, as he explained to Kant in a lengthy letter, has fastened onto "belier' or "faith" (GlAulHn) and is, to this extem. "a Saul among prophets"; see Hamann's leHer of July 27. 1759. in ~m. PhilosophiuJ Comspo,uknu. Arnulf Zweig. trans. (Chicago: University of ChiaJBO Pr~s. 1967), pp. 41-42. Hamann did not. of course. find "faith" in Hume. but he also experienced morc than simply "frustration humi. cnnc" (Nancy's term, L 'Dub!,. tk Itt philoJophit [Paris: Galilee, 1986]. p. 47); as the rcference to Saul indicates. he discovercd in Hume an unlikely speaker. one in whom the classical forms of argumentation gave way to overjoyed nitpicking and argumentative exuberance. For Hamann's friend and student F. H. Jacobi. Hume's diS(;ouoe on bdid' marks a gulf that neither uaditioaul metaphysiu nor its Kantian transformation could ever hope to overcome; only a "leap of faith" does so. Sec F. II. Jacobi. David Humt ;ibtr ibn Glilubm. otkr Itkalimtus . Rtalirmus, rin GfSpriJch (Breslau: Lowe, 1785). Although in a completdy different sense. Edmund Husserl also conceived of a Hume who AItpassed Kant in the depth and direction of his questioning. Hume was, according [0 Husserl. a decisive if nevertheless misguided predecessor in phenomenological rescarch; sec. in particular, the late: reAectioRS on the alienation from the "life-world" contained in Husserl. Th~ of Eurol"an Sc;mcts. David Carr. trans. and intro. (Evanston, III.: Northwestern Univeoity Pr~. 1970). cspecially pp. 88-97: "the worid-cniSma in the dcepest and most ultimate S("nS(" (not the sense Kant understood). the enigma of a world whose being is being through subjective accomplishment [Ltimmgl, and this with the self-evidem:e that another world cannot be at all com:eivable-thal. and nothing else. is Hltmel probkm" (pp. 96-97). 22. Precisely what substancc Hume understood a community to 19. Hume. A TmtlUf 20.

emu

No/~s 10 Pa~ xxiii

179

,h.m: in. or to partake of. is lhe key qurslion for any inquiry into his 1'"litical philosophy. his conception of historical continuity. amI his Iwillies. To lhe extent that he thought it was nature and not reason. he opposed atrempts to establish communiry on radically new, "rational" f"undations. No doubt his hizarre encnunler with Rousseau. who ;iccuse'd him ofleadin~ a worldwide conspiracy, also contributed to his conr.;eption of the political community. FOI an interpretation of this em;ounrc:r, see Jerome Christensen. Prlleticill: Ellli:l,tmmmt (Madison: Universiry of Wisconsin Press. 1987), pp. 14l-7J. See p. 87. Nancy doa not in this context refer to Walter Benj.lmin·s philosophical writings, but they often impose themsdves on his anaIYSC'5. In an carly text that shows the confluence of Hermann Cohen and Edmund Husserl, entitled "On the Program for the Coming Philosophy." Benjamin. like Nancy. frees experience from everything "lived." from every subjectivism as well as every objectivism. The experience in whose: presence philosophy will come is purely transcendental; it is "an experience of experience." and this experience could very well turn out to be that of pure languagc:. Sec Walter Benjamin, "O~r da~ Programm der kommenden Philosophic: Gn(l"''''tll~ Seh,ijitll. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schwcppc:nhauser. eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. 1980). 11.1. pp. 157-71; "Program for the Coming l'hilosophy," Mark Ritter. nans •• Th~ Philosop/,ieal R",;~w IS (FallWinter. 198)-8-4): pp. 41-SI. Benjamin lurns from this program for philosophy to come. which is anything but a proposal for the n:newal of philosophy, rowud an exposition of the characteristically modern ushock·experience" in which experience (Erfohrun~ breaks up into "lived experience~" (ErMmiss~; sec. in ra"icular. rhe third and fourth ~~tioIlS of "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire" in IIIIImillatitJPIl. cd. and intro. Hannah Arendt, Harry lohn. rrans. (New York: Schocken. 1968), pp. 160-6S. 8audelaire's itf f1n1TS till mal registers "an emancip.ltiun from experience (Erfohn",tY' (p. 161). and this emancipation ~ives rise to a poetr)· of E,/~b"isu, which. precisely because it has d~lmycd whar pa5.~es for the unity of Erfollrun,. may COIUlitute rhe "(")(perience of experience" of which "The Program for the Coming I'hilo~phy" speaks. 24. Ma"in Heidcsger, &i" u"J ait (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1979). p. ,p, Iftill: Illld Timt, John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. nans. (Nc-w York: Harper & Row. 1962.). p. 67. Sc:c: p. 9 of this book. 2S. A spectacular example of the explication of essence as po,,,,,i_

180

NO/~s 10 Pag~s

xxiv-xxv

and one that no doubt marks the beginning of spcl:ulative meta_ physics---can be found in Lcibniz's rMponse to Spinou: "The power of God is his essence itself. because it follows from his essence that he is the cause of himself and of the other things" (Leibniz. PhiIOHJphk., PII~n lind Lrttm. Leroy E. Loemker. ed. and trans. (B05ton: Reidel, t969]. p. 204)· 2.6. One of Nancy's more programmalil: writings, L'Dub'; tk Ia phiJosophi~. is devoted [0 the "position of the "sense" that is "us." See especially the chapter entided "Le sens. c'est nous" (I. 'Oub'; tk Ia phiJosophi~ (Paris: Galilee. 1986). pp. RS-4J9). But this UllJ cannot be I:onfused with the Sinn toward which phenomenology is oriented; the latter is. in Nancy's terrru. "signification" and arises from a desin: (or exercise of the will, or act of labor. or intention) to cancel the distance from oursc:lves that "sense" imposes on us. Nancy's StnJ should not, then. be understood ali the equivalent of Husserl's Sinn. but it nevertheless remains a question whether the term SIns invites such equivocations. 27. See Martin Heidegger. Klint tlnJ thl Probltm of MtlllpbJlia, Richard Taft. trans. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1990). In -La voix libn: de I'homme" Nancy proposes a reading of freedom in Hcidegger's Kant-book and in his subsequent dispuration with Ernst Cassirer ovcr the legacy of Nco-Kamianism; see L 'lmpbllljf catlgtJru,. Waris: Flammarion. (98). pp. I1~-J7. Nancy hali wrinen of the transcendental imagination and its -arl~ of schematism in many other contexts. See. in particular, Lt D;1{'ourj J,la sJn(opI (Paris: Aubief1ammarion. 1976). pp. 106--9; "La verite imperative" in L '/mpbllli/ mttgoriqut. especially pp. 106-8; "L'Otfrande suhlime" in Du Subliwu. Jean-Fran~ois Courtine et al .• eds. (Paris: Belin. 1988). pp .•0-..6. Reading Kant's chapter on transcendental schematism is. for Nancy. thinking thc crisis it inscribes: "In the crisis. and by it. philosophy is therefore judgcd: it leads it (0 discern itself: (In this sense. there: is a repetition of something of Kantian (riliq''': schematism does not asle to be elucidated; it asks to be brought to light as the limit of the thought of signification. which it reprcscnts)" (Nancy. L 'Oub/i J~ IA phiJosoph;~, p. 79). 1.8. See Nancy. Lt Parltlg~ J~5 voix (paris: Galilee. 1981); "Shanns Voil:es." Gayle L. OrmiSIOIl. trans .. Trllnsforming lhe H~rmtntUlic Conttxt. G. L. Ormiston and A. D. S,hrift. cds. (Albany: State Univer'!iiry of New York PreiS. 1990). PI" 11l-~9.

Noln 10 PagtJ xxv-xxi.r: !CJ. The prolegomenon for the discu55ion of the Ufact of rrasan" in fbf Exl'"im.·(' til F,"tioM. which destribes iudf as "prolegomena" for future thought of freedom (Rt: p. 106). is Nanty's L 1mpblllif ~atl­ ,I:()Tiqll(,: see. in particular. pp. 10-11. N,ml:Y's cx~~osition of "the fact of IC.Hon" be-.m striking CO""llsl to that of Theodor Adorno. who. during .111 amllysis of the Marquis de Sade's moral Ihcorirs. presents il as ·a l1\('re natuul psychological facI" (Max Ilorkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Diakrtir tll/:,,,lixbrtnmtnt. Juhn Cumming. trans. (New York: Continuum. 19711. p. 94: d. Adorno's more extensive analysis in "Freedum: On the Metacritique of )lractkal Reason." N'lativt Di"kctiN. E. 8. Ashton. trans. (New York: Seabury Press. 19731. pp. 111-99). A diKu~sion of rhe relalion of Nancy to Adorno. which is undoubledly warranted in lhi~ context. would have to consider Jacques Lacan's "Kam avCt Sade· (Errils [Paris: Editions du Scuil. 19661. pp. 76S-9o) alung Wilh Nancy and l.acoue-Labarthc·s early text on Lacan. Le Tit" dr 1ft It'IIrr (Paris: Galilk. 1972.). ,0. Sec Kant's admission of uncertainty and of the ·veritative rone" in which this admission rakes place in "On a Newly Arisen Superior Tnne in [Jhilosophy·; sec Rllisi"g tht TOllt 0/ Philo1(Jphy: L.Iltt &"" by K,I1I1. Trn"sfo,matiw C,iliq/lt by Drrrida, P. Fenves, ed. (Baltimore: Juhn~ I fu~)kin5 Univc~ity I'res.•• 199). especially pp. 71. 9j. , .. Sec Kant. FnrllltiatiollJ of tht Mttaph.:YS;~J of Mo,.,,1s. Lewis White Reck. tran~. and intro. (Indianapolis: Bohh,,·Merrill, 1959), pp. ·t}-oM· 3!. For a particularly signific:alll deployment of this often·found phra.\C in Kant's writings. sec Immanuel Kant. Tilt Domi"t ./Virtut. Mary J. Gregor. lrans. (Philadelphia: Uni\'enity of Pennsylvania Press.

196.. ).

p. 1711.

n. Sec: N.mcy. L 1mplrtfti/t'lJtIKD,.iqut, pp. 10-11.

3.', Sc:c:. for example. Kant's remarks on the: e:xecutiun uf Louis XVI in M('fttl"~"liral Elm/mit oJJUJtict. John l.add. lrans. and intro. (Indi,mapllli~: 8CJhh~-Ml'rrill. 19(5), pp. 87-881l; tf. Peter r:envc~. A PmJia,. I·,l/r(lthaca. N.Y.: Cornell University Press. 1991). pp. 2.72.-7S. "\~. Sec I" 134· ,6. Sec p. 89. Nancy in Ihis passage rl'fcrs to a phrase Jacques 11~'rri,la 111:I'Ioys in Ihe ~onclusion of his analysis of Ihe writings of I' nlanuel Levinas: "Col1l.:erning death which i~ Ilideed its Ithe other's] itrnhll:iblc: resource. I.evinas spraks of an 'empiricism which is in no ".1,. a posith'i~m'" (Derrida. W'rir;/Ig and Diffi,tnU, Alan 815.•. nans. :hicago: University of Chicago Prcss, 19781. p. IP: Ibinas, Difficult

NOln 10 PllgtJ xxix-4 Frudom. St'an Hand. trans. [Bahimort': Johns Hopkins Universiry Press. 19901. p. 188). This citation. like so many others found in Tilt Expmmct ofFrmJom. implies a multiplicity of conneclions. At stake in Nancy's exposition of freedom is the issue of ~violcnce and metaphysics." and this issue is gready sharpened by the ~ries of questions Derrida poses after he cites Levinas', remarks on Rosenzweig: "But can one speak of an a/'"itnu of rhc other or of difl"cf('flct'? Has not the concept of expt'rit'nce always been dt'termined by the metaphysics of pre~nce? Is not experience always an encountering of an irreducible presence. the perception of a phenomcnality?" (p. 12.6). 1M Exp~ of Fr~dom. which could also perhaps be called "the experience of the other" or "the experience of difference." takes up these questions not precisely to answer them as to show how "experience" has already done 50. And this is not only what Derrida proceeds to d~"nothing can SO profoundly solidI the Greek logos" (p. 126)-bu( also. as Dcrrida noteS, what Schelling had set out to do in his Exposition 0/ PMlosoph;u/ Empiridmr. and finally what characteriZt'~ the mmt important tt'XtS of Emanuel Uvinas as wdl as those of Franz Rosenzweig. J7. Nancy docs not use the word -classical" lightly or loosely; ill shifting meanings arc explored in Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacouc-Labarrhe. Tht Liura" Absolute. P. Barnard and C. Lester. traDl. (Albany: State University of New York Press. 1988). )8. See p. I H.

Chapttrl 1. Encyclopedia. §48z. in Htgel's Philosop"y of Milltl. A. V. Miller. trans. (Oxford: Clarendon l'ren. (971). p. 139. From Hcgel to us, me vanity. ambiguity, and inconsistcncy of an idea of frc:cdom incapabk of 0btaining foundation and rigor for itself. have: been, in discoWSC5 that a~ just as moralizing as emanciparory. as reactionary as progressive. topoi as abundant as thc IOPfJS of irrepressible freedom itsdf. Balaille has expressed this in another way: "The term fr«dom, which supposes a puerile or oratorical enthusiasm. is from rht' ourset fallacious. and there would be: cvt'n less of a misunderstanding in speaking of all that provokes fear." Georges Bataille. Onlvres rompJltts. vol. l (Paris: Le Seuil, 1970). p. 13 1• z. Karl Marx. 011 the J~wish Q,lrSt;on. in Enrly Writings, T B. Bouomore. tram. (New York: McGraw-Hili, 1964). 3. Thcodor Adorno, Nrgntiv~ DiakctiCl, E. B. Ashton. trans. (NeW York: Continuum. 1987), pp. 114-15.

Not~s to Pag~ $-IJ

18)

4. J{~nc! Dacan". Fourth MwJitat;orr, '-h.ogel. !:.;''Y'·/opmia §§478. 4RI Itramlatcd in H~/i PlJilosophy ofMilli/). PP' 2)7-391. We add the follilwing qualification: nothing of this s,heme is fundamentally PUt in 'IUcs[ion when the subject of rcprc~ntation i~ situated in God and when. 'ell man, freedom becom~s more problematic (as is the case, in different ·.Iy~, fOr Leibniz or Spinou). h is no kss tmc that the thought of freedom ;l~ the n~,eS5ity of subnance or of essence (from SpinOla [0 Ni~[zsche hr way of German IdeiJli,m) combines the subject's "sclf-ap~ringM with a mod~ of bringing the subject. at the: limit. to an exposure in which it no 1(1l1g~r appears to itself: This is what Ileidcgger will have tried to gr3lip in S~hclling (we will rerum to [his). 5. lJotos thi~ J1Y3n thinking? -In fact one cannot think for someone cI.'C. illlr more than one can eat or drink for him. . n G. W. F. Hcgd. l:i/fYC"'pd;a, §Z.3 [nanslatc:d in Tilt Encyc!opdia ltJgc. T. f. Geracrs et aI•• trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett. 1991). p. HJ. 6. G. W. F. H~d, L«tllrtS Oil tilt HiJtory ofPhilosophy. E. S. Haldane and Frances S. SimMJn, trans. (New Jersey: Humanitin Press. 1983), vol. , p. 150 [trans. modified). 7. Cf. Jacques Derrida. &im"nti HIISJrr!j Orit;n ofGMmm'J, John 1'. I.eavey. Jr.• trans. (Uncoln: University uf Nebraska Press. 1989). c."p. pp.

115-46. R. G. W. F. Hq;c:I, Ellcycl0!'tJitl. $'7 [translared in TIN Encydopttiitl Logit'. p. 41). 0111p",rz I. We: arc: nor saying "political" here. F.irhc:r whar is unde:rstc.KMI hy "political freedoms" more or less coven the: series of epithets we have u~C'd. or we would have: to consider in the political 3li such the spc:cific plltting ar ~rake of Ihe [ranscc:ndence of C:lCisrence. It is uncertain whether nne could do this today. We must still relhink th~ political as such. or think differently what Hc:gd assigns ro the political as the exiuent cfTectivity "Ill' all the dctcrminatinns of freedom" (EIIC}t'Iopttiia. §,,86. in lIq,rl's 1'IJ;!olOp/~., ofMilld, A. V. Miller, trJns. [Oxford: Clarendun I'ress. 19711). Later, we: will consider the: modd of a frtt politkal space. without king ahle: ro keep it as constituting by iudf ,hc: prop~r space of frce· dllm. At rhe VC'ry least, W~ will be: able to find a politi,"" "analogon" of' wha[ AI;'! in Radiou s«ks in the following interrogalion on rhe suh;('cr of freedom: "What is a radKdl politics. one whkh goes to the root. whkh ehalICI\t!~s lhe administr.uinn of the necessary. which reAcels on clllh. which

Notes to Pagn 14-19 maincains and practices ju§tice and equality. and which all the while assumes the climate of peace. and is not like the em pry anticipation of a cataclysm? What is a radicalism which is at the same time an infinite task?Alain Badiou. Ptul-rm pmsn-ltl polieique? (Paris: Le Scuil. 1985). p. 106. To which we would add: what ~ a common freedom which presents itself .. such without absorbing into its presence the frcc event? cr. Jcan-Luc Nancy... Lll Juridiction du monarqut hlgllitn." in Rtjoutr It politiflw (Paris: Galilee. 1981). 2. "The concept of freedom. insofar as irs reality is proved by an apodictic law of practical reason. is the IttyslOnt of the whole architecture of the system of pure reason." Immanuel Kant. Critique ofPradical ReIlStl1l, Lc:w~ White Beck. trans. (New York: Macmillan. 1985). p. J. Wasn't this proposition an axiom for all of philosophy up until Man: and includins NietzsdJe? Ifit lost tlW position, ,his Wali not due to a loss of a taSte for freedom. but rather to the dosure of an epoch of history and of tho.!, a closure for which the i<mtian "kc:ysrone" provides a model (even though the Kantian thought of the foetof freedom also constitutes the opening of what we have ro think concerning this topic) . .J. In Traditumis "aditio (Paris: Gallimard. 1972.), p. 17S. 4. "In the concentration camps. it was no longer the individual who died. but a specimen." Theodor Adorno. Negaliw Diakctics. E. B. Ashton. trans. (New York: Continuum. 1987), p. 361 !trans. modified). That is. the specimen of a typt (in this context. "raclan. of an Idea. of a figure of:an essence (in this context, the Jew or the gypsy as the essence of a nonessence or of a human 5uh-es.o;cnce). Cf. on this subject the analyses of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe in the "Heidegger" section of his L 1mitation Ms modtrnt! (Paris: Galilee. 1986). On [he quc:stion of evil. cf. Chap. n. 5. "I generate time iudf in the apprehension of the intuition" (CriIUfw ofPllrt Rtttsoll, N. K. Smith. trans. (New York: St. Martin', Press, 196sl. Transcendental Schemat~m. p. 184). and this apprehension is the -synthesis of the manifold -i.e.. the constitution of phenomena-"which sensibility provides in its originary receptivity" by "joining with spontaneity· (Transcendental Oedllcrion). This originary synthesis is nothing other (han ,he principia) structure of finite transcendence (cf. Marrin Heidegger. Kant a"d tilt Probkm OIMtl4physiC"S. Richard Taft. trans. [Bloomington: Indiana University !'ress. 1990). §16). But. in these conditions, the schematism should be: elucidated no longer according to the guidc:linC5 of a production of B;U-a.~ Heidcgger does. at least up to a certain pointbut on the conrraty (even though this is not a contrary ... ) a.~ the jrfflIDm K

NO/~J

to Pttgn 19-29

II~df of 1/" wilMrarm/fmm every figure (cf. ibid .• §'4). lbis would be rhe Ill-jl,,"! IIf another work. t1. Martin HridC'gger. (;tStlmlll'lSgnb, (Frankfurr-am-Main: KJosternl;llll1, 198 2). \'01. jl. p. 134. Ch,tpt~r J

I. -l1lc im'crtC'd Sfrllctllre of the Deduction of rhe Second enti,1« in ,d.lIion 10 that of [he First Cririqllt is indicatcd by KOlnt. enti,", Df ['nldiedl Rmson. I~wis Whire Beck. trans. (N~ York: Macmillan. 1985). Hook I. chap. I. I. p. 17. 1, "The." COlnnn of Pure Reason." I and II, ImmOlnuel Kant. Cntu,wof {'IIP'r RmftJII. Norman Kemp Smith. lIans. (New York: St. Ma"in's Press, 19(,S). p. 637. J. Immanurl K.1nt. C,'ili'l'" ofJlltI~lIt. J. H. Bernard. trans. (New York: Hafner I're:n. 19SI). §91. p. Jl0. 4. Martin He:id~er. GNdmt"us~fI"t. VII\. .tI. p. 300. (We take: E. Manineau's side in tnlllslOlting V"rhn,ttltnsn'" as i'"'UJul,M·n",in. and [hi~ is also an occasion to recallihar Manineau initialed. on the basis of f /('idqr,g('r. the op('ning of a problematic of frc:ccfom that is echMd here. (:f. hi~ prcl'a"e to R. 8ochm. Ln Mtl",./!ysi'l"~ tI'A rillo~. NOI thai lhis in ~l1y way diminishes our greal esterm fOr Ihe rran51ations ofJran·Fran~is (:ounine.) We will proce:ed hy following rhe analyses of §§17 and 18 in n,i1lK alia ~, This coulcJ not be a moral conscience (we will Jiscllss c;,wiJSnt latn according to iu analpis in Bnllf m,tI Timr) ",host' ontological. nonalUhropolo~kal c:hara(;lC'r Hc:illcsger empha~ile:s (G,sIIm'4I1SK"k. vol. 31. r. 19r). Nl"\'enhelC!i5. respect could add a fUrthC'r twist to this determinacion of rhl' facr of pr;u Ikal rca.~on. bur it will nor "ppc:ar here. 6. Nor JUe5 Ihis mean thai it would ht- a lilu of me: "inlerioril}'" of rca· "'n . .Kce....ible to some: k.ind of inrrmpccrion. Tht' 1'~~'l:hological is emI'"iul. bur nol un Ih(' order ..f the trans(%nJe:m;d c)lpcrience: which is rhe '~I~rie:nce offrcc(iom. On :lIInrher level. this also does nor mean Ihat reality here: woulcJ onlr he rhal (Jf I,ossibiliry. as il is. fOr t'Xamplc. in Ficlne:: 'Fre:edom r(';llly and rruly exim. anJ is the: rool ofF.xisrcnce; however. it i~ not imml'(liald)' rcal. for ils reality goe~ only a.~ tar as possibilil}'." J. G. I·il:hlc. 71.,~ Wi" Tu,,·(trtis 1/" Blm,tI l.i/~. William Smith. trans. 'Wa.~hil1gu)JI. c.: University Pllhlicari~1I5. 1977). Fichte's formula 1I1l~ll)uhte:Jly ,,',luteS philmorh~"~ mosr (ollSlam Ihought. at l(';Ist (if tllr !he 11\0melll we leave a~ide SpinOla. who,c pro)limity to whal we are

7,,,,,.

n:

186

No~s to PagN 31-J3

trying to say should be studied, to the extent that for him freedom is identified with the effectivity of beatitude; but Spinoza does not think existen(;e as such)-'Il least up [0 Hegel and to the (;onvcl"liion of freedom into cffcaivity (yet not simply into necc:ssity. for Fit:htC'an "possibilityn is itsclf a nc:(;cssity of thc "independence of the absolute with rC!ipcct to im own intimate being"). Frttdom has been thought as the neces.o;ary cxUtcna of the subject's infinite possibility of relating to itself. but not as the existentialiry of existco(;e. 7. §76. Third (Tili'l'" (New York: Hafner Press. 19~1). p. 150. We choose "seuing into position" for S,lZlwg. in contradistinction to simple POS;,;qn (in the German text) of rcpmcmation. Our use of this motif liberally distan(;es itself-bC:QUSC of this distinction of conccpm in Kant- from He~r's usc of it in IGml S Thnis 0" &ing, where precisely this distin(;tion is ignored. 8. Stwmg therefore fesponds point fOf point ro the dynamic of difforanit' by which Derrida dC!iignates the infinite motion of finire being u such. DifPranlt' thus implies freedom. or is implied by it. Freedom £rea dijJlranit'. while diffirATKt dc:fers freedom. whim docs not mean that difflranet keeps freedom waiting: it is always already there. but by surprise. as we will sce. 9. Aristotle, Book I. Nietlmtle~an Ethics. W. D. Ross. rrans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1975). 10. Translator's not~Nancy plays on the homonymic coupling in French of"iifoilY." ~ro be done." and "Ilffairt." "affair. mailer. conam. transaction, business. lawsuit." and their relation ro "foirr." Mdoing. making. produ(;ing." and "foil,· "faa." II. Ktlnl antI the Prtlbkm of Mttttph.,s;CJ, Richard Taft. trans. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1990), p. 178.

me

Chllpter 4 I. Same will have merely displaced and misinterpreted (on this point. as on others) Heidegger's thinking. as we will show latcr. Adorno. for his part. left behind in Nrgalivt Dial«tics a thinking in which freedom is (;onfined to its own movemenrs rather than interrogated in irs C!ist'ncr. It should also be recalled that Bergson roo reprcsents. in an entirely difttrent way. a kind of Slopping point of the rhinking of freedom. Theodor Adomo. Nrgativt Diakc,us. E. R. Ashcon. trans. (New York: Continuum. 1987). 2. GtsamtAUJgabt. vol. 31. p. 300. }. Reuben Guilcad's book. Etrt t'l libtrti-unt hudt sur It d"nitr

NOIt.'S 10 Pag~s .J4-}6

/It'idt'.e:mocritus' systcm suffered from having been transmitted throu~h EpicllfllS' ~tcm. which subordinated throry to practice and introduced the m~taphysical conc'"1't of frc:cdont irno philosophy. Actually, it is this concept of the freedom of indifference:. of balantt. or of will. which inspired the admiration of a Marcus Aurc:lius and which is the kC)'5tone ofEpicurus' philoso~)hr. And this fr«dom is primarily that of refusing the solicirations Ill' opiniun. for example the r~pr~ntation of future evils. in ord~r 10 at.ccpt only the present. i.e. sensadon lUI offfront the active 1I\0Veml'n( of error." Vuillemin. NutsSill 011 r:"nI;"g~"r:~/itpor;t tI~ Di"tlolT tlln IJlttln~S pIJiloSIJphiqrm (Paris: Minuit. 1984). p. 105. An acceptance of Ihe prC5~nt which would be precisely a resignation to destiny (this is what Epicurus wanted) will later charact~rize freNom for us (Chap. II). It is not a question of proposing a new Epicureanism. or an F.pirurc:an ~ivative. II is only a question of smting that at the heart of the philosophical tradition surrounding frftdom Ihere is what could be called a Mmaterialism of the present" -und~rstood as the singularity of ~i5tence and not as appropriated prC5encc---