December 7, 1982
How do you define a living, as opposed to a non-living? By the existence of an equal interval between the movement it receives and the movement it gives, that is, the movement it performs. That’s a living thing. But what is more alive than living? And Bergson is going to go straight there since he reserves for later the study of the living. He reserves this for another book. What interests him, in Matter and Memory, is to arrive as quickly as possible at a living matter which is the most advanced, the most complex expression of the gap or the interval, namely, the brain. He immediately addresses the most complex degree of development of living matter.
Seminar Introduction
In the second year of Deleuze’s consideration of cinema and philosophy, he commences the year by explaining that whereas he usually changes topics from one year to the next, he feels compelled to continue with the current topic and, in fact, to undertake a process of “philosophy in the manner of cows, rumination… I want entirely and truly to repeat myself, to start over by repeating myself.” Hence, the 82-83 Seminar consists in once again taking up Bergson’s theses on perception, but now with greater emphasis on the aspects of classification of images and signs drawn from C.S. Peirce. This allows Deleuze to continue the shift from considering the movement-image, that dominated early 20th century cinema, toward a greater understanding of the post-World War II emphasis on the time-image.
For archival purposes, the English translations are based on the original transcripts from Paris 8, all of which have been revised with reference to the BNF recordings available thanks to Hidenobu Suzuki, and with the generous assistance of Marc Haas.
English Translation
After answering questions from students and then reviewing the six types of images previously outlined, Deleuze draws upon Bergson again to continue the classification process, but then suggests that with Bergson’s usefulness now over, the focus will be Peirce’s theory of signs, notably the three categories in Peirce’s system (Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness and their intersection with images and signs). Commencing with Secondness (the coupling of force-resistance or action-reaction), Deleuze introduces at once the problem of individuation and the category of the real and then, regarding Firstness, he establishes its characteristics and links it to the affection-image and pure affect. Also emphasizing the importance of the event as concept, Deleuze links these categories to Blanchot and Péguy, with Thirdness remaining to be linked to these first two categories in the next session.
Gilles Deleuze
Seminar on Cinema: Classification of Signs and Time, 1982-1983
Lecture 4, 07 December 1982 (Cinema Course 25)
Transcription : La voix de Deleuze, Binak Kalludra (Part 1), Marie Hélène Tanné (Part 2), and Sophie Tréguier (Part 3); additional revisions to the transcription and time stamp, Charles J. Stivale
Translation, Charles J. Stivale
Part 1
[The session begins with Deleuze answering a previous non-recorded question from a student]
Deleuze: … because you said many, many things. I am answering quickly about the first thing.
The student: OK.
Deleuze: It is quite, it is quite obvious that this is a certain interpretation in accordance with Bergsonism of what we call the sensorimotor situation. What Bergson called the centers of indetermination are sensorimotor centers. So, don’t say it’s behaviorist; we must say: behaviorism is a certain interpretation of the sensorimotor situation. To go back to our examples of cinema, if I am looking for where a behaviorist interpretation of the sensorimotor relationship has been offered, as if by chance, it’s in American cinema. So, there we have the first thing.
The second thing, you tell me the three types of images, perception-image, affection-image, action-image obviously intersect. This remark is absolutely correct to a certain extent. Generally, they intersect. Can we obtain these three types of image, each for its own account, in the pure state or almost in the pure state, that is, in a state of predominance such that we can we ask: is this set of images essentially affection or a set of images essentially perception or essentially action? I believe that the prevalence of one type of image over others can be such that we might speak of pure affection-image, pure perception-image, and pure action-image. I choose an example fully known to everyone; keeping my examples within the cinema, it is quite obvious that [Carl] Dreyer’s “The Trial of Joan of Arc” [1928] is made almost exclusively of affection-images. It is obvious that [Dziga] Vertov’s “Man with the Camera” [1929] is made almost exclusively of perception-images, etc., etc. And then you stated a third point, well I noticed in what you were saying a third point, but I forgot it. Okay, but still these two answers, but you are absolutely right; it wasn’t stupid what you were saying at all.
The student: [Unclear comments; he seeks a specific detail about Henry James and William James]
Deleuze: Henry James, wasn’t Henry James the novelist?
The student: [Unclear response]
Deleuze: Ah, no… [Deleuze chuckles] William James is a particular case. That belongs to everything I’m trying to do a little bit this year when I tell you that I want to reconsider the stories on Peirce to show you that a fairly little-known author can be great. Williams James’s case is yet another case because he is very well known, but he was literally massacred, that is, by dint of having emphasized in the philosophy texts some points of his theories, not false ones since they are in his works, but cut off from any context. William James is a marvelous, marvelous, brilliant author. He is one of the greatest American philosophers, and contrary to what the Americans say, they have many very great philosophers, only they don’t read them, they don’t know them, they’ve forgotten them. And for what reasons have they forgotten them? Because of their bullshit of formal logic.
But the English also sacrificed all their philosophers. It wasn’t that they were lacking any; they had some great ones, some amazing ones. Formal logic has played a role in England, and linguistics for that matter, the same role as in France, psychoanalysis and linguistics, a task of fantastic stifling. Okay, that’s sad, but hey, all that will pass. So, we mustn’t fret, we need to be optimistic. So, you just have to deal with it when things go badly and then wait for better days, that’s what we all do. So fine, I’ll continue, and if possible, I would like to say, I’ll move forward a bit.
So, we have – I’ll remind you very quickly because I have something to add — so we have what’s of great importance to me regarding numbering itself, regarding our problem. In fact, this whole section, which is our first part, I remind you, is classification of images and signs. And we started, we looked at a first element of that part. Then we will move on to something else which will be connected; I spoke about it last time.
So, all the same, I have six types of images which you can imagine are not finished because, within my types, there are some which are almost pure, but there are others which are very complex. And thus, I remind you, these are movement-image, and then when the movement-image is related to a center of indetermination, I have three types of images: perception-image, action-image, affection-image, and then we judged that these were not going to be enough for us. We predicted that there were images of time, and that they were not the same as movement-images or perception-, affection-, action-images, once again, since perception-image, action-image, affection-image are the varieties that movement-image takes on when this movement-image is related to a center of indetermination. I don’t have to go back over this; this is now a given.
But it seemed to us that the images of time were yet something else, and the easiest way to express it was to say: why yes, images of time, it’s finally one, either… it comes down to the same thing, I would say two cases: there can be an image of time either when I compose movement-images with one another, that is, planes, section planes, temporal sections as we have seen; either — and I can switch easily from one to the other, and I am not even explaining how, you’ll understand it immediately — or when I combine perception-images, action-images, affection-images. That would give me an image of time.
Why am I saying image of time here and not time-image? Because necessarily, I would reach indirect images, indirect images that will in fact be concluded from the composition of the movement-images or from the combination of the three types of images, action-, affection-, perception-. These are therefore “indirect” images of time, and that will amount to saying — if I continue choosing my examples from cinema — that would amount to saying: time is montage, the very notion of montage indeed implying this comparison or this confrontation in this combination of images. [Pause]
Hence my question … oh, no! We will need something more: even if we do not yet know where this is leading us, we will indeed need time-images. We will indeed need images that will be directly images of time and which, being direct images of time, will henceforth deserve the — what’s the name of that… that little line there? — the dash, which will allow us to say “time-image”… the hyphen, sorry, the hyphen [Laughter] that will allow us to say “time-image”. [Pause]
And I was saying: won’t what follows in Matter and Memory — Bergson’s first chapter in Matter and Memory is a fundamentally materialist text – won’t what follows open up the possibility of the time-image? And it is there that we find, in fact quite oddly, an expression by Bergson which may seem unusual to us when we are reading Bergson, but who, for us, isn’t so because we have made certain that he isn’t [unusual] — [Deleuze speaks to a student next to him who is smoking] sorry, [Inaudible comments, but it seems that Deleuze prefers not to breathe the smoke so close to him] [Pause] — yes, a very unusual expression that we will find in what follows in Matter and Memory, “memory-image” with a hyphen, “memory-image” with a hyphen. I am saying, it’s very strange because this is the first time Bergson has used a hyphen, I mean, created as unusual an expression as “memory-image”. From the start, we have been using “movement-image” with a hyphen, action-image, perception-image, affection-image with hyphens. And of course, we borrowed it from Bergson, and I stated the reasons why I thought I was faithful to the letter of Bergson. But in terms of terminology, he was not using these hyphens. So, we took on a bit of responsibility, but now, at the level of memory, he himself uses this hyphen, memory-image, fine.
But, at the same time, we’re assailed by doubts. Is the memory-image — even before we know what the memory-image might be — what we know is that if there is a time-image, if there is something other than indirect images of time, if there is a direct time-image or direct time-images, we know that they differ in nature from movement-images, and therefore they differ in nature from perception-images, from action-images, from affection-images. They will be of a different nature. Yet it may very well be that a time-image moves. Now let’s understand this, things are just subtle enough, but it’s not very… I don’t mean these are necessarily immobile images; these could be images that will involve movement. But be careful, it is not the movement that will account for their nature, whereas in the movement-image, it is the movement that will account for its nature.
Okay, so here we are moving forward, and already at that point, we have doubts! I mean, will the memory-image really be a time-image? Why would we already have doubts? I don’t know, because memory, memory, does memory possess the secret of time? Why would it possess the secret of time, memory? Memory pisses everyone off, really. So, that’s not possible. No, in any case, it is perhaps important, excluding the memory-image exhaustively from accounting for the time-image. There will have to be something else. So, what could there be? Wouldn’t we be called upon to speak of the dream-image? Would the dream-image be a better time-image? I don’t know, but why not? And why? Will we still have to look for other types of images? This is to tell you that our list is not at all complete, and that through the time-image, I actually have a grouping, for the moment, not yet filled with images of a new type. As a result, it’s not six kinds of images; by developing this and moving ahead, we risk finding many, many kinds of images, and thus being able to establish our table of categories.
I’ll add something more about the relationship between the image-movement and the three varieties that this image takes in relation to a center of indetermination, perception-image, affection-image, action-image. When the movement-image is thus related to the center, becoming either perception-image or action-image or affection-image, what is changed in movement? What new characteristic does the movement-image take on? Bergson will state it in another text which this time is borrowed from Creative Evolution, and I believe that the following correspondences could be established. When the image becomes perception-image, what happens? At that point, movement is no longer grasped as movement; it is related to something which serves as its subject or object, that is, it serves as a mobile body, or a thing moved. And it is when the movement of the movement-image is related to a mobile body or to a thing moved that the image is a perception-image. This comes down to saying, the mobile body or the thing moved to which the movement is supposed to relate will in general be called a thing as object of perception.
Notice that this supposes, and it refers to the process of solidification which we saw the last time that the world of the movement-image went through such a process of solidification when, referred to the center of indetermination, it becomes perception-image. So, I would say, the category which corresponds to the perception-image is the thing, the thing insofar as being a mobile body, or a thing moved which did not at all appear in the movement-image where movement was in the pure state. It wasn’t the movement of some thing. It was a set of actions and reactions without my being able to assign anything distinct from the movement. But when I say it is something moving or it is something moving, at that point, this is a perception-image, and linguistically, this is in the category of the substantive. [Pause]
And if I move on to the action-image, what is the transformation of the movement-image when it becomes an action-image? At that point, that’s when you think about what you yourself call an action; what gets interesting in movement is either a temporary point where it’s going, [Pause] or a temporary result it’s supposed to obtain. At that moment, I am saying: there is action, or I even say, “I act”. When I use movement to relate it to a temporary result to be obtained, I would say “I act”. So, I substituted for movement the sketch of a path toward a point where it is going, or the sketch of a result that it is supposed to achieve. At that point, I say, it is an action-image, and the linguistic category that corresponds to it is the verb.
And finally, for the affection-image, what transformation does it imply in the movement-image, that the image-movement did not include as long as I considered it in itself for itself? I would say, it is when movement is grasped and related to a quality of which it is only vibration, at that moment, I would say, it is an affect, it is an affection; this quality is an affection. Yes, in the three cases, the movement-image referring to the center of indetermination, in fact, acquires a new characteristic, the character of “thing” in the perception-image, that it corresponds to the linguistic category of noun, the action character in the action-image to which the linguistic character of the verb corresponds, and the quality in the affection-image to which the linguistic category of adjective corresponds.[1] All of this I can say, and I’m recalling it because we will need it, all of this in the end — oh! I forgot my chalk … ah, I really needed to draw — well, do you remember – there’s chalk here? No? No chalk? I will draw with my finger. [Pause] There is nothing, there is nothing; it has nothing, well, it doesn’t matter. So, I’ll delete this part… What? A small piece? Will you send it to me carefully? [Laughter; pause while Deleuze gets organized and moves to the board] –
You remember the drawing that … [Pause] the simplest one [Pause, Deleuze is at the board] — a big one? ah! aaah! … [He gets a bigger piece of chalk] – that Bergson offers us and asks us, because I needed it constantly, there you have it, P, the plane P. So, it’s the “matter plane”, our plane of immanence; in fact, it never stops moving, and on each presentation of the plane, it’s a movement-image, we have them there, everywhere on the planes. S is a center of indetermination encompassed on the plane of immanence. To take up his remark from earlier, thanks to intervals, this is where sensorimotor relations will be established, excitation received, that is, movement undergone, reaction delayed. This is what we will call the relation … this is what we will call a sensorimotor relationship.
So here I have S which belongs to the plane of immanence, but there he gives us a cone. Why a cone? That’s complex. It’s because the cone has an entire story. Bergson doesn’t state it; he doesn’t need to state it, but you readers of Bergson need to remember it. It is that mathematics… and it seems to me, I have sufficiently proven the last time that contrary to what has been said, Bergson cannot be understood solely with reference to biology which fascinated him, but must be understood also with reference to a physical mathematics which he absolutely needs, that is, which he absolutely needs to confront in the form of both the theory of relativity, but also in the form of the most classical mathematics.[2]
And you know — even if you don’t know math, it doesn’t matter — you know that, especially from the 17th century onwards, mathematics has a particularly important chapter called “the theory of conics”, and that the theory of conics — which was decisive for the constitution of descriptive geometry and projective geometry, with projective geometry completely modifying and renewing all geometry — considers the cuts and various sections produced on a cone, sections and cuts which will yield figures, with figures seeming to have had no relation to one another before the theory of conics. But when all these figures are discovered, for example, circle, ellipse, hyperbola, etc., straight line, point, these are special cases of sections of the cone, finding an absolutely novel and original unifying character.[3]
In fact, to keep it as simple as possible, you can understand that if I cut my cone through a plane, [Deleuze demonstrates on the board] if I cut it through a plane parallel to the base, I would have a circle. If I cut it through a plane passing through the vertex, I would have a point, the projection of the cone, it has a point, if I pass my cutting plane through the vertex. If I pass through a transverse plane, it will be an ellipse. If I cut it like this, look for… If I cut it like this, I have no reason not to insert another dotted cone, and I would have a figure very well known in geometry and which, at first glance, has absolutely nothing to do with either a point, a circle, or an ellipse.
So, here are figures, until now completely irreducible, that have a common generating element which will be the cone and its sections. Is it by chance that Bergson inserts a cone there? He doesn’t have to state it. It is up to us readers to consider this. But I am therefore still sticking to that, my … to the simplest because we will later rediscover all of that. In the simplest terms, it is therefore on the section plane which passes through the vertex and where therefore the projection of the cone has a point, the point S, you see that the point S begins to acquire a new determination. It belongs completely to the plane of immanence, to the matter plane, but it is also the vertex of the cone.
Okay, I am saying: the first point on my matter plane or plane of immanence P which intersects the cone at point S, but point S belongs to the plane. On the plane, I have movement-images; if I relate these movement-images to the center S, to the point S, as we have seen, I can do it in three ways, and I have then either perception-images, or action-images, or affection-images. This whole part of the cone — ahhh! [The sound of the chalk breaking] — this whole part of the cone doesn’t intervene. I’ve just proposed S, which belongs to the plane. When Bergson gives us the cone whose point coincides in the vertex, coincides with S, this is because the cone is something other than the movement-image. Movement-images are on the plane. They become action-images, perception-images, affection-images, when the movement-images are related to S which belongs to the plane. On the other hand, S at the same time is the vertex of this cone. What is this cone? [Pause] That’s… but why represent it by the cone? This is time, then what Bergson will call “universal becoming” or what he will call “memory”, but what an odd conception of memory he is going to create, or what he will call the Whole that changes and does not stop changing, the Whole that changes and does not stop changing, time or universal becoming, memory, etc. This is my cone.
Why a cone? So, there we can already guess following what little I’ve said. The matter plane or the plane of immanence, if I relate it now to the cone, has only one property, I would say, temporal sections of the cone. [Pause] It’s not at all certain this is precisely the simplest situation. I would probably have other sections of the cone, and these other sections of the cone, won’t these be the time-images that I’m seeking to such an extent that there will be plenty of time-images? Some imperfect, some perfect. But the perfect ones will have no connection. Perhaps some very special efforts will be required to reach that, and the memory-image will have no role at all in this story. It may matter very little, a path toward real time-images.
But in the end, you see then that Bergson started off admirably, but all of that has to be drawn out of Bergson; he doesn’t say all that, and yet he says it. Why doesn’t he say it? Why does he say it? He says it because it’s literally what he is saying. Why doesn’t he say it? Because that’s not his problem. And you can see why it’s not his problem, because his problem, it’s very odd, very odd nonetheless, it’s very well known, but it’s very odd all the same. His problem is the relationship between matter and spirit.
Well, we can’t do everything, because it’s still a very important problem, it’s a very important problem. Once again, to my knowledge, Bergson is the only philosopher who changed anything in a pseudo-scientific discipline, namely in psychiatry. Matter and Memory, its problem is to impose a necessary renewal to psychiatry. And in fact, psychiatrists after Matter and Memory could no longer speak as they spoke before. But his problem is matter and spirit, especially on the level of the brain.
And you see why I am saying that. This is indeed the problem in Matter and Memory since he’s going to make a pretty fantastic move. He, the philosopher who passes for one of the most spiritualist philosophers according to the French tradition, he does not hide it, he is a spiritualist: yes, he believes in the spirit, all that. It’s his business. But it is this spiritualist philosopher who, to my knowledge, created this first chapter of Matter and Memory which is the most materialist text imaginable, which, in my opinion, exceeds on the very level of materialism everything that the greatest materialists have written.
And why can he do that? No doubt because he has genius. But why does he get into this? Because if his problem is the matter-spirit relationship, it is essential for him that he render to matter the maximum of what matter can capture, the maximum of what belongs to matter, even things that were not attributed previously to matter. Hence his idea of light-matter, hence his agreement with Einstein on this point: it is light, he is going to strip light from matter. He will do everything, thoroughly in the end. He writes this extraordinary chapter as a means to pose his problem precisely: once it is said that I will not be criticized for not having given to matter what it deserves, and even more, that he had never been … [Interruption of the recording] [31: 53]
… what does it [matter] deserve? We will understand how the spirit slips into matter. But you have already guessed what his whole thesis is going to be: to show how spirit, represented by the cone, slips into matter at point S, and how, with respect to spirit, matter has the exact role as follows, to perform various sections of the spiritual cone. And that will create all the greatness and all the development of Matter and Memory. But I am saying that this indeed shows that, occupied by such a problem, here we have the mystery which has always fascinated me in all philosophy: what justifies, what makes this Bergson’s problem? So, it’s not at the level of great philosophers, it’s at the level of each of you.
What happens for you to have a problem? Here I have my problem. Oh no, that’s not how I would pose the problem. At the level of problems, there is no foreordained answer. Once again, problems are invented. They’re invented. If he hadn’t invented that, questions can’t be made up; a question, it’s like the “what time is it?” type. This is not a problem. There, it cannot be invented. But a problem can be invented, with risks; there are false problems. Only, what defines a false problem? There you have a problem! Because a false answer is not difficult to define. I ask, “what time is it?”, you tell me “10 PM”, that’s false. Okay, but that’s not enough. But still, we see that we could easily define a false answer. But a false problem, it’s not easy to define what is wrong in a problem, if one agrees to say, it is not simply contradiction. In fact, there are problems which are false problems, and which are nevertheless not contradictory, but I do not add that this is not what defines a problem.
But in the end, his problem, what is he doing? When you find that out, you’ll know what philosophy is. This is what I called: how does concept relate to taste or to tact? You know, there is an etymology from Nietzsche who busies himself with the wise “sapiens”. That is, he derives sapiens from sapere, to taste. Ah really! In fact, what is this tact of problems? What is this construction? What does it mean to construct a problem? You will tell me: mathematicians do it, yes, that’s what philosophy and mathematics have in common: the construction of problems. But obviously, it’s not the same domain.
Fine, so I am saying, you see, his problem is spirit-matter. Ours, if I allow myself to identify with you and therefore conversely, ours is not that at all. Our problem is image and sign, and what we want, because and why and in whose name “you”? Because it amuses us, it seems, it amuses us, that’s it, this is fun. He has every right to create a graph, a graph of images and signs. I am saying, obviously Bergson couldn’t get involved in this since he was busy with something else. But myself, spirit and matter intersect; that does not fascinate me. Why doesn’t that fascinate me? Am I wrong? But no, I’m not wrong; that’s how it is. On the other hand, images and signs interest me. Why yes! Suddenly, I can undertake an entire decentering of Bergson at the level of images and signs. Okay, that’s what we’ve been doing so far.
Suddenly, we need a transition. We need a transition, and as I am still concerned both with having you follow what I’m saying, but also with the very legitimate concern, and entirely educational, of teaching you something, we are coming back, we are coming back to what I did much too quickly last year. Namely, what? I used Bergson, I started classifying images. We still don’t know what the signs are, we don’t know. And in our classification of images, nothing can be learned from Bergson for the moment; we have temporarily exhausted him. We have six types of images with the feeling that our sixth type contains a lot of different images, so we are happy, we are delighted. For the moment, we tell ourselves, that’s all done.
But now we are taking on an author who never stopped considering, who had the same problem as we do — rather it’s us then who have the same problem as him — namely, to create a classification of images and signs. And here, the idea emerges that this could only come to an Englishman. And so, this is the author I was talking about, where I really want to start again…
A student: [Inaudible comment]
A woman student [in response]: He’s American?[4]
Deleuze [continuing apparently without having heard these comments]: … who is called [C.S.] Peirce. He lived at the end of the 19th century, he wrote at the end of the 19th century. Oddly, he’s poor. He hardly publishes anything. What he publishes is on astronomy, in which he’s very, very knowledgeable, and on pure formal logic. In particular, when his texts became better known, people realized there was a very important discovery in formal logic, namely the invention of a trivalent logic, that is, there are no longer just two values, the true and the false. The invention of a trivalent logic does not date from those to whom it has been attributed around 1910-1920, for this is entirely in Peirce’s work. He doesn’t manage to publish; in one sense, he is entirely too far ahead of the times, too unusual; he doesn’t publish, or he doesn’t want to, that doesn’t interest him at all.
As a result, his work will be published very, very late in England in the form of collected papers, under the title of “Collected Papers” and in eight volumes, in eight volumes. This is a very extraordinary work which, when it became known in the middle of the 20th century, was obviously quite impressive for people. He was too early for his time; he came to the fore afterwards. And then, people realized that his theory of signs was part of what he himself called a new discipline, “semiology”. And all the attempts at semiology which were then encumbering modern thought had to refer to Peirce either to discuss his work or to pay homage to it, but suddenly its importance in modern philosophy became fundamental. In addition, the existence of a trivalent logic in his works assumed a no less fundamental importance. On the other hand, his theory of images which, in my opinion, is the basis of everything, seemed a bit as if it were too simple. But you know how wary of English simplicity you have to be.
The English never conceived the concept. They’ve always conceived the concept in an extremely profound way, but they always conceived it under the double aspect of a kind of feigned naivety, which is their thing; “Well, can’t you see it’s like that in the world?” They recount the most extraordinary things, and then the English philosophers are all the Marx Brothers type or rather Groucho. Groucho is the type of the English philosopher. [Laughter] Indeed! They produce an entirely crazy world and tell you, “But can’t you see it? But these are your habits!” Hence the theme of habit in their works. “But this is the world we’re all used to.” And then they propose, linked to this world, they propose nonsense to you which is their greatest specialty, and they tell you, “But can’t you see? That’s what you call meaning!” And with that they create a kind of philosophy that France has never been able to digest. The first to do this was [David] Hume. It never worked; these are guys who can’t “catch on” in France. It’s odd. Well, I’m exaggerating, but it’s poorly received.
We prefer to say… Here too there is a genius of nations, there is a tone of English philosophy. It is not the same tone as in German philosophy; it is not the same as … but when you reduce the English philosophy’s tone to empiricism, it’s not that at all. They’re crazy, they’re crazy about the concept. So there really, they do not have the same conception of the concept as a German like Kant or a Frenchman like Descartes. No, it’s quite another thing, it’s another world. It’s strange. So, they are delighted.
Here we are, we are going find a transition through Peirce. And here I’m saying — because this might not keep us busy all the way to Christmas, but it certainly will keep us busy today and next week — I am stating the plan I am going to follow exactly as regards Peirce’s analysis. So, our study will focus on three points: the classification of images according to Peirce; [Pause] second point, [Pause] how does Peirce go from the notion of image to that of sign, [Pause] or, if you prefer to take it literally, of a phenomenology which is his own and which has nothing to do with Husserl’s, of a phenomenology — since the phenomenon is the image, as we have seen, it is the Appearing [Apparaître] — from a phenomenology to a semiology? How does he go from images to signs? The third problem: what classification of signs follows from this in Peirce’s works?
And with that, we won’t be done, we won’t be done, and there will be one thing that will bother me greatly, which I hope will bother you greatly. It happens that we’ll have, in quotes, “objections” for Peirce. And we will have, alas, three kinds of objections which we will make with sufficient respect and admiration, but finally, an objection about the way in which he conceives the images, an objection about the way in which he conceives the passage from the images to the signs, and an objection about the way in which he conceives of signs, that is, we will have three objections which bear on the Whole.
Will these be objections? And I keep telling you, objections are of no interest. No, of course, these will not be objections; these will be attempts to show that Peirce is obviously entirely right under the conditions of the problem he set for himself, but that we have other conditions of a problem which requires a reworking of the classification, of the double classification of images and signs, while this reworking nonetheless retains much from Peirce. So, you see my plan that I announced here so that you can follow in a way that’s very … [Deleuze does not finish the sentence]
So today and next time, I won’t at all be speaking for myself, even supported by something else; I’ll be speaking or trying to speak for Peirce. I would point out that in France, we only have a few texts by Peirce translated under the title Ecrits, in the plural, Ecrits sur le signe [Writings on Signs] from Éditions du Seuil.[5] It’s not heavy, but the guy who did it, who I don’t know by the way, is called Gérard Deledalle, and in my opinion, this is such an exceptional presentation and commentary that it compensates, at least in part, for the insufficiency of the translated texts. This is an example of a work of fantastic presentation. So, I am asking you, just as I asked you to read the first chapter of Matter and Memory, I urge you to read or peruse this book by Peirce.
Having said this, I’ll start, and here is what Peirce tells us. Peirce tells us something quite simple that we are already used to. Once again, this is not a parallel; for the moment, don’t look for connections between Peirce and Bergson, they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other. If there are any overlaps, you will find them at your own risk. In any case, we will note them, but they will be involuntary. It happens all the time that a philosopher encounters another without knowing him.
Peirce tells us, well, here we are, let’s start from what appears. We start from what appears, and what appears is the image, the Appearing, since as we’ve seen, the image is not something that we have in our heads. And there too, Peirce grasped it very much like Bergson, he finds it quite important, not something that you have in your head or in your consciousness, not at all. What they call “image”, one as well as the other, this is Appearing as such. I am not even saying what appears. What appears suggests that there is something behind the Appearing. No, this is appearing insofar as being appearing. There we have what is called “image”, wherever it may be, whether it is in a consciousness, whether it is in the world, whether it is elsewhere, whether it is anywhere, on a billboard, in your head, anywhere. As soon as there is Appearing, it is an image. And he gives… So that’s what everyone used to call “phenomenon”; Bergson called it “image”. He was correct. People call it a “phenomenon” very often. He [Peirce] sometimes calls it “phenomenon”, but more often he starts off with these extremely complicated names that are going to abound, like all English people who need to invent a name.
A problem arises here too — because I seem to be circling around, but these are all problems that I would so much like you to think about to the extent that you are interested in philosophy – a problem: in what case does a philosopher need to create a term? In which case can a philosopher be satisfied with using common terms even if it means renewing their meaning? A concept is always designated by a term. I say, “a term”. I believe that a concept always has a term for it, even if it is a compound word. A concept is not propositional. The proposition is something else. The concept is first designated by a word or term. There are cases where there are concepts which are satisfied or which are adequately designated by a common word, with many surprises. There are concepts that, in my opinion, require the creation of new words at all costs. Between the two, there are obviously possible style choices [coquetteries]. Namely, there might not quite be a need for a new word, but it was fun to invent a new word. But when we criticize philosophy for inventing words, and suggest that it was not necessary, it shows a very great lack of understanding of this discipline, moreover, which remains indifferent to the misunderstandings it arouses. Well, what to do about it? I can very well see concepts if, when I was allowed to create them, well then, there is no choice. We need to create a term. There you are, there is nothing we can do about it. Well, we’ll create the term.
I am choosing an example because I will need it, precisely in works of a non-philosopher. But he becomes a philosopher as soon as he follows the situation. I invent a concept, I need a word. We will see because we will find this word. And this is an author I told you about because I would like you to read him too. It’s [Charles] Péguy, Péguy about whom you’ll forget everything about these tales of Joan of Arc, my God, although God, that’s it, it is linked, and we will see why it is linked. [Deleuze writes on the board] Here he suddenly proposes a completed idea. Oh! There is not simply the eternal and the temporal, there is “the Aternal”.[6] So with this, if you are a philosopher, your heart rejoices. If there is a place where poetry and philosophy have some intersection, it’s already at this level. “The Aternal,” he said. Fine, there he found the word; he got this right, of course. But this is already a problem of art. It’s like a color in painting, finding the term for a new concept.
What does he mean by: the eternal and the temporal are not enough; I need “the Aternal”? Fine, I mean, you certainly sense this, “Aternal” opposed to “eternal,” well, that means, it’s not eternal, or at least, it’s a very special eternity, it’s an eternity interior to time, “Aternal”. This very special eternity, which is interior to time, he will call it “Aternal”, provided that for him, a single term wasn’t enough because this term designates a new concept in relation to time. So, there we have a case of a term that’s apparently absolutely well-founded, necessary, quite necessary.
Well then, Peirce is not satisfied with the word “image” or the word “phenomenon”. I am closing the parenthesis on what he says; he tells us, he sometimes uses “phenomenon”, he sometimes uses “image”, but more often he then uses a Greek word, phaneron, the phaneron. He says “images”, this is the study of phanerons. That interests me because I don’t think he is at all correct. It’s weird. This is a case where he is being stylistic. In fact, he will never justify, to my knowledge, he does not justify his use of the word phaneron, except that he is an astronomer. Maybe he is correct. Why phaneron rather than phenomenon? I am suggesting that if you compare the two words, even in Greek usage, I’m not saying in their etymology, it would make the problems much more complicated. But in current Greek usage among the ancient Greeks, it does seem to me — I’m not entirely sure, but anyway, I’m going to quote it as certain — “phenomenon” is much more the image in a kinetic sense. In other words, it is the movement-image above all. The phenomenon, above all, is in becoming; it moves, for the Greeks, it moves. It is a kinetic image that does not stop moving. The phaneron, even etymologically, is Appearing; the phaneron is the luminous, that which appears in the light. It is less a kinetic image than a luminous image.
Suddenly this is very joyful for us. All that is nothing, but we will accept both terms. “Phenomenon” or phaneron, that actually suits us in fact since, for us, as we have seen, I will not go back over this here, the image is inseparably movement-image and light-image. As a movement-image, it is phenomenon; as a light-image, it is a phaneron. So that suits us well. So, let’s continue.
And Peirce tells us there are three categories of phanerons, that is, there are three categories of that which “appears”, and he goes on to give them some unusual names. He calls them, the first one, the category of Firstness – all that appears will be under the one of these three categories – the category of Firstness. He knows the Middle Ages quite well, you see; this is primeitas. They didn’t discuss that in the Middle Ages, but this is a word derived from Latin. In Scholasticism, if we had something corresponding, there were some with an entire theory of primary intentions, secondary intentions, tertiary intentions, but obviously he transforms that. This is the primeitas, and Firstness. And then the second category is Secondness. And then the third category is Thirdness, and there is nothing else. [Laughter][7]
You say, well fine, one, two, three. One, two, three. What does that mean! Everything that appears is divided into three categories: Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness. What does this one, two, three mean? In the French edition, I am reading page 22. Is he going to show us already that it’s more complicated than… or all the… what does he mean? “Firstness is the mode of being” — he might just as well say appear, no matter; it is the mode of being or of appearing — “Firstness is the mode of being of that which is, such as it is, without reference to anything else at all.” — We sense a formal logician there. He is stealing definitions for us from formal logic there. He can henceforth assign a symbol to it in the end, the symbol of Firstness — “that which is such as it is without reference to anything else at all” — that image which appears such as it appears without reference to anything else at all, that is, without reference to another image. We will call it Firstness. Good. Are there any? No need to know that. Not yet. [Pause]
“Secondness is the mode of being or of appearing of that which is, such as it is or appears, in relation to a second, [Pause] but without consideration of a third whatever it might be”. Secondness is the mode of being of that which is, such as it is, in relation to a second, but without consideration of a third whatever it might be. Here we’ll say that this is a different kind of image. This is an image or an appearing which appears such as it appears only with reference to another image.
“And Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is, such as it is, by placing a second and a third into relation,” by relating a second and a third. Here we have the three so-called “phaneroscopic” categories. He asserts no one has seen this. There are many people who have proceeded by one, two, three, Hegel, but Hegel, he did not understand anything. Nothing. He thought it was dialectic. He didn’t at all see that it was logics and that it was very, very different. He didn’t at all see that this was a classification of images.
So, you see one, two, three, this has regularly changed direction. This is not a way of numbering categories, but Firstness is that which is one by itself, that is, that which does not refer to anything other than itself. Secondness is that which is two by itself, that is, that which does not appear such as it appears without referring to something else. And Thirdness is that which is three by itself. You will tell me, how far we are from our previous images. To show you that we are very close, you will immediately understand, but that there are going to be these problems, some very, very good problems for us.
Because now let’s consider what’s concrete. And this is my first object. In what’s concrete, we are going to have these three phaneroscopic categories. And of course, we must give ourselves the easiest task, since all that is complicated, or it will get complicated. And so, we ought to start from Firstness, but we’re not going to because Firstness is so difficult. And we’d be better off starting at least from almost the easiest category of the three. The easiest of the three is Secondness because everyone understands what it is there. Everyone understands it.
In fact, what exists such that it exists only in relation to a second? [Pause] Well, it’s force. [Pause] A force only exists as a force in relation to a resistance, [Pause] force-resistance. It only exists as a force in relation to a resistance, and I might add, but it comes to the same thing, it only exists as an action in relation to a reaction. [Pause] I would say that force in its necessary coupling, force-resistance or action-reaction, defines the domain of Secondness. The image is two by itself, force-resistance, action-reaction. [Pause]
Fine! That’s simple. It is still not sufficient for us. Needless to say, you recognize a different kind of image in it. This is the action-image. [Pause] In fact, an action refers to a force that opposes a resistance or to an action to which a reaction responds. What we called “action-image” covers roughly the domain of Secondness. Peirce tells us, “This is the category of the real or it is the category of the actual or it is the category of that which exists [l’existant]”, well, no doubt following various aspects.
What are these aspects? If I try to identify among the … [Pause] among Peirce’s various presentations, I would say, from Secondness thus defined, one could identify three characteristics: first, the characteristic of the fact, it is “a fact that”. And the fact, what is it? We indeed see that this is Secondness. The fact is always the expression of a duel, [Pause] a duel of strength and resistance, a duel of action and reaction. I hit the table, force-resistance, “the fact is that…”. Good. So, you indeed see why this type of image is called “Secondness”. These are images of a duel, or he says again using, he multiplies the words, the word “dyad”, a word derived from the Greek, to designate what is two for itself, D-Y-A-D. Greek has three words: monad, monad which is unique in itself; dyad, which is two by itself; triad, which is three by itself. There you have it, the first characteristic of Secondness is “the fact” or the duel. [Pause]
But doesn’t “the fact” or the duel imply something else? Yes, it implies something preliminary. Force-resistance, action-reaction, these imply a milieu in which the duel takes place. [Pause] Two opposing forces involve a milieu. All opposition takes place in a milieu. Any response takes place in a milieu. Good. This second aspect, the duel supposing a milieu, is no longer “the fact”, the duel as a fact, but this time it is “the state of things”. Everything presupposes a “state of things”. This is terminology. But in this way, we develop word groups. We are trying to see, and then we’ll see where it takes us.
What is “a state of things”? Ah! Maybe it’ll help us move forward because, understand, I don’t have much choice, or rather Peirce doesn’t have a choice. When he tells us… He showed us that the fact was in itself a duel, therefore was indeed part of Secondness. When he says or when he shows us that the fact or the duel refers to and presupposes a state of things, he will have to show us that the state of things itself is in itself a Secondness. The state of affairs has to be two, otherwise that wouldn’t work. The fact is two by itself, then it is a relation of force and resistance or of action and reaction.
But the “state of things”, how is it two by itself? Well, it is two by itself. What do I call a “state of things”? It’s one or several qualities. You remember our introduction earlier of the term “quality”! It is one or several qualities insofar as realized, as actualized in a determined milieu, in a determined space-time or in a particular individuated thing, [Pause] the red of this rose, the red of this rose. Good. This is a state of things. Why is this a state of things? Because the pink of this…, the red of this rose also implicates a milieu. It implicates the soil in which this rose grows, the seed that I planted, etc., etc. It implicates a whole milieu. Good. This red, this red that is unlike any other red, the red of this rose, well, the quality of “red” is considered as actualized, actualized in the object, this rose, [Pause] with the entire milieu that brings this rose. I would say, this is a “state of things”.
I would therefore say that the Secondness category contains the secret. This is not a solution; all that is a grouping of problems. It is at the level of Secondness that I would be entitled to pose the problem of individuation. Why? Because every state of things is individuated. There is no state of things in general. A state of things is always individual, in what sense? In the sense that it is composed of a determined milieu, a determined space-time, a particular space, a particular time, here and now, which is composed of individual things or persons. I understand well this can be collectives, a people, but there it has an individuality, a grouping, but which will be individuated.
So, this is the domain of individuation. I would say, the state of things is Secondness. Why? Because in itself, the state of things includes two: one quality or several qualities, a particular color, a particular scent which are pure qualities. But I consider this quality to be actualized in a milieu, in a space-time, in things or in persons. So, I have the quality, on one hand, on the other hand, what it is actualized into. This is Secondness. Therefore, no less than the fact was in itself the first aspect of Secondness, was in itself a Secondness, since it was dual, the state of things is a Secondness in itself, since it is the correlation of a quality and that which actualizes the quality… [Interruption of the recording] [1: 13: 25]
Part 2
… and the set of the quality and of what actualizes, we call this “state of things”.
Finally, the third characteristic of Secondness. When the duel takes place in the state of things, what happens? The duel always unfolds within the framework of a state of things, but in so far as it unfolds within the framework of a state of things, it modifies that state of things, or it tends to change this state of things. [Pause] This third characteristic of Secondness, let’s call it – this is a convenient word, it gives it status — “experience,” or lived experience or experimentation. I am not talking about a scientific experiment, but when I speak of my experience, my experience is the set of operations through which, thanks to duels, that is, confrontations, actions-reactions, I modify or tend to modify the state of things. There you go.
You see, there, the table of categories is enriched. Firstness [Deleuze means “Secondness”] includes the category of the real, this category of the real being expressed simultaneously in, if I sum up everything, the fact or the duel, the state of things, the experience. Experience is no less Secondness than the other two traits, since experience is the passage from the small “a” state of things to the small “a” prime state of things, that is, the changed state of things. So here as well, at the experience level, there are basically “two”, inseparably, modified or restored, it will come back to the same, or you can conceive all kinds of variants. There, this example must be crystal clear since the rest will be much more difficult.
I can say that the category of the real, under its triple aspect — the fact, the state of things, the experience –, this category of the real refers, and poses, and gives us the means of solving the problem of individuation. So, I have a whole very complex aggregate here. I am saying for myself, since I remember that our task is not just to recount Peirce, that this produces considerable progress for us in the analysis of the action-image. And in that regard then, forgive me, still in quotes, I am saying “from my point of view”, there’s absolutely no objection to be made. We can keep everything. We’ve enriched our analysis of the action-image thanks to Peirce. And that’s one down. There are only two left.
So now that we have grasped the intermediate analysis, Secondness, which was the easiest, what does he call Firstness? Well, Firstness … He himself tells us: this is not easy to state. And so here, it is so … He surpasses himself because you find texts like that in all the English. Here he is cheering us up. So, he tells us: oh well, don’t worry, right? We will not understand much about Firstness. You have to feel it. You have to feel it. This is the famous summons from all English philosophers, the summons to “feeling”. But in their work, “feeling” is a veritable concept, and it is a veritable philosophical method. It can be thought only in an articulated way, the first, that is, Firstness. I am quoting, because it gives you an idea of Peirce’s style: “It can be thought …” — Or it cannot be thought, the first of the Firstness — “… it can be thought only in an articulated way”. You understand immediately why: if it is articulated, there are at least two… [Interruption of the recording] [1: 18: 37]
… “And it has already lost its characteristic innocence because affirmation always implies negation of something else,” — thus Secondness — “Stop thinking about it, and it flies off. What the world was for Adam … ” — but try figuring it out — “what the world was for Adam the day he opened his eyes on it, before he made a distinction or became aware of his own existence”, “before he became aware of his own existence”.
In fact, I become aware of my own existence through what? You all know it, through effort. This is my sad fate, the newborn baby knows all about it. It is through effort that he becomes aware of his own existence and comes out of the mother saying, like the German philosophers, “me equaling me” — [Laughter] force-resistance — “what the world was for Adam the day he opened his eyes on it” — But he was not born, Adam, precisely, he was not born — “… before he made a distinction or before he became aware of his own existence, there we have the first of Firstness, immediate, present, fresh, new …” — Here, he can go on, he can continue at length — “… initial, original, spontaneous, free, lively, conscious and evanescent.” Just remember that any description we give it, it can only be false. [Laughter] Okay, that’s good, fine, perfect.
But this is all for fun. What is it? What is it? On page 205, he speaks more seriously, but we have doubts. And I’ll read slowly. This is about Firstness, and he tells us: “Among the phaneron…” — therefore among the images — “… there are certain sensible qualities …” – as we proceed, we’re retaining what we can understand, eh, because the text is going to be stranger and stranger. Ah, wait! He is suggesting that perhaps Firstness is quality. Really? We’ll put that aside: wouldn’t that be the quality? But let’s see, what is he going to call quality? — “Among the phaneron, there are certain sensible qualities like …” — We say, phew, he’s giving us some examples, and like the red of the rose, we’re expecting… That would be fine, but he doesn’t say that — “Among the phaneron, there are certain sensible qualities such as the value of magenta, the smell of essence of rose …” — We tell ourselves: ah good, the smell of essence of rose, good, there, that works — “… the sound of a train whistle” — But we tell ourselves, but that’s not working anymore; the sound of a train whistle is typically Secondness, it’s an actualized quality in a state of things, the train — “… the taste of quinine …” [Laughter] — here too, this seems like Secondness; and so, he continues. Typically English, all that — Also, “… the quality of emotion …” — He puts all that in one pile, right? — “… the quality of the emotion felt in contemplating a beautiful mathematical proof” — yes, obviously, good … then, there, like that … the red of the rose, the sound of the train whistle, and the quality of emotion that I am supposed to feel while contemplating a beautiful mathematical proof — “the quality of the feeling of love …”. Okay, I tell myself, fine, the feeling of love, why wouldn’t this be Secondness? Effort-resistance … [Laughter] And he adds, maybe that will guide us a little.
So as a point of reference, we have Firstness, it would be the quality. First point of reference. He adds: “I don’t mean the impression of having the experience of these feelings at the present moment, such feelings” — So there we are relieved. We don’t know what he means, but at least we’re glad he didn’t mean that — “I don’t mean the impression of having the experience of these feelings at the present moment.” In fact, the sensation of actually having such feelings is the state of actualized qualities in a state of things, and that belongs to Secondness. So, he’s telling us — and this works for us, it relieves us — there are qualities that we can grasp regardless of their actualization in a state of things. So, it’s not the sound of the train whistle he was talking about.
But then why did he say, “the sound of the train whistle”? This is getting very odd; this is English perversity. “I don’t mean the impression of having the experience of these feelings at the present moment, whether directly, in a sensation, or even in memory or in the imagination”- – When I tell myself: I remember the taste of quinine, or when I imagine the taste of quinine, well, that’s not what I mean — “I do mean the qualities themselves …” — Oh good — “I do mean the qualities themselves”. Okay. We have confirmation that Secondness [In fact, Firstness] would be the domain of the qualities themselves, therefore independently of their actualization in a state of things, in a milieu, in a space.[8]
Here, it becomes even stranger. Do such things exist? And he adds, “I do mean the qualities themselves which, in themselves, are pure, perhaps not necessarily realized” — here we have a second characteristic. He went on. The second characteristic — “these are qualities …” — first characteristic — “… pure qualities”; second characteristic, “as these qualities are grasped regardless of their actualization or not …” — it does not matter whether they are actualized or not actualized in a milieu, in a space-time, in things or in persons, that doesn’t matter — “therefore, they are not realities, but pure possibilities”.
And in fact, he will tell us formally: the category of Firstness is the category of the possible. The category of Secondness was that of the real. And he continues: “In fact, although such a feeling …” — that is, the grasp of such a quality — “although such a feeling is immediate consciousness …” – – so here, follow this closely, well because he ends with, with… it does not get better, this very beautiful text — “although a feeling is immediate consciousness, that is, whatever consciousness there might be that is immediately present…” — See, he is telling us — “such a grasp of quality is immediate consciousness, that is, it is all whatever consciousness there might be that is immediately present.” — However, there is no consciousness in it, yet there is no consciousness in it because it is instantaneous. [Pause] And he sums up everything in a sentence which remains mysterious to us — “for we have already seen that feeling is nothing but a quality, and a quality is not conscious, it is pure possibilities.”
Why is a possibility not conscious? Why is it that a quality is not conscious when he has just told us that it is immediate consciousness, that is, everything that might be consciousness which is immediately present? Well, we have plenty to do! When people say that English philosophers are easy, no, that’s not easy! So, either we tell ourselves: that’s not what he means, or we tell ourselves, he is trying to describe something ineffable; or else we tell ourselves: let’s reread the text, and the text is absolutely rigorous. Nevertheless, however incoherent it seems to us at first reading, the text put us on the path: it is because Firstness also was going to have three characteristics: [Pause] quality, possibility, pure immediate consciousness. [Pause] Good. I’ll start with the last one because everything will depend on that. If we understand that, I think you’ll understand everything.
Last year, I gave an example that I will use here, following my theme of returning back in order to go forward, to try … I gave an example that I liked because it made me understand.[9] So I could have changed the example, but this one seemed so very clear to me. I tell my fiancée, [Pause] I tell her, “How beautiful you are with your red dress!” Right, I can tell her that: “How beautiful you are with your red dress.” I say: this is a perceiving consciousness. She walks into the room, and I say: “How beautiful you are with your red dress!” Good.
She has a black dress. [Laughter] This is my second example. I look at her, and I say, “Oh, how beautiful you looked in red last year!” [Laughter] “How beautiful you looked in red last year!” This is a consciousness that we will call “memoralizing”. She enters the room, still in black. I tell her: “You haven’t put on your beautiful red dress!” Aaah! “You didn’t put it on, eh!”. [Laughter] This is a conscience I would call “judging”. This is a judgment, this is a proposition. It’s not a perception, it’s not a memory. “You did not put on …” I may have to remember that she has one but, as it is, “You did not put on your beautiful red dress”, expresses a proposition and a judgment, a proposition which affirms and which denies something, rather. “What you put on is not your beautiful red dress”, this is a judgment, it is a “judging” consciousness. And then, even suppose she never had a red dress. And then, I look at her and I say: “Oh my, but how beautiful you would be in red! How beautiful you would be in red!” This is what we will call an “imagining” or “imaginative” consciousness. There you go, roughly. I don’t see any more, but if we think about it a bit more, we might find some more.
What can I say about all these consciousnesses? These are mediate consciousnesses. You will see that we will understand everything about what Peirce was telling us. These are mediate consciousnesses. Why are they mediate? [94: 00] They all have in common that they aim at something through something else. I’m aiming for red through the dress, either the dress she has when I say, “How beautiful you are in red”, or the dress she no longer has, or the dress she never had. All real consciousness, let us add, is mediate, that is, belongs to Secondness. In fact, it aims at something through something else. This is a typical example of Secondness. [Pause] Fine. So, it is mediate, real, and in this way dyadic, subject to the regime of Secondness.
Now let’s make an effort. What do all these mediate and real consciousnesses have in common? What do all these mediate and real consciousnesses have in common? What there is in common for all these mediate and real consciousnesses is — there is nothing else, in all the examples that I have given — it is the immediate consciousness of red. But not red in general, especially not, that red … Ah, what am I going to say? This red … Am I going to be able to say: this individual red? Well, we’re unlucky. Peirce forgot to create a word. This is odd, I don’t understand. Besides, I don’t understand what happened: he doesn’t have a word. We have one. That’s an advantage, an indisputable advantage. We have one.
What is this red? If I say, this is an individual red, I’ve lost it in advance, I’ve gotten lost philosophically, I just have to stop, I had better just go away, that’s a blunder. There are philosophical blunders. Why? Someone else could say it if he had chosen another terminology, but I have reserved “individuation” for Secondness. Okay, I have to stick to it. It seemed to me that what was individual or individuated were the states of things, things and persons who enter the states of things. I won’t get out of this. So, the rose that has this red is indeed an individual rose, but this red is not a general quality and yet I cannot call it individual.
Fortunately, our language has another word that is authorized by science: it is the term “singularity” and the adjective “singular”. I say “authorized” by science more than by logic because logic, for its part, the singular is the individual as such, which would not suit us. This is the individual, alone of its kind, or considered alone, that is, the individual as designated by a proper name. So that doesn’t suit us. On the other hand, I say science because mathematics and physics use the expression “singularity” / “singular”. And the singularities of a curve, for example, do not absolutely merge with an individuation.
Furthermore, an extremely interesting book, but that’s not what I’m talking about, the contemporary philosopher, this is a book on… which is called Genesis of Individuation. The author is Gilbert Simondon.[10] If I try to summarize very, very vaguely Simondon’s thesis, it consists in saying … — He has nothing to do with Peirce, he has nothing to do with our problems, he talks about something else entirely — But it turns out that in his problem of individuation, how is individuation possible? His answer is this: individuation always takes place in a pre-individual field that it supposes. The operations of individuation always take place in a pre-individual field that they suppose. This pre-individual field is a field that physics will designate as “potential”, “a potential”, in the sense that physics speaks of potential energies, that is, this field will consist of a distribution of potentials in a physical field, these potentials having nothing to do with individual bodies. This is potential energy, only potential energy. Good. [Pause] And these potentials will be the singularities of the field. These will be the singular points, the singularities of the field. A mathematical field or a physical field has a distribution of singularities, as such, insofar as being a field.
This advances me enormously since you see that here I have a triad of notions which will serve me greatly: potential, singularity … No, that’s all, a doublet: potential, singularity, good, which help me if I put it in relation to Peirce’s notions. He told us: quality, possibility. I say: okay. Does this possibility only make sense? Peirce himself will use the expression of potential, possibility or potentiality, as he will say. Good. I’m retaining that: possibility or potentiality, potentiality, potential, endowed with a dynamism of its own as much as possible. It is a possible, energized dynamic. It’s an energized possible.
So, I have: quality and potential. And quality isn’t something general at all. What is it? And yet, it cannot be individual. The individual is Secondness. Fine. The qualities in question are singular qualities. These have a singularity. It’s this red and not another red. The quality in itself is unique. In itself, that means independently of the state of things which actualizes it, the state of things which actualizes it being itself, individual and not singular. We are making more and more progress.
I am saying: the pure quality, this red, is immediate consciousness [Pause] of the red, of this red, of this singular quality. This red is the immediate consciousness of this singular quality insofar as it is implicated, enveloped [Pause] in all real consciousness [Pause] of this red, [Pause] once it’s said that the real consciousnesses of this red are on their account never immediate, nor singular, but mediate, real and individual. In other words, the immediate consciousness of this red is the convergence point of all my real consciousnesses — “How beautiful you are in red”, perceiving consciousness; “How beautiful you would be in red”, imagining consciousness; “How beautiful you were in red”, memorializing consciousness; “You did not put on your red dress”, judging consciousness — the convergence of all these mediated consciousnesses which, for their part, are mediate and real consciousnesses; what each of these consciousnesses envelops in itself is the pure consciousness of red. And precisely, the real mediate consciousnesses can never present this pure consciousness of red.
In other words, the immediate consciousness, the immediate consciousness of the datum red is neither given nor immediate. You will tell me: this is foolishness; why play with words? This is not wordplay; this is the rigor of the concept. It’s this moment or never to remind us that Bergson titled his first book Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness [1889], but that we quickly learned, if we read it correctly, that the immediate data of consciousness were by nature neither immediately given nor immediately giveable. Fine.
And do you understand why? What is given in my experience is Secondness; these are real consciousnesses, they are already qualified consciousnesses, they are consciousnesses in which the quality is already actualized in states of things. But these real consciousnesses envelop an immediate consciousness which, for its part, is not real, and which is never given. What is it? “Isn’t it real?”, you’ll ask me. No: it is the potential energy of consciousness. I would say: it is possible. But it is not realized. If it is realized, it changes its nature. If it is realized, it becomes mediate consciousness, real consciousness. All real consciousnesses presuppose, as not being given, all real consciousnesses which give themselves something, give themselves something mediately, and presuppose, envelop an immediate consciousness which, for its part, is never given. And yet, it is there. It’s not given, it’s not real. It’s pure possible, it’s potential. It’s a potential. It is the potential energy of any consciousness. So, I would say: this red is a quality, independent of any state of things that actualizes it. Being a quality, it is a potentiality. Being a potentiality, it is a consciousness. The three notions are absolutely linked.
Then, with a light heart, I can reread, reread the so beautiful … — And then this seems to us, I hope that this will seem to us a splendid page — I can reread the end of the text. But I’m rereading everything since everything was difficult for us. “Among the phaneron…” — among the images — “… there are certain sensible qualities such as the value of magenta …” — okay, the value of magenta, let’s leave it, as we will go on — “the smell of essence of rose …” — okay, the smell of essence of rose, but it is this scent that I will not consider as actualized in the essence of rose, which would be a state of things, but which I will consider in its own singularity, whether it exists or does not exist, that is, independently of the question of whether it is actualized or not; it will be the immediate consciousness of the essence of rose, as it is encompassed in all my mediate consciousnesses, which remember, which perceive, which imagine, which judge the scent of the essence of rose — “the taste of quinine …” – this is the same thing. It is that bitter, B-I-T-T-E-R, this bitter which is not the bitter of … [Pause, Deleuze hesitates and seeks the object of his sentence] it is this bitter which is not the bitter of … What is it that’s in spinach and that’s bitter? Tarragon! No, sorrel! That’s it! It is that bitter which is not bitterness, which is not the bitter of sorrel. But I consider that bitter independently of its actualization in sorrel, or independently of its actualization in quinine. It is this bitter as a singularity, independently of whether it is actualized in the “sorrel” state of things or in the “whatsit” [truc] state of things, the “quinine” state of things. You understand? There is a singularity of the quality before there is an individuation of the state of things which actualizes the quality.
Moreover, perhaps there would be no individuation of the state of things that actualizes the quality if there was not a singularity of the quality itself. Qualities are not generalities; they are singularities. Fine. And he will finish. “I don’t mean” — so I’m continuing the text — “I don’t mean the impression of having the experience of these feelings at the present moment …” — Obviously, expressing one’s feelings at the present moment is the work of real and mediate consciousnesses — “But I do mean the qualities themselves which, in themselves, are pure, perhaps not necessarily realized” — That is, this bitter, which will be that of sorrel when sorrel actualizes it, but of which I am immediately aware in the mode of the pure possible.
You will tell me: if there was no sorrel, you would never have had that! That’s not at all the question. The question is not whether that bitter, that pure quality, exists independently from sorrel because if you made this objection, you would not have understood anything since this pure quality does not exist. It is not in the category of existence, it is in the category of the possible. This is the status of the possible. He is showing that wherever the possible comes from, that’s not his question, where the possible comes from. Does the possible derive from the existing entity [l’existant], from the real? That’s a question that doesn’t interest us: we’re doing some logic. We say: wherever the possible comes from, the possible has a status and a consistency that is not that of the real. What is its consistency? The possible is a singularized potential which is distinguished from any individual reality.
And he can continue then. Now listen closely because now, I guess, you’re supposed to understand all of it. “Although a feeling is immediate consciousness, that is, is whatever there might be of consciousness that is immediately present …” – This is becoming crystal clear “However, there is no consciousness in it” — because it is instantaneous, which necessarily means: it is both pure and immediate consciousness, yes, ah yes, but there is no consciousness in it since all consciousness, implied as real, is by nature mediate. It is only immediate consciousness as it is enveloped without being given, as pure possible or as pure potential by any actual real consciousness. [Pause] This status of the possible is very beautiful. You understand?
Let’s try to take it a step further. You must henceforth oppose “potential” to “actual”. Notice our play of opposition: Firstness will be the possible in difference with the real. But you see that you’ve gone way beyond the definition: the possible is what can exist, is what can become real. You have given a consistency to the possible as such. Hence the possibility of a trivalent logic. There will not only be the true and the false; there will be the possible. It’s all logic that explodes, there, all bivalent logic that explodes. But after all, that would be another point.
Hey… you did all that because you have… so what would I say? What is this image, this image of Firstness? We have no discomfort in recognizing it and saying that we are keeping everything. Again, there’s no objection to make, in my opinion. On the contrary, that lets us take a very big step forward. This is the affection-image. Affect is precisely that immediate consciousness [Pause] or that pure quality which can also be a quality of love, that is, of feeling; quality of a perception, this red; quality of an action, [Pause] but a quality that I consider independently of its actualization in a perception, of its actualization in a feeling, of its actualization in a behavior. Aggressive behavior: well, there is a quality of this behavior that I can consider independently of its actualization in this very behavior. I would say: that aggressiveness, that aggressive, is affect.
From then on, things can have affects just as much as persons. Obviously, things can have affects as much as persons, and actions can have affects as much as things and persons, once it’s said that affect is the quality that relates to an action, a perception, a behavior, a feeling, whatever you want, but which I consider independently of the perception or the action which actualizes it. [Pause]
An example which will move us forward, I hope: I am terrified, this terror, this terror that I feel. Why? Because I am on the edge of a precipice. At a precipice, I am afraid. This singular fear, well, it is in my consciousness, as a mediate datum, as a mediate consciousness. Through this fear, I focus on the precipice that both attracts and repels me. I flap my arms and fall. And good, good, good, good, alright. But there is also this terror as a pure quality. This terror as a pure quality, of course, it finds its cause in the precipice, but insofar as an effect, it goes beyond its cause; insofar as an effect, it goes beyond its cause, that is, I would not say it exists, I would say it is a potential or it has a singularity which cannot be explained by the precipice. Well, that’s no one’s affect. So, I would say: terror or the terrifying is a pure quality that will be actualized in a terrified person.
A quality of action or a quality of thing, let’s try to mix the two to go faster: there is this knife. It’s one thing, this knife. I perceive it. I can remember it, I can imagine it, etc. As a bearer of action, it can do many things. It can cut bread, it can kill a person. What else can it do? That’s already not bad: cut bread or kill a person. Fine. All that, I understand. A thing-image: the knife. There it is on the table. Perception-image: I take it. I hesitate. I tell myself: I’m going, I’m killing, or else, no, I’m cutting bread. I tell myself: that would be better. [Laughter] That would be better: I’m cutting bread. It’s an action. But what about — and does this make sense? – the knife’s cutting edge? The knife’s cutting edge: but how could I assign such a thing? Because the knife’s cutting edge… Let yourself be fascinated by words. What a funny thing this is, the knife’s cutting edge. That gives you plenty to ponder. Where are you going to find that in the thing? [Pause]
You will tell me: this is the border. Precisely, philosophy has not stopped dragging along the question of borders: what is a border, a limit? What is the limit of something? [Pause] Fine, we’ll not get out of this easily, right, to say what the knife’s cutting edge is. Is it the same as “this knife is blue”? “The knife is blue”, that’s fine. Easy, easy: perception-image. “The knife cuts bread”: okay, it has to have a sharp edge to cut bread. Hey, it has to have a sharp edge to cut bread. Fine. But after all, it cuts bread, that’s something else. I know what it is. Or it kills someone, it cuts someone, it cuts a person. It’s an action-image. Where do you perceive the knife’s cutting edge? You can try the knife on your finger. You are creating an action-image, or perception-image. You are creating a complex image: perception/action. You are experimenting, Peirce would say. But when you say, “the knife’s cutting edge”, admire this, keep repeating it to yourself, fall asleep tonight telling yourself, “the knife’s cutting edge”, or find other examples. [Laughter]
Besides, this is not difficult. If you understand, you are going to have plenty of other examples, but here, I’m doing it on purpose, I’m only giving this one because you shouldn’t be mistaken in the examples. I would say a very simple thing: the knife’s cutting edge is a singularity. It is a possibility conceived as potentiality. Of course, it actualizes into one state of things: the knife, and what you’re going to do with the knife. But insofar as being the cutting edge of the knife, it is independent of whether it is actualized or not, completely independent. There is the knife’s cutting edge, independent of the state of things in which it is actualized, in which it will be actualized, in which it has been actualized.
And that wonder of the knife’s cutting edge is the affect. And it’s the affect of what? Here, we’ve left Peirce, that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because… Yes, it does, I would say, I still believe, it’s thanks to him, we are very faithful to him, it seems to me, maybe not, oh well too bad… Anyway, he’s dead. [Laughter] What is the knife’s cutting edge? It’s the knife’s affect. Things have affects. People have affects. Obviously, things have affects since affect is the quality considered independently of its actualization in a state of things. So why wouldn’t things be actualized in affects as much as people?
So now we see the knife actualizes its cutting edge just as the flower actualizes the red of that flower. The red of the rose, this red of this rose, this singular red of this individual rose was an affect common to the rose and to me. [Pause] And then the knife’s cutting edge is an affect common to the knife and to the person using it, that is, who will actualize this affect to make it pass into the domain of Secondness. But in itself, affect is not Secondness. And the knife’s cutting edge, which we haven’t finished pondering, what would you say it is? You will say that this is something very strange and which belongs to which order? Which belongs to the order of what we must call an order of the most mysterious thing in the world. And that causes us to add yet another characteristic to what Peirce was saying, and which we must call “events”. The knife … [Interruption of the recording] [2: 05: 20]
… So, must we say that this forces us to discover something unusual in the event? The knife’s cutting edge is, in the event, the part of what never stops being produced and of that which has never begun to occur. Fine. Why? In fact, when I consider in an event what begins to occur, I say: “I’m cutting bread”, “I am going to cut some bread”, or “I am going to kill you”, “I am going stick you with my knife”, well, the event is beginning. When I’ve cut the bread, or when I remove the knife and I wipe it off, taking care of the knife’s sharpness, which has never begun nor ever ended as pure potentiality, you will tell me: it indeed started and it has finished, someone gave it a sharp edge. Yes, someone gave the knife a sharp edge. He’s called the knife grinder. But what did he do? He did nothing other than actualize a quality in a state of things. He sharpened the knife.
But I am not talking to you about the knife, about the sharp edge as it is actualized in the knife by the grinder’s action. I’m talking about the knife’s sharp edge taken in itself. Insofar as being itself, the knife’s sharp edge did not begin with the act of slicing, and it did not end with the result of having sliced. Ah, it didn’t start with my act of slicing, and it’s not done. In fact, I can just as well start over and reslice some new-bread [du re-pain]; I can just as well start over if all goes well and rekill a new-person [une re-personne]. Between the two, between my two murders, between my two slices of bread, the knife’s sharp edge will have always been there, but never finished and never started, the eternal part of the event.
So, there is an eternal part in the event? Ooh la, la, so, here we haven’t gotten out of this. What can it be, the eternal part of the event? Would there be two parts in the event? But then, at that point … and yet, it’s the same event. Yes, it’s the same event, but there are two parts of the event. Yes, it is the same event, and yet there are two events. Ah, really? It is the same event, and yet there are two events in any event. Yeah.
And here we have it… I’m reading a very well-known text, after all, by an author who has nothing to do with Peirce, an author who talks to us about death, who is [Maurice] Blanchot, L’Espace littéraire [The Space of Literature] but that is in all of Blanchot’s work.[11] L’Espace littéraire, page 161. And I read: “The part of the event that its accomplishment cannot realize…” — ooh la la, that interests me; this is a poetic expression, so fine, but perhaps that poetry speaks philosophy to us, that’s a possibility — “The part of the event that its accomplishment cannot realize…”. I would say as well: the part of the event or the part in the event of that which goes beyond its own actualization. I could say it like that; there is no change. Blanchot’s expression is more beautiful, mine is more in line with the state of our problem. The part in the event to mark clearly that it’s through two events although, in certain respects, they are two events, but they are not two events either, the part in the event of that which goes beyond its actualization.
Now, in any event, isn’t there this part of that which goes beyond actualization or fulfillment? And Blanchot thinks of death above all. And he says: there are two deaths. Simply no doubt, these two deaths are very mixed. There are two deaths, and there is one death that occurs to us. Wham, that’s it! There is a death which is the present death. But at the same time, this death is the instantaneous death. In a way, it is unassignable. But, no, I’m stating it poorly. At the same time, I am thinking of it — a judging consciousness — when I say, “All men are mortal.” That’s the one I imagine when I imagine I’m going to die. That’s the one I perceive when I die. But even when I perceive it and effectively, actually die, do I grasp the true death? Blanchot tells us: no. True death is very strange; it is the one that never stops occurring and never stops ending.
Why? It is in death the part of that which goes beyond its actualization, fulfillment. Is that there? I personally believe that this is dramatizing things because Blanchot has an idea, which is: it’s only death that possesses that. But once again, the bread knife possesses that. The table possesses that. Each of us possesses that. Anyone possesses that. This is even what makes every person great, or one’s chance not to be forgotten: the part, the possibility of being an event, each one of us. At the same time, something is actualized in us — yes, that is our most perishable part — there is something which then is perhaps much more connected to an imperishable death, to a death that never ends: that part of the event that goes beyond its actualization. Fine, good. It’s confused.
I make an appeal to feeling. And how to speak about Firstness without appealing to sentiment, Peirce already asked us? I am appealing to impressions in you. And then, let us again call upon an author who, for his part, will perhaps be even clearer, especially since I strongly suspect Blanchot of hardly citing him but of being very familiar with him, if only through his origins as a Catholic and the importance he had for all French literature in Blanchot’s era, and that is obviously Péguy. And Péguy, in this strange book, with his strange style, his way of speaking, of writing, which is his alone, in the book on history which he titled Clio, and in which the question is: what is history? What is memory? etc., and which is presented as a speech that Clio makes to him, that is, the goddess of history, would make to Péguy in person, a little speech that Clio would make to him.[12]
So, Clio tells him: my dear Péguy, there you are, etc. How does the book begin? He says with love, because if anyone has had the sense of great literary texts, it is indeed Péguy… He says with love. It is amazing: Homer wrote The Iliad … It does not matter whether this a lot of people writing, or well… X wrote The Iliad. Let’s call him: Homer. Or Victor Hugo wrote this, wrote that. And we haven’t finished reflecting and meditating on this. So, he [Péguy] goes back to this with his style employing repetition, which suits us well: And Victor Hugo wrote Les Burgraves. And Péguy, this is Clio speaking, and Péguy, you are not done reflecting on this; Péguy, you haven’t finished meditating. Hugo wrote Les Burgraves. And that follows onward, in a kind of litany series that begins to persist with us, to obsess us, as I was doing it infinitely more poorly. No, this was another type of litany that I proposed to you, a more modern type of litany, more of an American-style sect, in which we would chant everything under the cutting edge, the knife, [several words are lost] [Laughter] until we understand something: Zen. So there, then we would be on the knife’s cutting edge. And then it would end: I would stab you according to the Zen technique, everyone … No, because, anyway … It’s great. Think about it, for next time, a bread knife like that. So, are you following me? Good.
And Péguy tells us: “There is an accomplishment that has never finished being accomplished.” It’s not far from Blanchot’s expression, right? Péguy: “… an accomplishment that has never ceased to be accomplished”; Blanchot: “the part of the event that its accomplishment cannot realize”. An accomplishment that never finishes being accomplished, what is it? On the other hand, what …. It’s an event. Homer wrote The Iliad. It’s an event. He had his currency [actualité]; he has not ceased to be actual. It is eternally true that The Iliad was written. Good. But there is another event or another part of the event. This event, which was accomplished here and now, in a particular state of things, at a particular moment, at a particular site in space, in the Greek world, one cannot say it better: it is the state of things.[13]
But what happens to every reader who, for the first time, it would be better, for the first time takes up The Iliad and reads The Iliad? You will tell me: he accomplished it again in another state of things. Of course, he doesn’t write, he’s not the one who wrote it. This does not prevent a reading from being an actualization. He accomplished it anew in a completely different state of things, for example, in the 20th century, etc. He tells himself in amazement: that hasn’t lost any of its currency, if he likes the text. Well, it doesn’t matter, it does something else. Because there, this re-actualization is an accomplishment that has never finished being accomplished. Because it will have to refer to another reader, in I don’t know what state of things. And I would speak exactly as Peirce spoke to us earlier about the quality of mathematical reasoning; I would speak of a quality peculiar to the Iliad, independent from actualizations of The Iliad in any state of things whatever. And of course, this particular quality of The Iliad would never have been conceivable if The Iliad had not effectively been written. The fact remains that, once written, there is a quality of The Iliad which is a pure quality, a pure affect, a pure potential, a pure singularity, which is not to be confused with any state of things, including the state of things that produced it.
And Péguy tells us in Clio: it is as if there were two co-existing events, implying they make but a single one. It’s as if there are two co-existing events. And one is such that you pass along the length of the event.[14] It’s like a coordinate; we’ll redo a little diagram, you pass along it, he said. In fact, going along its length, we can correct this on our own but that does not matter much: it is that we can be in the state of things. This is the event — state of things, you can get caught up within it. At that point, that’s what moves, that’s what evolves, and which brings you along. So, you are not just the stroller, the stroller faced with the state of things. You are completely caught up in the state of things. For more simplicity, not to complicate it too much, let’s say this is the horizontal axis along which you follow the event. Let’s say simply you go along its length at the same time that it is lengthening. This is the domain of actualization… [Interruption of the recording] [2 :19 :58]
Part 3
… Peirce would say: this is the domain of Secondness. Blanchot would say: this is the part of the event that lets itself be exhausted through its actualization. [Pause]
And then there is another axis — I am going to put “event” here [Deleuze writes on the board] –there is another axis, vertical, and where obviously Péguy saw the typical example in the genealogies, in the genealogies at once Hugolian, in Victor Hugo, but above all from the Bible, and So-and-So begets So-and-so who begets So-and-so who begets So-and-so, and that was the secret of the litany. And So-and-so begets So-and-so who begets So-and-so who begets So-and-So: these were the generations. We will say, but the generations are on the side of the state of things. Not the historical generations, but not the biblical generation which puts us — whatever generation we may be according to Péguy — notice that here the history of faith returns… but that’s not what matters to me. Why indeed, I wouldn’t say… if I were pious, if I were religious, if I were a Catholic or if I were a Christian, I would say — this is not difficult — the trinity is faith, it’s faith. The immediate consciousness that is never given, always enveloped in every mediate consciousness, is faith, very good. You could call it belief.
Fine, I’m quite ready to say it, why yes, it’s faith. Simply, faith has nothing to do with God. No, there are some who see a connection with God, fine. So, it would be better to use another word than “faith” because it’s ambiguous. We said, “immediate consciousness such as it is encompassed”, but after all, maybe a shorter word would have a good effect, so it would sound like: well, this is “faith”. Because this story of generations, then, for a religious man, for example, who believes in the Bible: and Adam begot who begot who begot who begot who begot, this is not a succession in time — that, that would be the state of things aspect — since on the contrary, it is each generation, however derived, however remote, which is in an immediate relation. And this is the sense of the litany which has an immediate relationship with the first man, henceforth, with Jesus. [Pause]
In the litany of generations, that seems to be temporal succession, that is, a succession of states of things, but not at all. This is the other part of the event, namely, whatever generation you are in the order of time, you are in an immediate relationship, with Adam, with Christ, with sin, with … you see … what is the precise word following Christ to save us from sin … – [students makes suggestions] not that … it is, no … “salvation” [rachat], yes, there is another word than salvation … redemption! There you are! Hey, it’s got to be someone Japanese saying it, that’s wonderful … oh fantastic that … On TV, he would have won everything! [Laughter]
Okay, you see, [the students continue commenting about the choice of word] no, no, no… so … then … then … [Laughter]… Do you understand why Péguy… So yes, I have not finished, the other aspect of the event is… I am going up vertically in the event. And what does Péguy tell us, on a splendid page? What will he tell us in this vertical rise that is represented by the biblical generations, where each time the immediate is affirmed through mediations? He tells us — this page, I’m reading it because, otherwise, you’d think I’m making it up, [Pause] aie aie, I didn’t … yes, I did, I wrote it down … He tells us, and here too this is good Péguy style — He says there are some very odd things, he says, I am summarizing the context: he says, there are things that happen to us, for example, extraordinary events, very important ones, war, or … I don’t know … an awful situation I got into, or a really good situation that happens to me, I fall in love, I’m not in love anymore, anyway things like that. And then there are very level times, nothing happens. And Péguy says, it’s nonetheless strange because it’s usually in times when nothing happens that the real changes occur. And you wake up one morning, and what used to be a problem — that doesn’t happen every day, right? –, and what used to be a problem is no longer a problem at all. And you ask yourself, what, what was going on with me to find that important, but how important is all that anyway? In ‘68, a lot of people had this collective conversion, this shift: I was just not thinking right, my mind, really! What did I find important, this or that, well what did it matter? Oh, there were things going on in ‘68, but incomparable things with what was occurring in people. It was very strange — so sometimes it was the worst, sometimes it wasn’t going so badly.
“And all of a sudden, we feel that we are no longer the same convicts. Nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happened”.[15] “And all of a sudden, we feel that we are not the same convicts anymore. Nothing happened. And a problem for which we could see no end, a problem with no way out, a problem where a whole world was to collide”, was to be in collision, “all of a sudden no longer exists, and we wonder what we were talking about. It’s that instead of achieving an ordinary solution, a solution that we find, this problem, this difficulty, this impossibility just passed through a, so to speak, physical point of resolution.”
Instead of achieving a solution, that is, a state of affairs, a modification of a state of things which we have seen belonging to Secondness, we would have modified the state of things to solve the problem, and well, that’s not it. — “Instead of achieving an ordinary solution, a solution that we find, this problem, this difficulty, this impossibility just passed through a, so to speak, physical point of resolution.”- – Period – “Through a point crisis” — Period — “And it happened that at the same time the whole world has passed through a, so to speak, physical point of crisis.” — Period — “There are critical points of the event, as there are there are critical points of temperature, points of fusion, freezing, boiling, condensation, coagulation, crystallization. And even there are in the event of these supercooled states” — points of supercooling, all these terms which are borrowed from physics – “and even there is in the event these states of supercooling which do not precipitate, which do not crystallize, which are determined only by the introduction of a fragment of a future event.”
And in fact, a difficulty occurs quite often in which you have been floundering for years: it will take a future event, which operates like a supercooling point in order to resolve it completely, that is, to act, literally, so that it doesn’t even exist anymore. So, you have your event axis, your vertical axis. I am not forcing Péguy’s text. How does he define the vertical axis where you ascend in the event? You do not go back over the course of events; you ascend as if inside the event. How is it defined? By pure singularities. In fact, what do physicists call singularities? Singularities are the long list that Péguy gave us: melting points, crystallization points, supercooling points, coagulation points, etc., etc. Fine.[16]
That is the part of the event, the event as a set of singularities, I would say just as well then — suddenly I’m mixing everything up — the event as a roll of the dice. What is a roll of the dice? It is a distribution of singularities, by calling the points that are on each face of the dice singularities. [Pause] Any event is a roll of the dice, on which side? On this face. A roll of the dice, yes, it’s a distribution of singularities. To go back within the event, not to go back in the course of events: this means ascending the event towards, or it means discovering in the event that part which does not allow itself to be exhausted by its own actualization. That is, that means discovering the pure quality, or I could now say pure potency [puissance] as well, potentiality. Pure quality, pure potency, this is pure potential. The singular quality, the singular potency that is at work in the event, that’s what affect is, that is Firstness. And in fact, one can say Firstness is the quality now or the potentiality. It is quality or potency insofar as it is considered, insofar as it is considered independently of its realization, of its actualization in any state of things whatsoever.
As such, I am summarizing, it is “the part of the event that cannot be accomplished by its actualization”. Every event includes such a part: every event is the same event, but in one aspect, it is Firstness; in the other aspect, it is Secondness. The event grasped as an actualization of potency and quality in a state of things is its Secondness aspect. The event grasped in its part, in its part, the part of itself which goes beyond all actualization, this is affect or the Firstness of the event. As a result, the three characteristics of Firstness, as we have seen, the ambiguity and the difficulty of the term of consciousness, I would no longer say in finishing what I said at the beginning. Instead of saying “quality, possibility, pure consciousness” as Peirce said, I am saying — but it comes back strictly to the same thing — pure quality, pure potentiality, event, event in its part — and you see what, why Péguy had… — I forgot to say it in passing — needed the concept of “Aternel”, that is, this kind of eternity which only exists, or which is only possible inside of time: “the Aternal” is the vertical coordinate of the event. It’s not out of time, it’s within time. But it’s that part of time that doesn’t let itself be actualized — just a second [A student wants to speak] –. So, as you wish, you will say Firstness is “quality, possibility, pure consciousness”, or else you will say it is “quality, potentiality, event”. And we are faced with a precise status of what we can call the affection-image. I would say the affection-image is exactly an image of Firstness. The knife’s cutting edge seems to me the best example of an affection-image. [Pause]
What do we have left? We obviously have the so-called images of Thirdness, and what is Thirdness? We still have to say, well yes, does that work for us, or does this diagram need to be corrected? In any case, at the point we’ve reached, for my own purposes, you will see for yourselves, I do not feel any need to make the slightest change to Firstness and Secondness because that corresponds exactly to my affection-images and my action-images. [End of the recording] [2: 35: 30]
Notes
[1] On these correspondences, see The Movement-Image, pp. 57-59 (L’Image-Mouvement, pp. 87-88).
[2] For this inverted cone diagram, see The Time-Image, p. 294 (L’Image-Temps, p. 108).
[3] On the theory of conics, see especially session 3 of the seminar on Leibniz and the Baroque, 18 November, 1986.
[4] In fact, Peirce is American. Deleuze will correct himself in all humility near the start of the next session.
[5] Ecrits sur le signe (Paris: Le Seuil, 1978).
[6] On “Aternal”, see What Is Philosophy? pp. 111-113 (Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? pp. 106-108). I follow the translation provided in What Is Philosophy? with the understanding that, as Deleuze indicates a few lines later, the “A-” indicates an interiority and not a kind of negation.
[7] Deleuze introduces these categories especially in sessions 12 and 14 of Cinema seminar 1, 9 and 23 March 1982; see also The Movement-Image, pp. 98-99, 105-106, 197-200 (L’Image-Mouvement, especially pp. 138-140, 148-149, 266-267).
[8] Deleuze presents this quote in The Movement-Image, p. 232, note 6 (L’Image-Mouvement, p. 150, note 5) taken from Peirce’s Écrits sur le signe (Paris: Le Seuil, 1978), p. 43
[9] For this example, see session 12 of the Cinema 1 seminar, 9 March 1982.
[10] The title is L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (Paris: PUF, 1964).
[11] Maurice Blanchot, L’Espace littéraire (Paris: Gallimard, 1955); The Space of Literature, trans. Ann Smock (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987); see The Movement-Image, p. 102, where Deleuze quotes this very passage.
[12] Deleuze indicated Péguy and this work in this seminar’s session 2, and he returns to it in session 15 of the seminar on Leibniz and the Baroque, 28 April, 1987, and also at the end of chapter IV of What Is Philosophy? pp. 111-113.
[13] On Blanchot and Péguy’s encounter with the event, see The Movement-Image, pp. 106-107 (L’Image-Mouvement, pp. 150-151).
[14] The quote is not precise but is on page 230 of Clio (Paris: Gallimard, 1932), where Péguy writes, “History consists essentially in passing along the length of the event” (“L’histoire consiste essentiellement à passer le long de l’événement”).
[15] Clio, p. 269, as well as the text that follows.
[16] On these axes, see The Time-Image, p. 99-101 (L’Image-Temps, p. 132, note 2).
For archival purposes, the augmented and new time stamped version of the transcription was completed in March 2021, and was updated in November 2021. The new translation was completed in November 2021. Additional revisions were added in February 2024. [NB: The transcript time stamp is in synch with the WedDeleuze recording link provided here.]