Notes on Materialism, Neoplatonism, and Ineffable Experience

Some thoughts currently going through my head: 

1. Does the possibility of the “supernatural” rely on individually-directed powers, as opposed to those universally-directed/generally-directed powers recognized by modern science?
 
2. Relatedly, what on earth is materialism? Or idealism for that matter? I definitely have deeply idealist sympathies when defined in one way, but if we take materialism to be the postulate that thought and being might not necessarily coincide, then perhaps I might be a materialist. Why? It seems to me that materialism as a privileging of difference, as against the thought of identity (identitarian thinking, identified by Adorno), enacts a kind of strawman of idealism. Badiou, for his part, has fallen into line with this definition, or more precisely a closely related one, where materialism is defined with regard to the void. In this sense, Zizek too is a materialist, even though he has nothing whatsoever to do with matter (and Badiou's mathematics is in a similar conceptual locale). On the other hand, I do hold intelligibility to be an important aspect of any philosophy, since intelligibility implies the thinkability of truth, or the philosophical proximity of truth and being. This, I think, distinguishes true philosophy from sophism, however defined.

3. The Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation is very cool. The One, as perfect, overflows itself and emits something from itself. That something then turns around and differentiates itself from the One (since the One cannot make differentiations, since it is a simple and immediate One); by this activity the something determines itself as Nous or Intellect (or some other level in other Neoplatonic philosophers). This is the level of intelligibility and forms, as well as being. The One, it can be said, is properly beyond being. Iamblichus even posits an Ineffable layer or entity beyond the One, in order to better speak of that One.
Even if one does not buy the proliferation of levels, or at least the reasons given for this proliferation, one must look upon Neoplatonism with a kind of awe. It accomplished a very delicate, if rationally incomplete, meditation on the concept of worlds or orders of being, something that was rather inchoate in the works of Plato himself.

4. Because transcendent or otherwise ineffable experiences are wholly or partially removed from sayable reality, from linguistic structure, the interpretation or imputation of them within that structure will always be a shaky affair. That mystics should agree on many points is not by any means an obvious necessity to me, and indeed I think we could interpret mystical experience in a far more wide-ranging manner than is usually done. The “similarity” of the accounts of that experience are suspect rather than straightforward corroborations of one another. It all smacks too much of extrinsic linguistic restrictions, of common ways of thinking about worldly problems imprinted from centuries or millenia of philosophical speculation on the one hand, but more important from theological (non-mystical) modes of thought, myth-making, and social cohesion.
It is not that there can be no effable measure of the ineffable. And honestly, most experiences that fall under the rubric of mysticism or the occult are not strictly ineffable like, say, the “Vision of God Face to Face”. But this goes for ordinary experience as well, I suppose: how we theorize the experience does not obviously and directly fall out of that experience itself.
This is, then, a plea for interpretive pluralism with regard to mystical, non-standard, and liminal experiences, until a more clear measure of knowledge of those happenings be found. NOTE: I do not say a clear measure of their truth is lacking, for truth and knowledge are in reality opposites, truth being a hole or exception in knowledge, a process of becoming eternal, whereby one beholds the Forms (or some other such theorization; Badiou's is rather good and clear on this matter).

The Four Worlds: A Brief Philosophical Exploration

"We are assailed by the Image. The Image is real."

By this, one usually means that an appearance is real as appearance, though a yawning gulf may yet lie at its back. Through the undoing of that pedestrian and vulgar form of binary thinking, it is possible to conceive this gulf as itself having real existence. As a real existent, it might follow, this gap has determinants of its own. Size, for example, may be ascribed to the being-appearing gap, or density if one prefers. Not only magnitudes or indications of intensity, but also qualitative distinctions, could be explored, depending on what is being negated in the gap's constitution. 

Let us call an object with this gap a “material” object, consequently subject to the regime of representation. An object with no such gap we shall term an “astral” object, or “imaginal” if one prefers. In this case, the object is directly its own appearing, subject not to representation but to presentation, purely and simply. An astral image, for example, is not a representation of some other thing, but directly is itself. If one likes, it represents or refers directly to itself. Such is the conception of a magician undergoing a vision; the vision is real, and any images of angels or demons seen in the mind's eye directly are those angels and demons.

This is not to say that an astral entity does not have other facets that it is not showing at some moment, only that there is no representation involved, hence the image is real not merely “as image”, but real full stop.

Aside from these two relatively simple registers, there is another that is rather more difficult to explain: the mental. It is perhaps easiest to conceive on the back of the astral, in the form of an example. When one listens to black metal, one does not exactly feel an emotion. Rather, one receives an affective image or series of images (image here is not exactly the right term, but it should suffice). This image, this sensuous but not obviously emotional response to musical extremity, can be meditated and dwelt upon, contemplated until it appears not as a mere image but as a kind of essence. This purified and abstracted “image” is no longer sensuous, but it has been drawn from the sensuous domain of music by the Will or the Intellect. This is an Idea, and it is a mental entity.

A mental entity is a combination of form and force, an abstract system of logic and the force to think through it. It is the highest sense of Mind as conceived by various ancient systems of idealism. It is, in other worlds, a singular world unto itself, effected only by the One that is God. It can be thought, that is inhabited, by the seeker, or rather the seeker can become part of that world. A mental word, for example, does not represent some other thing, but directly is itself (like an astral word), but beyond that, the very criteria for determining what it is are contained in seed form within the word itself. The speaking of the mental word changes reality in profound ways, a force contorting the fabric of the cosmos, even so far as to create an utter interiority separate from the One. Such is the conception of names divine or barbarous as they are chanted in certain contexts sacred or with inverted holiness.

There is, finally, the Causal world. The causal is just that – the cause of other stuff, while not being itself caused. In fact, it can never be effect. It is not only singular like mental entities, but sovereign. It like Laruelle's vision-in-One, or a unilateral duality. It is not unreasonable to term this world “God”.

The causal world acts by overflow, constantly reproducing itself as sovereign as it simultaneously produces the shards of non-being and sends them plunging in to the abyss. These shards of broken divinity can then be taken up into an Idea and used to forge a new God. In philosophical terminology, we might call the shards “exceptions”, the byproducts of formalization, the structural possibilities of diagonalization (in the Cantorian sense) and hence the reconfiguration of the causal (or better, the production of a new causal entity, for why should there be just one?).

Notes on Esoteric Ontology

God is considered irrational simply because Xe is operating according to every possible principle of rationality at the same time, and most of these are mutually contradictory. We consider reality to be inherently mysterious for this reason, that God's reason is many, while we require ours to be one. Many in principles and yet one in being, God is a single Logos causing directly the concrete totality of all Ideas, regardless of their material or imaginal manifestation. God is not the All, since God is lacking in lack itself, that is, in isolation. Individual Ideas are not God, but they do express God, among other things.
 
There is no such thing as nonsense, because everything, whatever else it might express, always expresses its ultimate essence or ground. This essence or ground is either God (in the normal case) or some other singularity of Will (in the case of contingent deification). Language, no matter how apparently absurd, always has an Idea that makes it intelligible, but that Idea might not be readily available in all cases.

Furthermore, however, that intelligibility dictates that the All does exist, though this existence necessarily excludes the exception (which is the principle or possibility of isolate intelligence and hence of contingent deification), much like the Lacanian masculine universal. This All could be rightly termed the Demiurge, from which it is advisable to escape by means of exceptionalization.

Reality breaks itself (self-abstracts) into distinct levels, of which there are 4: causal, mental, astral, and material (in that order). Less Will/Spirit results in higher “density” or concretion; hence the material world has the least Will, is the furthest emanated from God.

God emanates by a process called “speculative overflow”, by which Xe withdraws (tzimtzum) and then flows into the empty space from which Xe withdrew. This activity shatters the body of God (creates the exception). Speculative overflow can also be likened to the Ontological Argument, by which the conceptual distinctions of mind itself surpass their boundaries and are thus real. God overflows Xir own boundaries; God, indeed, is this very act of self-surpassing, which could also be represented by the logical deduction of Xirself.

Hence, all of created reality is the result of speculative overflow, in particular of the shards that fell into the abyss. But the ultimate telos of the Will is to achieve its own speculative overflow, to become a God itself. This is the Will's only pure end; insofar as Will is purified of all its objects, insofar as it becomes akin to an objectless subject, it achieves this end of self-deification.

This is not an idealism, since that is where all is Mind; here, all is Will. The mental world (Briah) is only one sphere of being. Instead of a dualism of mind and body, this is a four-fold dinstinction (or five if you count the abyssal non-being that opens onto a diagonalization procedure and hence to self-deification).

The material world is marked by a profound gap between being and appearing. The astral world, by way of contrast, has no such gap, and hence every astral appearing is directly that being which appears. An astral magic word or holy name is directly what it is said to “represent”, but instead of representing, it is a pure presentation.

The mental world is the infinite extrapolation of the tendency or essence of a thing (the relation of the mental world to the astral and material worlds is still opaque to me at the moment). More than an image or concept as those are usually called, an Idea (an entity of the mental world) is in some sense a world-process in itself or principle of Logos. It is a center of gravity, an interiority of Will. Examples of Ideas might be Aeons or True Selves.

It is through the mental world (through an Idea) that isolation can be accessed (and this must pass through the Sitra Ahra or void of darkness beyond the limits of God).

Will is the stuff of reality; it is not a thing but a process, always a willing.

Not everyone has a soul, but one can get a soul.

The paradox of duality and non-duality may be overcome. The simultaneous duality and non-duality of duality and non-duality can be resolved in favor of one or the other from the interiority of a process: in favor of non-duality when a singularity is dissolved (is this possible?) or in favor of duality (of isolation) when a singularity opens onto diagonal-being (anti-cosmic gnosis).

The New Black/Death Metal: Introduction, Rough Draft

Here is something I have been thinking a bit about: the new black/death metal in particular, but more generally I have been concerned with subtraction, singularity, and so on, with special focus on the originally explicitly non-conceptual (i.e. on the subjectively and implicitly conceptual!). Lots of bullshit wordiness, but it is almost a necessity for me to begin writing anything of substance. I think overall it remains a problem of my inability to grasp audience and determine at what level of complexity I should write (I can never be sufficiently consistent).

* * * * * * * * * * *

From time to time, in the grandiose motions of the heavenly bodies, in strings of painted cards, or, more to the point, in the bones of the old, we may, with no small success, come to know the future. It is thus that in the already-stinking corpse of the deceased, a certain tendency to the abstract and the speculative, that is, to alchemy, points the crooked path to a world-shattering redemption, a final judgment simultaneously birthing a new aeon, or shall we say a new aeon annihilating the old through its mere existence. If the old survives, as it doubtlessly must, it will do so only as a dead man walking, bolstered by the sheer weight of externality. Its innermost being, however, shall be irreparably shattered, its impotent fragments scattered unto eternity. And yet this is no old world-historical task, no metaphysical changing of the guard, no artistic (for it is of art that we speak) succession of the false by the true, no better correspondence and no more adequate representation. For the equinox of the gods of art falls not to the task of the translator, not to the quibbling of the far-removed observer, but to the serpent of light in its utter interiority, its isolate intelligence. The process that is our object, extrapolated to infinity, is therefore something divine, and this divinity retroactively annihilates the fallibility of its own individuation, though it be carried out with the utmost care and reverence. This work, then, will be a preliminary experiment with evental history from a particular point of view, namely that of the infinitely contracted point of singularity constituting the sublimated essence of an entirely subjective type; the roles of alembic and calcinator will be duly played by our principles of intelligibility and formalization, from which we derive the maxim of our alchemical Arte: There is no such thing as nonsense. Let this be a testament, above all, to the Idea, to which our at first entirely sensuous (indeed auditory) subject matter presents a particular challenge, but one which, precisely due to the staggering conceptual distances involved, enables a more perfect demonstration of the labor of the intelligible.

The entire undertaking rests upon an as yet rather vague notion, that of the interior view, or more simply, of the interior. First of all, an interior must be separated from that which lies outside it, its sometimes-relative and sometimes-absolute exterior. This gap might be the product of various operations or functions, different at the very least for the structural apparatus by which they are described, ranging from a set-theoretical operation (Badiou) to a mystical transcendence-within-immanence (various forms of esotericism). Our gap, then, is rather unlike its neighbor in the Lacanian tradition of psychoanalysis, which is a self-contained gap or lack, something that interposes itself between itself and its other (see also Badiou's notion of the void). Our gap is better put in the plural, as gaps, each of which is the result of a contingent but formal-logical and therefore also in a certain sense necessary process of subtraction, a transcendental structure in miniature, or rather a multiplicity of such structures. These gaps may be more or less radical, more or less gappy, and therefore constitute more or less peculiar regions (we will call an absolutely peculiar region by its proper philosophical name, singularity). Essentialization, the ultimate goal of the philosophical study of genre, is in these terms simply an extrapolation of peculiarity to infinity, the production of a singularity and therefore of a wholly internal region, an artistic-cum-philosophical Idea or abstract image that can then be studied with far more concrete interest and effect than could otherwise be possible. To take a genre on its own terms, then – this is our goal.

[What is an interior view?]

With these preliminaries safely out of the way, our subject matter can be better indicated, despite the lack of a proper term with which to distinguish it from its neighbors. This matter is the new black/death metal, a genre exemplary for its uncompromising and unique artistic and therefore philosophical vision. Precisely: we seek the abstract characteristics, in other words the essence, of the new black/death metal – or better, we must speculatively extrapolate, through a process yet to be delineated [speculative overflow? Subtraction? Formalization? Something like that...], the characteristics and hypothetical singularities of the genre. To the skeptic the question could be put: If there were such a thing as a coherent genre or style described by the term “the new black/death metal”, and exemplified by such and such a selection of musical groups, in what would its unique interest lie?

Surely our genre is related to “cavernous death metal”, yet this misses the more sublime and spiritual aspects of the style. And the same can be said for “orthodox black metal”, which misses the more avant-garde and experimental instances; by the same token, terms focusing on the avant-garde miss more primitive and brutal manifestations. None of these pre-existing terms alone capture exactly the proper range of phenomena, and in fact elements of all three (and certainly several others) are to be desired. So, unwieldy though the term may be, “the new black/death metal” is the best one ready-to-hand.

Remembering that we are here assuming “the new black/death metal” to be a coherent and in fact singular genre (or better, singular Idea), we can propose its champions, its exemplars. From “cavernous death metal” comes Portal, Impetuous Ritual, Grave Upheaval, Abyssal, Mitochondrion, Irkallian Oracle, Desolate Shrine, Antediluvian, and so on. From black metal (partially “orthodox”) comes Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, Aosoth, Vassafor (undeniably the closest thing to “cavernous black metal”!), Nightbringer, Akhlys and so on. Other groups of more uncertain origin and coherence are Howls of Ebb (bizarro death metal), Ulcerate (churning and dissonant technical death metal), and Ævangelist (horror soundtrack meets death metal). These bands constitute, at their most extreme differences, a set of axes or poles (to the exterior eye, it is readily admitted): on the one hand we have the highly technical and complex compositions of Ulcerate, on another the primitive and nigh-incomprehensible darkness of Grave Upheaval. Another differential axis might be character of the spirituality being expressed in the music, for indeed one of the markers of the genre is its deep-seated and terrifying spirituality. This axis might range from the sublime “High” spirituality of Nightbringer of Deathspell Omega to the “Low” or dirty occultism of Howls of Ebb or Portal, to the nihilistic worship of death and destruction by Grave Upheaval (again notable for their sheer extremity) or even Ulcerate (a rather “High” variation on destruction). Obviously, this criterion should deal only with the expression of the music and not primarily with the professed opinions of the musicians themselves.

The above is, as noted, only a preliminary exterior view of the differentiations, the coordinates of our study. We see these groups and their musical compositions from an exterior perspective governed by mediocre and mundane criteria – the use of gradations, no matter how many or how complexly interwoven, is usually a good indicator of this. Throughout the course of the presentation, hopefully as many of these exterior layers as feasible might be shed.

[To be revised/continued...]

Althusser Part IV: On the Production of Problematics

This post will focus on Althusser's "On the Materialist Dialectic" from For Marx.

As far as For Marx is concerned, this essay is by far the most developed chapter in the book. In it, Althusser answers many of the problems he has posed in earlier essays ("On the Young Marx", "Contradiction and Overdetermination", etc.), or at least poses those problems in a different and rather more solvable way.

"On the Materialist Dialectic" is an essay ostensibly about "theoretical practice". We are initially given an explanation of the meaning of this practice:

By practice in general I shall mean any process of transformation of a determinate given raw material into a determinate product, a transformation effected by a determinate human labour, using determinate means (of 'production'). In any practice thus conceived, the determinant moment (or element) is neither the raw material nor the product, but the practice in the narrow sense: the moment of the labour of transformation itself, which sets to work, in a specific structure, men, means and a technical method of utilizing the means. (131)

Althusser goes on to say that the nature of a science's theoretical practice differs (via "epistemological break") in a rather radical, qualitative way, with that science's "ideological" prehistory (132). In other words, the constitution of a science is the constitution of a new problematic, not only with different terms but with different relations between the terms (hence there can be no simple inversion).

We come now to a crucial distinction:

• theory = any theoretical practice of a scientific character
• 'theory' = the determinate theoretical system of a real science (its basic concepts, in contradictory unity)
• Theory = "...general theory, that is, the Theory of practice in general, itself elaborated on the basis of the Theory of existing theoretical practices (of the sciences), which transforms into 'knowledges' (scientific truths) the ideological product of existing 'empirical' practices (the concrete activity of men). This theory is the materialist dialectic which is none other than dialectical materialism." (132)

The highly abstract nature of Althusser's undertaking should now be clear.  The theory of theoretical production is a kind of meta-theory, here called Theory with a capital 'T'. This Theory, then, will subsume/explain/describe/theorize the individual 'theories' of given systems.

I am immediately inclined to ask the question of internality/externality: Does the "perspective" on these various theoretical systems or sciences change their intelligibility, the theoretical elaboration of their problematics? I would guess that Althusser, due to the prominence he accords to ideology, probably argues for an external perspective with regard to ideological problematics (this is what allows their critique). Perhaps the "scientific" nature of non-ideological problematics simply indicates the consistency of internal and "external" perspectives, or even their identity.

Althusser writes, regarding this question:

The external application of a concept is never equivalent to a theoretical practice. The application changes nothing in the externally derived truth but its name, a re-baptism incapable of producing any real transformation of the truths that receive it. (134)

By "external", Althusser means something slightly different than I have indicated above. Here, he means the taking of a concept from a theoretical practice and applying it to some field or object foreign (and incongruous) to it, i.e. a field or object in another theoretical practice, a different problematic. What remains to be elaborated is a theory of ideology that could account for the ideology-science divide and then relate that difference to the question of internality-externality. What we do get is a hint: "[A science's] particular labour consists of elaborating its own scientific facts through a critique of the ideological 'facts' elaborated by an earlier ideological theoretical practice" (148-149)

Althusser goes on to elaborate this Theory with the three "Generalities": Generality I is the abstract, Generality III is the concrete, and Generality II is the theoretical tool/toolset (a particular "theory") that transforms Generality I into Generality III.

Going along with this is Althusser's analysis of the abstract and the concrete. The supposedly concrete empirical object, existing as a separate and distinctly individuated element, is, Althusser says, actually highly abstract. What is concrete "in reality" is the totality; it is only as a result of a potent abstraction that a single commodity, for example, can appear as such in its isolation: "The simplest economic category...can only ever exist as the unilateral and abstraction relation of a pre-given, living concrete whole..." (Marx, Introduction to the Critique, qtd. 158). It is abstracted from that totality. But the three Generalities operate not in "reality" but in theory. Generality I is the abstract, i.e. isolated objects in thought. Generality III is concrete relative to Generality I, i.e. it has absorbed more determinations and been related to more things.

Althusser therefore provides an interesting critique of "abstraction":

The act of abstraction whereby the pure essence is extracted from concrete individuals is an ideological myth. In essence, Generality I is inadequate to the essence of the objects from which abstraction should extract it. It is this inadequacy that theoretical practice reveals and removes by the transformation of Generality I into Generality III. So Generality I itself is rejection of the model from empiricist ideology presupposed by the "inversion". (156)

Hegel's problem, consequently, is his erasure of Generality II as a contingent, externally-introduced system. For Hegel, Generality II is generated from Generality I, as its essence. Generality I cannot properly capture the essence of its object since it is so abstract; how then could Generality II be contained therein?

Althusser posits a strict difference between the concrete-in-thought and the concrete-in-reality (151). Rather confusingly, Althusser further posits the unproblematic correspondence between Generality III and the concrete-real that is its object. He seems to imply that the questioning of this correspondence is in some sense ideological, that it is not a proper question. I must admit that I am mystified by this, since Althusser himself seems to propose science/theory as model, implying the necessity of empirical (at least in some sense) correspondence. If science were not representational, of course, this would make perfect sense, and would actually place Althusser rather closer to my own understanding of problematics.

These considerations relating to the distinction of the real from thought leads Althusser to critique certain speculative commitments: "This speculative illusion had already been denounced by Feuerbach and it consists of the identification of thought and being, of the process of thought and the process of being, of the concrete 'in thought' and the 'real' concrete." (154) So we have the two confusing theses, that on the one hand the concrete-in-thought and the real-concrete do in fact correspond, and on the other hand that the two cannot be identified and that their processes of production cannot so correspond. Very interesting, albeit hard to understand.

In any case, contained in Althusser's vision is a hint as to the nature of conceptual work in which I am so interested. He provides us with two important facts (on 150): Generality I and III are never the same (presumably so long as Generality II is really heterogeneous to Generality I); and the whole process from I through II to III takes place within knowledge/is theoretical through and through. Is it then the case that the "combination" of two Generalities that are heterogeneous produces a third Generality that is itself necessarily heterogeneous to the first two? This seems reasonable, though still we have only vague (though practically effective) criteria for determining heterogeneity. Of course we must keep in mind that "external" application of concepts does no conceptual work, therefore much of it hinges on the internality of the process of theoretical production.

Finally, Althusser returns to the problem of overdetermination posed in "Contradiction and Overdetermination", now tied to the concept of "domination". While I will not get too deeply into this part of the essay, I will say a few things about it.

First of all, "Domination is not just an indifferent fact, it is a fact essential to the complexity itself. That is why complexity implies domination as one of its essentials: it is inscribed in its structure" (166). The totality is just such a structure in dominance (167). Contradictions are essential to this totality, and there can be no such totality without them. Hence these contradictions "constitute so many conditions of the existence of the complex whole itself" (170). Conditions of existence are equated with contradictions insofar as complexity is concerned; furthermore, everything is necessarily complex. Every contradiction must exist in such a whole. Even where mutual preconditioning is concerned, as in the base-superstructure distinction, one of these will dominate; this complex is overdetermination (171).

Summarizing this line of thought, Althusser writes:

Because each contradiction reflects in itself (in its specific relations of unevenness with the other contradictions, and in the relation of specific unevenness between its two aspects) the structure in dominance of the complex whole in which it exists, and therefore because of the current existence of this whole and therefore of its current 'conditions', the contradiction is identical with these conditions: so when we speak of the 'existing conditions' of the whole, we are speaking of its 'conditions of existence'. (173)

Each particular condition thus reflects the whole in itself; overdetermination seems to imply a kind of holographic view of part and whole that is as complex as it is insightful. Overdetermination is a way to preserve dominance and contradiction alongside complexity. Presumably one would need to really see this in action to determine whether it in fact makes a good empirical analysis. It also reminds me that I need to go back and re-read some of Mao Zedong's philosophical works.



This will probably be the last post on For Marx. I will begin Reading Capital soon enough, and I will also in all likelihood also begin blogging my reading of Laruelle's Principles of Non-Philosophy.

Althusser Part III: Non-Relation!

This installment of my n-part series on Althusser is a commentary on the essay "The 'Piccolo Teatro': Bertolazzi and Brecht: Notes on a Materialist Theatre", found in For Marx.

 In what follows, I will focus on ideas and not on their concrete relevance to the object of interpretation, and hence will not worry about whether the interpretation is "correct", or even whether it could ever be compelling with regard to interpretation in general.

Althusser designates two different temporal structures in the play El Nost Milan. On the one hand, there is empty time where nothing happens (typically existing as a long stretch with no real protagonist or particular characters of any individual import); on the other, we have a dialectical (Althusser also says "evental") time, a quick lightning-flash where the plot of the play develops, in other words a historical time.

The relationship between these two times is non-existent, meaning there does not seem to be any principle which accounts for the two of them, why the one transitions into the other, etc. Furthermore, the characters of the empty time have seemingly no relation to the characters of the evental time. We only have the names of the characters in the evental time.

Is there anything interesting to be found in this non-relation?

The empty time is also designated by Althusser as "the time of their situation itself" (100). With the benefit of hindsight, we can see this whole structure as so far obviously prefiguring Badiou's notion of the situation rent by the event. The event is absolutely un-related to the situation in which it occurs, and has no grounding or possible ontological relation to that situation (it is the later truth-process that somehow brings it into line with the situation and therefore gives its implications some real existence).

But then Althusser says something I regard as rather strange: 

In [the melodramatic consciousness of the main character's father], the dialectic turns in a void, since it is only the dialectic of the void, cut off from the real world for ever. This foreign consciousness, without contradicting its conditions, can not emerge from itself by itself, by its own 'dialectic'. It has to make a rupture -- and recognize this nothingness, discover the non-dialecticity of this dialectic. (104)

Here we have a properly ideological non-relation, as opposed to Badiou's later notion of a good communist non-relation. Non-relation is here presented in a modality to be avoided. It is thought thinking itself, and therefore is cut off from the real conditions of existence. Of course it is self-related, it thinks itself and therefore enters a "dialectic" of sorts with itself. 
But it must nonetheless confront something other than itself in order to develop and to become a true dialectic. What, for Althusser, is this confrontation if not thought's entering into relation, becoming relational? Indeed, he states this rather forcefully: 

If we carry our analysis of this condition a little further we can easily find in it Marx's fundamental principle that it is impossible for any form of ideological consciousness to contain in itself, through its own internal dialectic, an escape from itself, that, strictly speaking, there is no dialectic of consciousness: no dialectic of consciousness which could reach reality itself by virtue of its own contradictions; in short, there can be no 'phenomenology' in the Hegelian sense: for consciousness does not accede to the real through its own internal development, but by the radical discovery of what is other than itself. (108)

First of all, it is obvious that Althusser cannot conceive of a non-relational confrontation. Second, we should ask the very difficult question of how thought's ideological "dialectic" is to make the leap from non-dialecticity, from itself, into external social reality. This rupture, this "radical discovery" - is there ever such a thing? External reality must exist in a non-relation to thought's "dialectic". But, Althusser believes, reality has a true dialectic of its own.

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/parallel_streams_minimal_b_amp_w_stripes_picture_7Vp5.html

How, then, is Althusser's representationalist account of the Marxist theory of history, of science, to be thought? What does thought do when it makes such a radical discovery? Of course this is really Althusser's project as a whole, but we can certainly make the question more focused and ask: Is the incorporation of external reality into thought possible as an extension of relationality (the Althusserian, dialectical view), or must it be a much more radical rupture in the sense of non-relation?

Here we should keep in mind Lacan's distinct contribution to speculative thought, the move from "there is no relation" to "there is a non-relation". Is ideology-science the only non-relation? Althusser writes that "there is no true critique which is not immanent and already real and material before it is conscious" (107). So the non-relation is only from one side, namely that of ideology. It is a unilateral non-relation. What this implies for critique I am not yet sure.

Some indication of these implications may be given in the following thought:

This relation, abstract in itself (abstract with respect to the consciousness of self -- for this abstract is the true concrete) can only be acted and represented as characters, their gestures and their acts, and their 'history' only as a relation which goes beyond them while implying them; that is, as a relation setting to work abstract structural elements (e.g. the different forms of temporality in El Nost Milan -- the exteriority of dramatic crowds, etc.), their imbalance and hence their dynamic. (110)

Here, when something is abstract for consciousness it may yet be concrete in reality. And the opposite must be true as well. So we have a unilateral non-relation and a bilateral logic of abstraction. Abstraction is relative. A most interesting state of affairs. Now where should we go from here?

Althusser Part II: The Fidelity of the 'Last Instance'

This post is about the essay "Contradiction & Overdetermination" from the collection For Marx.

"Contradiction and Overdetermination" is a curious essay, since in my eyes it is glaringly schematic and incomplete. We have here a number of words that promise interesting concepts ("overdetermination", "determination (by the economy) in the last instance", "general contradiction", and of course the base-superstructure distinction). But do we find substantial concepts behind these words? In this post, I will briefly go through some of these terms and see what can be said about them.

First we must define the simple Hegelian notion of contradiction. This type of contradiction is

only possible on the absolute condition of taking the whole concrete life of a people for the externalization-alienation of an internal spiritual principle, which can never definitely be anything but the most abstract form of the epoch's consciousness of itself: its religious or philosophical consciousness, that is, its own ideology. (66)

Althusser finds this notion inadequate to the complexity of social reality. Nevertheless, he must retain the notion of contradiction in order to salvage the "General Contradiction" that is such an important part of the Marxian understanding of capitalism.

The "General Contradiction" is "the contradiction between the forces and relations of production, essentially embodied in the contradiction between two antagonistic classes" (61). But is the move from forces-and-relations of production to class struggle quite so easy to make? This "essential embodiment" seems to me rather opaque, unless of course one reverts to the kind of orthodoxy from which Althusser is at pains to distance himself. In any case, this General Contradiction is supposed to be the most fundamental, abstract, and pure contradiction. Other contradictions are to be understood as falling somehow within the sphere delimited by this General Contradiction.

It seems very much as if the General Contradiction stood in some kind of transcendental relation to the particular and concrete contradictions of capitalist society. It is as if the General Contradiction must be embodied, brought down from its lofty ideal essence, in other words instantiated, in order that it may have material and social effects. 

Concrete contradictions must be articulated together under the aegis of the General Contradiction for a revolutionary rupture to occur. Individual contradictions do not have the general import or revolutionary possibility that is possible so long as they remain separate and merely concrete. The General Contradiction must be lived out in individual particular contradictions and has no existence apart from them.

This is precisely the notion of overdetermination. But what is determination (by the economy) in the last instance?

Source: http://www.markrothko.org/images/paintings/black-in-deep-red.jpg

This idea is introduced in order to retain the Marxist understanding of capitalism, in other words the General Contradiction (and other related notions). Determination in the last instance promises to retain the primacy of the economy so essential to Marxist analysis while also allowing for overdetermination. Determination in the last instance is the theoretical bridge between contradiction and overdetermination.

As many commentators have undoubtedly noticed, determination in the last instance makes the argument almost completely opaque: How can the economy be determining in the last instance, yet "the lonely hour of the 'last instance' never comes" (76)? Can Althusser remain a Marxist while also dispersing causal primacy from the economy to any and in fact potentially all other spheres?

One way I propose to understand the puzzling notion of "determination in the last instance" is to take it as a matter of fidelity, in other words a subjective principle of speculative relation. The economy's relation to the rest of social reality is opaque; can it be thought as determining (primary) without lapsing into vulgar and pre-given channels of influence? Determination by the economy in the last instance is consequently the positing of a speculative relation beyond all possibility of givenness - never given, the determining power of the economy is nonetheless asserted as real.

Why not posit some other social sphere as the determining one? On the one hand we could consider this a practical decision, given the relative primacy of the economy in matters relating to, say, social movements. 

But on the other hand, we could consider the economy as a rather special sphere deserving, perhaps, of special treatment. Somewhere in his work, Althusser states that the economy can determine which sphere ends up being determining: a kind of higher-order determination. Given that economic considerations are universal in a unique way, this argument makes sense. There exists an objective study of economic relations, so we could take the economy as a baseline from which to extend our considerations out in other directions and to other spheres. 

This is necessarily speculative. And there are probably other reasons one could privilege the economy. Hopefully in some of his other works I have not yet read, Althusser returns to this question and attempts a better grounding of his speculations introduced in this essay.