Part 3:What to Do About too much Aboutness

III: Differentiation is the Castration of Phallic Determination 

The distinction between defining and determining is somewhat arbitrary and vague, but roughly, defining differentiates objects from themselves and other objects, and determining identifies objects as themselves through resemblance. Defining differentiates objects by contrasting the consonance of their resemblance with the dissonance of their excessive particularity to compose new relational objects between and among them. The Hegelian Determinate Negation does not resolve all the negativity of particularity with the positivity of abstraction, so that the Determinate Negation produces the abstract particular as an object plus the counter-object of its unresolved, excessive particularity. The excess of particularly is what cannot be interpolated into the Symbolic, which is the singularity of an object as a counter-object. Contrasting an object’s abstract resemblance with its unresolved singularity is the process of differentiating an object from itself and from other objects, which composes new objects within the possibility space of their relational differences.  

Defining in the sciences is determination. The sciences determine the identity of an object by the definition of its necessary and sufficient reasons. Both “necessary” and “sufficient” refer to the equivalency between a sufficient definition and the necessary determination of casual relations. However, defining becomes alienated from the necessary and sufficient representation of the sciences in the mouths of poets and the hands of artists. Artistic representation defines by differentiation. Differentiation requires the unresolved particularity of excessive difference, which is neither necessary nor sufficient. 

What is before abstract representation is not yet the particular because the particular is the relation between the Abstract and the Particular. What is before abstract representation is also not yet the Lacanian Real because the Real is the resistance to the after of representation, so the Real is the resistence to localizing in negative relation with the vehicle for localization, which is representation. Representation makes local through the vectors of abstraction and particularity the same way that speed and position locate a sub-atomic particle. It’s the build in “Uncertainty” of any localization that is the object of the Real, or perhaps the counter-object of the Real because it is the object that counters the localizing of an object’s abstract particularity. In Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the more that is known about a particles velocity the less is known about its position, and the more that is known about its position, the less is known about its velocity. The more abstraction in a concept, which is to locate via the position of resemblance, the less particularity, which is to locate via the velocity of difference, and the more knowing about particular difference, the less knowing about abstract resemblance. This built-in uncertainty is how the Real resists symbolization absolutely. 

The Real is not a non-object, it is a counter-object because it is made in relation to the object of representation. The Real is what cannot be located by representations vectors of abstraction and particularity, but what is manifest as symbolic failure. For Marion this is the over-proximal affects of undeterminable hermeneutics. For Lacan undeterminable hermeneutics are the object of the Real, which is the Real as the object-cause-of-anxiety. Lacan said that anxiety is “not without its object” to counter the general existentialist idea that anxiety was “without an object,” which was also Freud's theory of anxiety; although, he was not an Existentialist. Existentialists formulated anxiety as the over-proximity to the void, so that anxiety was the affect of the presence of nothing. However, Marion formulated the object of anxiety as the undeterminable hermeneutics of over-proximal affects, which is in-line with Lacan’s use of the double negation of “not without” an object. 

For both thinkers anxiety did have an object, which was the object of excess produced by the double negation of the object of representation as the contradiction internal to the object of representation, which is the object of the Real. The double negation of the object of representation is the non-localizable object exactly in between representations abstract indeterminacy and particular determinacy. The double negation held together by the object of the Real is the contradiction of determining indeterminacy with representation. The Real is the castration of the Symbolic because it reduces determination to the uncertainty of definition. Dialectical definition lacks the phallic certainty of determination because the double negation that holds representation together cannot be resolved into a synthesis.   

The Real is not the void because its objectivity is defined by its relation of analogical contradiction with representation. The void is what is before the relations of the Symbolic and the Real. What is before that relationship is the before of differential relations, so whatever it is, it cannot be objectified because it is without differential relations, which was the problem with the notion of the classical substance as sufficient in-itself without the necessity of differential relations. The void as the horizon of differential relations, somehow put, or was put, into differential relations with itself. The void related to itself as difference is Nonbeing’s self-relating negativity. The Real is the object of self-relating negativity's excess, which is the excess of representation’s double negation. The double-negation of representation produces the excessive counter-object of the Real and not the non-object of the void. The non-object of the void is without differential relations until it becomes the relation of self-relating negativity.  

The double negation of representation, especially the affective representation of the senses does not return one to the void of non-relation. “Raw” affects are not without differential relations, so in whatever way they are “raw,” they are so because of representation’s inbuild lack of determination, which is the Real, and not because the affects lack representation. When affects are “raw” because of their undeterminable hermeneutics, they lack the distance of abstraction, or their particularity is too proximal, but both determinations of affective location are defined by lack of determination relative to the vectors of representation. 

In Marion’s Saturate Phenomena there is more particularity than there is abstraction, which means there is more proximity than there is distance. When there is a lack of synthesis in the Determinate Negation of the Concrete, there is either a lack of abstraction or a lack or particularity, they are in reciprocal relation with each other. When there is a lack of abstraction, this is a lack of resemblance to the concepts of the Symbolic. When there is a lack of particularity, there is a lack of difference from the concepts of the Symbolic. The lack of synthesis in the Determinate Negation defines the Concrete according to its relative location to representation. Not enough representation is the over-proximity of particularity. Too much representation is the distance of excessive abstraction. The reason why Marion’s Saturated Phenomena are defined by over-proximal affects is because the particularity of those affects is too proximal to represent. Definition is the contrast between resemblance and difference, so that definition defines the Concrete according to the contrast between resemblance as abstraction and difference as particularity, which is the definite but indeterminate relation of the analogy of contraction to representation.  

Particularity is like zooming in on fine detail, which is why its feels over-proximal when there is too much of it in Marion’s Saturated Phenomena. Abstraction is like zooming out to get the big picture, which is why it can feel distant or even disconnected. Deleuze’s concern about transcendence through abstraction was that it obscured the particularity of difference in favor of the resemblance of equivalency.  Zooming out makes the differences of objects less distinct, so that they begin to resemble each other in their transcendent indistinction. Zooming in on particularity can be so localizing that the context necessary for location is lost. To focus on the particularity of a single gain of sand, is to lose the Beach, but the abstraction of the Beach, loses the particularity of its individual grains of sand. The Hegelian Concrete is a cline, created by the uncertainty of the unresolved double negation, between the Abstract and the Particular. Too much abstraction lacks the definition of the Particular, which is the excessive negativity of too much indeterminacy. Too much particularity lacks the definition of the Abstract, which is the excessive positivity of too much determination. Definition cannot be determinate because of this inverse relation between abstraction and particularity. Definition is the differential relation between abstraction and particularity, which is how the definition of a Counter-Experience is the contrast between the resemblance of its abstraction and the particularity of its difference. As the determination of abstract resemblance increases, the determination of particular difference decreases, and as the determination of particular difference increases, the determination of abstract resemblance decreases.  

The particularity of Saturated Phenomena is over-determined, so that their transcendent meaning cannot be determined. It is the lack of transcendent meaning that defines their particularity with such vivid, affects. Undeterminable hermeneutics are the over-determined definition the over-proximal affects of Saturated Phenomena. And by way of analogical contradiction, it is this lack of hermeneutic orientation, that can give them their mystical definition as transcendent Counter-Experience. Mystical experience is not too much transcendence but too much localizing particularity, which is the strange relation between the sensory deprivation of ascetic practice and the sensory over-load of that deprivation. The more the mystic denies sensory particularity, the more intense the affective articulation of the Dark Night, which is to say that the presence of the object of the Real in the Dark Night is intensified by the orchestrated symbolic failure of the Dark Night. Ascetic practice is the practice of intensifying symbolic failure by intensifying affective disorientation, which is to induce undeterminable hermeneutics into the body’s affective deferential relations. 

Whatever is before representation is neither particular, nor abstract because representation is after the relationship of the Particular and the Abstract, so that what is before this relationship is the horizon of representation. The absolute outside of representation is not a thing because representation differentiates things through definition, so it is the nothing that forms the horizon of things. Nothing is then the absolute outside and horizon of representation, just as Nonbeing is the absolute outside and horizon of Being for Martin Heidegger. Absolute particularity is complete determination, which is the non-location of the Singularity, or what Hegel called, “Being-All-In-One Place.” When the Singularity is described as a baseball-sized object of completely compacted matter, whatever is being referred to was not an object because it was before the relations of difference that are the conditions of representation and of the objects that representation differentiates. The Real’s resistence to representation is a differentiated object, even if it is a counter-object, because it is formed by the relation to abstract representation to the particularity of its own difference. The singularity of the void before representation has no particular difference to relate through the abstraction of resemblance, so the singularity is not a counter-object, it is a non-object.  

Representation locates its referents somewhere in their relation to abstraction and particularity. Pure particularity without relation collapses into the same singularity of pure abstraction without relation because without relation to each other, they are the self-same singularity that is the meaning of the void as without the relations of difference. The Singularity that is the before of representation is the limit and horizon of representation because it is without the relations of difference. Its singularity is so pure that it is the beyond of both abstraction and particularity, as the void of both. The singularity is so purified of relationality that it is also the beyond of equivalencies, as it is already the perfect equivalence of itself, which is why mathematicians define the singularity as that which resist equations absolutely. Equations are differential relations of equivalency to itself, and the singularity’s total self-identification means that it has no difference with which to make mathematical equations. 

When Being is Hegel’s Being-All-In-One-Place, it is non-relational because it is the undifferentiated Singularity of Nonbeing. Becoming is the differential relation between Being and Nonbeing, so the non-relational void of Nonbeing must become different from itself to become the differential process of relating Nonbeing as the total abstraction of complete indeterminacy to Being as the total particularity of complete determination. The void is beside itself when it negates its totally localized determinacy with the indeterminacy of space. The indeterminacy of space spreads Being-All-In-One-Place out through the differential relations of self-relating negativity. Hegel’s strange idea was that the indeterminacy of space was how the void could be beside itself as becoming. Representation is the differential relation between the void’s total localization as the complete determination of Being-In-Itself and Being-In-itself becoming the outside of itself as Being-For-Itself in the indeterminacy of space. Representation is Being outside of itself differentiating itself from its determinacy with the Nonbeing of its indeterminacy. The Real is the absolute limit of this deferential relation, and as such is also its horizon. This horizon is Hegel’s Determinate Negation, which is Being-For-Itself failing to determine itself as Being-In-Itself. The Real as the Determinate Negation’s failure to determine Being is the defining relation of representation as the differentiation of becoming rather than as the determination of Being. 

The excessive positivity of too much determination is particularity’s absolute resistance to the abstraction, or spatialization, of representation, which is the excessive negativity of Lacan’s Real, and which is the excessive negativity of Marion’s undeterminable hermeneutics. When the spacious indeterminacy of the Abstract is fully negated by the singular determinacy of the Particular, then there is full interpolation into the Symbolic and representation is without the negative remainder of the Real. However, the Real makes sure that this never happens, even when the Imaginary imagines that it has fully determined the negativity of lack with the positivity of representation, this determination is just an illusory cover over the absolute negativity of the Real. However, there is a sort of non-synthesis of counter-wholeness that defines, rather than determines in the Imaginary register. After the failure of representation to interpolate all of particularity’s difference into the Symbolic, the excessive remainder of the Real’s absolute resistance can become the definition of the counter-whole, in which the Imaginary imagines the failure to be whole as whole. 

The Hegelian double negation holds together the Concrete as a lack of full synthesis because its double negation is unresolved. This irresolution defines rather than determines the Concrete as the determination of the Determinate Negation, plus the remainder of its failure to determine. Saturated Phenomena define through contrast in this same way because they are about the definite failure to determine aboutness. The contrast between resemblance and the difference of non-resemblance in Saturated Phenomena intensifies the definition of their characteristic over-proximal affects because this over-proximity is particularity’s lack of resemblance, which is a lack of representational abstraction. Lack of resemblance is like the too much localization of the Singularity. The failure to determine can be because of the too much determination of too much particularity, or it can be because of the too much indeterminacy of too much abstraction, but both can be thought of in terms of determinate location within the indeterminacy of space. Too much particularity is not enough distance for representation to determine location. Too much abstraction is too much distance for representation to determine location. The over-proximity of Saturated Phenomena is too much proximity for representation to determine location. Being must be outside of itself to locate itself. Representation is the gap between the abstraction of space and the particularity of location. When representation is definite but not determinate, Being locates itself across this gap of the contrast between indeterminacy and determinacy, which is the double negation of indeterminacy as defined rather than determined indeterminacy. 

Giles Deleuze thought of the “divergence” of difference as a measure of its intensity that same way that the contrast knob on the television intensifies the definition of the picture. The divergence of difference can be thought of as the above outlined “particularly” of difference because divergence is on the same cline with abstraction as particularity is. When abstraction is increased, divergence decreases, which was Deleuze's concern about transcendence reducing the intensity of difference through resemblance. When objects differentiate, they define themselves as particular through the divergence of their defined difference, which is the Concrete as the irresolution of defined indeterminacy. Differentiation is the continual process of an object become what it is through change like the Heraclitean River. Change defines itself by contrast to resemblance, which is time as the accumulation of difference rather than as the determination of space. Henri Bergon called this sort of time “Duree” to distinguish it from scientific time, which does not flow because it is the determinate Block-Time of one-to-one identity with itself. When Hegel is misinterpreted, it is thought that his Concrete Universal is determined by the Determinate Negation. This is the mistake of the Hegelian Concrete imagined as a synthesis, rather than as the contradictory flow of abstract indeterminacy into determinate particularity. Hegel distinguished between the Abstract Universal as the immutable determination of the Ideal Forms and the Concrete Universal as the indeterminate flow of defined indeterminacy.  

The Pre-Socratic Heraclitus (500 BC) is the progenitor of all forms of Process Philosophy because he was the first recorded thinker in the Western Tradition to realize that objects are not themselves, no matter how solid they may appear. The term “river” did not determine an identity for Heraclitus because rivers are never equivalent to themselves. Objects are differentiating flows of relational difference because they are defined rather than determined by their difference. 

The Lacanian Symbolic is the repository of shared, conceptual objects, which are the subject’s inheritance of the past. In the register of the Imaginary the past-ness of the Symbolic appears as wholeness because the afterward-ness of representation seems complete in contrast to the always incompletion flow of the present. In the present the past is when wholeness was whole. The Symbolic relates the past to the present through the afterward-ness of resemblance. Resemblance is the nostalgia of the Imaginary for the lost wholeness of the past. The Lacanian Real is the “Object-Cause-of-Desire" that causes the Imaginary to imagine the lost object of desire, which is the nostalgic virtual object that the Imaginary imagines would return the over-proximity of indeterminacy in the present to the distant determinacy of the past. The present is its resemblance to the past and its difference from the past. The virtual object, that Lacan called “Object-Small-a" is constructed as a defense against the over-proximity of the Object-Cause-Of-Desire, which is the excess of indeterminacy of the present. 

The register of the Imaginary can either long for the lost wholeness of the past, which is the illusion of the completion of afterward-ness, or it can enjoy as if the presence of indeterminacy, which is the failure of the whole to be whole, is the Whole. This sort of excessive enjoyment relates the resemblance of concepts to difference of concepts through the analogy of contradiction as if whole. The nostalgia for the wholeness of the past is imaginary wholeness because when the past was the present, its resemblance was defined by difference then too. The Imaginary is the wholeness of aboutness, which is called the “unity of apprehension” in phenomenology. Even when aboutness is about a failure of wholeness, the aboutness itself is still whole. When aboutness is a dissatisfaction about the lack of wholeness, the Imaginary produces a nostalgic, virtual object as the inverse determination of the lack of wholeness. When the virtual object covers-over the lack, it flees in the presents of the object of the Real.  

However, When the Imaginary’s virtual object is definite but indeterminate, it is no longer a nostalgic reaction against the over-proximity of the Real as the Object-Cause-Of-Desire. The virtual object becomes the many objects of what Deleuze called “Desiring-Production” and Lacan Called, the “Sinthome,” to differentiate it from the “symptom,” which is getting stuck in the repetition of the groove, or mold, of the object of the Imaginary. It is often said that there is a basic opposition between Lacan’s Object-Cause-Of-Desire and Deleuze’s Desiring Production because the former is a lack and the latter is an excess. However, the differentiation of new objects is the relation between lack and excess. Desiring production is the differentiation of new objects in the differential relation of repetition and difference. Object-Cause-Of-Desire is the is the differentiation of new objects in the differential relation of the Symbolic and the Real. Both are the differential relation of resemblance and difference. Concepts as models for resemblance, or as the determinate identities of equivalence, fail in both cases. The failure of difference to resemblance itself is the Repetition of Difference. The failure of the Real to locate itself in the Symbolic is the symbolic failure that produces new objects of desire as opposed to the lost objects of nostalgic desire. 

Desiring-Production is the “becoming active” of the psychoanalytic symptom, which is to reorient the reactivity of the symptom to the active productivity of the Lacanian Sinthome. The active object of desire differentiates itself from the reactive object of nostalgic desire through the differentiation of new objects of desire rather than the repetition of the same. The noncoincidence between Object-small-a and Object-Cause-of-Desire can be the dissatisfaction the defines rather than determines lack. When Object-small-a is definite rather than determinate, it forms through the process of differentiation, rather than through identification. If the Imaginary stops imagining how to get back to the wholeness and completeness of the past, it becomes the process of differentiation, which is the process of defining indeterminacy as the analogical relation of the afterward-ness of resemblance to the before-ness of difference without the resolution of determinate location.