A N G E L A K I
journal of the theoretical humanities
volum e 5 number 2 august 200 0
y aim here is to provide the basis for a
systematic distinction, in the broadest
M
available terms, of Foucault from Deleuze with
regard to their conceptions of individuation and
experience. Deleuze, I will argue, pursues a fully
singular conception of the individual, Foucault a
fully specific one. This distinction says more
about their fundamental projects than the many
peter hallward
and generally familiar thematic resemblances
that linked their work and justified their mutual
admiration.
For these two approaches to individuation,
THE LIMITS OF
singular and specific, are poles apart.1 The
INDIVIDUATION,
singular is aspecific.2 If a specific individual
is one which exists as part of a relationship to a
OR HOW TO
context, to other individuals and to itself, a
singular individual is one which like a Creator-
DISTINGUISH
god transcends all such relations. A singularity
DELEUZE AND
creates the medium of its own existence or
 expression, in Spinoza s sense. Examples of
FOUCAULT
singular logics include the sovereign of
absolutist political theory, the proletariat of
Marxist Leninism, and the market affirmed by
I deleuze and the singularity of
contemporary global capital; each constitutes
creation
itself through itself, to the exclusion of
others (other sovereigns, other classes, other Towards the end of his life, Deleuze presented
markets & ).3 The singular recognises no limits. his project as part of a general shift in contem-
The specific, on the other hand, exists only porary thought, whereby  the function of the
in the medium of relations with others, and singular is replacing that of the universal as the
turns ultimately on the confrontation of limits  fundamental horizon of philosophy.5 While
the limits, for instance, of experience, of universality presents an empty, static field in
language, of knowledge, of expression, of intro- which distinct particularities are distributed and
spection & measured, in which relative differences are
The essential difference between Deleuze and consolidated and regulated, singularities create
Foucault, then, can be stated very simply: their own medium of extension or existence;
Deleuze seeks to write a philosophy without rather than move through a  universal field
limits (through immediate intuition of the unlim- presumed to pre-exist it, a singular movement
ited, or purely creative), whereas Foucault writes takes place as the unfolding of its own time and
a philosophy of the limit as such (at the limits space. However varied these unfoldings might be
of classification, at the edge of the void that in Deleuze s work, their fundamental logic is
lies beyond every order of recognition or normal- invariable:  every creation is singular, and the
isation).4 concept as properly philosophical creation is
ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/00/020093-19 � 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd and the Editors of Angelaki
DOI: 10.1080/0969725002001222 3
9 3
the limits of individuation
always a singularity (QP 12/7tm). Every creative the radical immanence of all forms of reality
 explication is always an auto-explication (SP within a single  plane of consistency,  a plane
103/68tm); every genuine definition always upon which everything is laid out, and which is
implies a  veritable generation of the object like the intersection of all forms, [ & ] a single
defined. 6 And if Deleuze s own fundamental abstract Animal for all the assemblages that effec-
concept is a concept of difference, this should not tuate it (MP 311 312/254 255). Affirmation of
be understood as a difference in tension with this ultimate plane of immanence or consistency
singularity. Deleuzian difference is itself singular ensures the eradication of all equivocal notions of
in the strictest possible sense, it is properly a distinct Beings, i.e., all forms of transcendence,
difference without others.7 Deleuze seeks to write all distinction in types or levels of being (literal
a difference that is indifferent to distinctly as opposed to figural, real as opposed to imagi-
differed terms, i.e. difference without mediation nary or symbolic & ). Very simply, everything is
or relation between the differed. This effort real, and everything means in the same way, the
constitutes the major interest and difficulty of his same literal and immediate way. As a general
work; it is also, I will suggest, the source of its rule, all forms of discourse which relate a literal
ultimate incoherence. to a figured meaning are to be replaced by an
Deleuze s singular and immediate difference articulation of the literal pure and simple. Ellipse
begins where Aristotelian or Hegelian  specific rather than metaphor is the decisive figure of this
difference ends.8 If specific difference relates articulation or consistency  the immediate,
subject to object through a situation which co- instantaneous leap from one fragment or name of
implies both, singular immediate difference reality to another.
equates subject and object in a single material
The plane of consistency is the abolition of all
creation, one movement-time creative of the
metaphor; all that consists is real [ & T]he
world itself, the basis for a  new earth (MP
most disparate things and signs move upon it;
636/510). For Deleuze as for Parmenides,  think-
a semiotic fragment rubs shoulders with a
ing and being are one and the same (QP 41/38).
chemical interaction, an electron crashes into a
If then  there is only one kind of production, the
language, a black hole captures a genetic
production of the real (AO 40/32), it follows message, a crystallisation produces a passion,
that there can be only one mechanism of under- the wasp and the orchid cross a letter [ & ].
It s just that they have been uprooted from
standing or perception, one creative faculty of
their strata, destratified, decoded, deterritori-
expression-interpretation, and this faculty applies
alised, and that is what makes their proximity
indifferently to the material, semantic, or spiri-
and interpenetration in the plane of consis-
tual composition of things.
tency possible [ & ]. The plane of consistency
knows nothing of differences in level, orders of
(a) ontological univocity
magnitude, or distances. (MP 89/69)
Singular differentiation or individuation thus This univocity, of course, in no sense implies
presumes, as its first effectively transcendental ontological uniformity. On the contrary: univoc-
condition, the absolute univocity of being. ity is affirmed as the basis and medium for an
Deleuze is categorical on this point.  There has effectively unlimited differentiation. Since it is
only ever been one ontological proposition: Being univocal, Deleuzian difference must be  imma-
is univocal. There has only ever been one ontol- nent or  internal difference, self-differing (and
ogy, that of Duns Scotus, which gave being a thus  without others [LS 350/301]). Deleuzian
single voice [ & ]. From Parmenides to reality is nothing other than a process of self-
Heidegger it is the same voice which is taken up, differentiation:  everything divides, but into
in an echo which itself forms the whole deploy- itself (AO 91/76). And it is an unlimited process
ment of the univocal. 9 There is but one matter- of (self-)differentiation, because there is nothing
energy, and  whether organic or inorganic, outside reality  no second or further reality, no
matter is all one (LB 11/7). Univocity implies horizon to reality, no dualism of subject and
9 4
hallward
object &  that might limit its play. Unlimited, aspect of Deleuze s philosophy. There is no more
the singular is, indifferently, infinitely large or important question to be asked of Deleuze than
infinitely small   the smallest becomes the equal this: should he be read as a philosopher of rela-
of the largest once it is not separated from what tional difference? Though there isn t space here
it can do (DR 55/37tm). Every singular  auto- to justify my commitment to a negative answer to
affection [is the] conversion of far and near (C2 this question, it is at least possible to spell out
111/83). Likewise, each singular some of the implications of such a reading.
The most important of these determines the
event is the smallest time, smaller than the
general orientation of Deleuze s many and varied
minimum of continuous thinkable time [ & ],
accounts of individuation: rather than relational
but it is also the longest time, longer than the
maximum of continuous thinkable time [& ]. and  mediate, Deleuzian individuation proceeds
Each event is adequate to the Aion in its
as singular and immediate. The essential, endlessly
entirety [ & ], all form one and the same single
ramified point is that, according to Deleuze, active
event, event of the Aion in which they have an
differentiation does not take place within the field
eternal truth. (LS 80 81/63 64)
of actuality or experience but at the level of its
Singular difference is thus immediately intra- production  not in creation, but from its creator.
rather than inter-individual.  Immediate must, In every case, Deleuze reserves differing power to
again, be taken literally: as immediate, singular an effectively absolute determining instance, a
differentiation is nothing other than pure time in pure creating in some sense outside or beyond its
itself, time compressed to an all-inclusive instant derivative (differed) effects, or creatures.
moving at absolute speed. The singular equates
the whole with the point or instant.  The whole
(b) immediate non-relational difference
ought to belong to a single moment (NP 81/72).
Again,  the One expresses in a single meaning all It is this determining instance that Deleuze calls
of the multiple. Being expresses in a single mean- virtual. The virtual, as the word implies, is what
ing all that differs [l Etre se dit en un seul et conditions or lies behind actual being or experi-
męme sens de tout ce qui diffŁre]. 10 The singu- ence. A virtuality is an absolute, self-defining
lar always moves with the force of a power intensity (variously, an Idea, Event, Problem, or
creative of the very medium of its movement, a Concept): actualities are composed as so many
power beyond all possible mediation. materially existent incarnations or consequences
The essential logic of such singular differenti- of the virtual. Only the conditioning instance
ation is best evoked, I think, by a fairly crude actively differs; differed beings are nothing more
analogy with familiar notions of divine Creation than the literal actualisations of their virtual
or  expression. 11 Such notions generally creator. In every case, active  becoming [le
presume at least three things: (a) the effectively devenir], change, and mutation affect [virtual]
unlimited power of the Creator (there is only one composing forces, not composed forms (FC
Creator, who creates not only every possible crea- 91/87tm). Every creative composing or determin-
ture, but the very medium of creation itself); (b) ing force is virtual (or self-differing), while actual
the consequent univocity of creation (all crea- forms (or creatures) are merely composed.
tures, whatever their differences, are creatures in All actual existent individuals, then, are
the same way); (c) the absence of constituent simply so many immediate actualisations of one
relational differences between creatures (for what and the same creative force, variously termed
distinguishes one creature from another is deter- desire or desiring-production,12 life, �lan vital,
mined by their direct, immediate relations to the matter-energy, the virtual, or power  the force
Creator). If specific or mediate difference differs that drives the chaotic distribution of things
one creature from another, then singular-imme- across the plane of immanence. ( Everything I ve
diate difference is simply creative of the differed. written, Deleuze declared in 1988,  is vitalistic,
It is the status of this last and all-important at least I hope it is. )13 What differs these actu-
point that is, in my view, the most controversial alisations, first and foremost, is not a complex
9 5
the limits of individuation
dialectic of inter-actual relations so much as the one Real are no more related to each other than
stark simplicity of a creative hierarchy. Yes, are Leibniz s windowless monads.20 The creative
 equal, univocal being is immediately present in  movement goes, not from one actual term to
everything, without mediation or intermediary, another, nor from the general to the particular
but  things reside unequally in this equal [through the specific], but from the virtual to its
being (DR 55/37). Deleuze s Spinoza agrees actualisation  through the intermediary of a
with Leibniz, that  everything can be said to be determining individuation (DR 324/251tm).
the same at all times and places except in degrees The only legitimate relation between actual x and
of perfection. 14 Actualities differ in terms of actual y is the immediate reference back to the
their absolute proximity to pure creation, i.e., in virtual z, which they both individuate to differ-
terms of the amount of creative energy they ent degrees. To move from x to y is to jump from
express or expend. one degree or one fragment of the plane of imma-
This is why creative differences are essentially nence to another, via an immediate, instanta-
quantitative, and why the infinitely diverse neous ellipse beyond distance (i.e., via a shift in
components of univocal reality can in principle intensity rather than a change in extension).
be accounted for in terms of differing degrees  The virtuals [les virtuels] communicate imme-
along a single ontological scale.  Quality is noth- diately above the actual that separates them. 21
ing other than contracted quantity (B 73/74); Consequently,  the relative positions of the
 quality is nothing but difference in quantity [actual terms in a given series] in relation to one
(NP 50/44). For Deleuze as for Nietzsche, a strict another depend only on their absolute position
quantitative  hierarchy is the originary fact, the in relation to  the virtual paradoxical element
identity of difference and origin 15  in the that distributes the series in the first place (LS
compressed formula of Deleuze s Cinema 2, 99/81).
 irreducible difference allows resemblances to be
graded (C2 234/180). To stick to the most
(c) creative counter-actualisation
significant example,  individuation is, in
Spinoza, neither qualitative nor extrinsic, but Our only problem  but there is no greater prob-
quantitative and intrinsic, intensive,  purely lem  is that we generally live in ignorance or
quantitative, according to  the degree of [a denial of these virtual forces. The singular nature
thing s] power ;16 any actual mode, human or of creative virtuality is itself generally obscured
otherwise,  is, in its essence, always a certain by its very actualisation in particular situations.
degree, a certain quantity, of a [divine] quality Creative (i.e., purely intense or fully implicated)
(SE 166/183; cf. MP 314/257).  difference is explicated in systems in which it
What is thereby eliminated is not difference, tends to be cancelled (DR 293/228), and  life as
certainly, but specific or relational difference; movement alienates itself in the material form
 what vanishes is merely all value that can be that it creates. 22 We begin our lives, as crea-
assigned to the terms of a relation [un rapport], tures, in precisely such alienation. For Deleuze as
for the gain of its inner reason, which precisely for the Spinoza he emulates, we always begin in
constitutes difference. 17 The only creative rela-  impotence and slavery, in  ignorance (SE
tionship between individuals must be measured 241/263, 268/289 90). We are naturally trapped
in terms of the virtual which effectively underlies in delusions of ontological equivocity or dualism
them all  a relation of purely quantitative differ-  the belief that we are subjects as distinct from
ence along a single hierarchical scale of absolute objects, and thus subjects who represent, figure
proximity to the full creative potential of force, or otherwise interpret objects; belief in psycho-
life, or the virtual.18 Always, the power of  actu- logical sufficiency, in organic specificity, territo-
alisation belongs to the virtual. The actualisation rial integrity, and so on. We must then somehow
of the virtual is singularity, while the actual itself discover what we are, i.e., contingent fragments
is [merely] constituted individuality. 19 The of a vital or creative energy pulsing through and
multiple modes or singular actualisations of the beyond the whole of actuality. Though we begin
9 6
hallward
as  territorialised we must find ways to  deter- long campaign to free us from the  shackles of
ritorialise, knowing that singular  deterritoriali- mediation, from the  long error of representa-
sation is absolute when it brings about the tion, and with it, from subjective interiority,
creation of a new earth (MP 636/510). Again: equivocity, signification, territoriality, desire-as-
 all our false problems derive from the fact that lack, transcendence, etc. By definition, all medi-
we do not know how to go beyond experience ations serve only to obscure reality. Any properly
toward the conditions of experience, toward the insightful philosophy, by contrast, will be consis-
articulations of the real [du r�el] (B 17/26). tent with a kind of radical empiricism, so long as
Access to these creative articulations is some- we remember that  empiricism is a kind of  phys-
thing we must learn. Philosophy, aided by icalism. As a matter of fact, one must find a
science and art, is part of this learning process fully physical usage for principles whose nature
(its conceptual part). Deleuze s small army of is only physical &  (ES 136/119). The model of
kindred spirits  Guattari, Spinoza, Leibniz, Deleuzian interpretation is thus biochemical (NP
Masoch, Nietzsche, Artaud, Beckett, the nomad, 60/53) or mechanical, geared to a single
the schizo, the dice-thrower, etc. &  is made up  Mechanosphere (MP 641/514), a single  coex-
of those who, differently, inspire one and the tension of man and nature (AO 128/107), culmi-
same movement, the movement from a deluded nating in the virtual identity of Cosmos and
creatural isolation toward an eventual redemptive Brain (C2 268 69/206 07). To move in this way
fusion with creation as such. from the confines of the creatural to the absolute
More crudely: creatures relate only to their sovereignty of the creator (or creating) coincides
creator, and as creatures, our only access to with the movement from the confines of a partic-
creative power is governed by processes ular organism to  the non-organic life of things
(machines, agencements) of  extraction or [ & ] which burns us [ & and] unleashes in our
 counter-actualisation that allow us in some soul a non-psychological life of the spirit, which
sense to move from our derivative, static actual- no longer belongs either to nature or to our
ity, back to the dynamic, effectively disembodied organic individuality, which is the divine part in
vitality that expresses us, that makes us literally us, the spiritual relationship in which we are
what we are.23 Whatever the actual animal,  it is alone with God as light (C1 80/57).
still the same abstract Animal that is realised [qui Deleuze s most general aim is thus to affirm
se r�alise] throughout the stratum, only to vary- Creation or Life at a coherence which effectively
ing degrees, in varying modes (MP 62/46). excludes that of the specific, living organism 
Now since everything that is is real, real in the the coherence achieved, ultimately, by the noto-
same way, then to grasp the real (that we are, that rious  Body without Organs. 24  To move
everything is) we need only eliminate everything beyond the human condition, such is the mean-
that persuades us that there are different levels or ing [sens] of philosophy (FC 139 40/124 25tm).
spheres of being, i.e., everything that keeps us at This power to overcome one s specific or organic
a certain distance from our real immediate being. limits provides one (quantitative) index of the
If  equal, univocal being is immediately present given creativity of a thing, its assigned degree of
in everything, without mediation or intermedi- proximity to pure differing production. The crit-
ary (DR 55/37), then our task is to eliminate ical question is always a variant of the same
everything that mediates or re-presents this imperative:  How can we rid ourselves of
being. To articulate the real in Deleuze s sense ourselves [nous d�faire de nous-męmes], and
invariably and exclusively involves the destruc- demolish ourselves? (C1 97/66). How can we
tion of the mediate in all its forms (psychologi-  attain once more the world before man, before
cal, imaginary, figural, political, and so on). This our own dawn, the position where movement
involves, first and foremost, elimination of noth- was [ & ] under the regime of universal variation
ing less than the very notion of traditional self- [ & ], the luminous plane of immanence ?
consciousness, of the self as the mediator of (C1 100/68). Deleuze s enduring dream is to be
objects, of other selves, and of itself. Hence the thus
9 7
the limits of individuation
present at the dawn of the world. Such is the creative philosophy, is effectively taken for
link between imperceptibility, indiscernibility,
granted as an  Original, Unique. 28 The events
and impersonality  the three virtues. To
of sense, for example, are given in advance; we
reduce oneself to an abstract line, a trait, in
exist to speak them and nothing more.  What the
order to find one s zone of indiscernibility with
past is to time, sense is to language and idea to
other traits, and in this way enter the haecce-
thought. Sense as the past of language is the form
ity and impersonality of the creator. One is
of its pre-existence, that which we place ourselves
then like grass & 25
in at once (C2 131/99 100). These pre-existent
The obvious problem that then arises is how to forms are simply that, pre-existent. In the same
explain the individuation of these self-singularis- way, to be cut is to suffer the actualisation of a
ing (self-creating) beings in a wholly deterritori- virtual wound which was literally waiting to
alised space, without recourse to some kind of happen.  My wound existed before me & Not as
intrinsic and determining  i.e., ultimately speci- a transcendence of the wound, as higher actual-
fied  essence, thought or Idea, more or less on ity, but as immanence, virtuality always at the
the Platonic model. For the constituent phenom- heart of a milieu (field or plane). 29 Again,
enological relationship of subject and object, Artaud s exemplary theatre of cruelty is  defined
Deleuze substitutes the one-way  determining only in terms of an extreme  determinism, that
individuation of actual by virtual.  To be actu- of spatio-temporal determination in so far as it
alised is also to be expressed (LS 134/110), incarnates an Idea or nature & , a pure staging
where the virtual or expressing instance is wholly without author, without actors and without
sufficient and determined in itself;  actualisation subjects (DR 282/219), a  sequence of spiritual
comes about through differentiation of the states which are deduced from one another as
virtual, and nothing more.26 What emerges from thought is deduced from thought. 30 In short, it
this schema is the unqualified dependence of the is without intermediaries,  capable of directly
actual upon the virtual, the pure redundance of affecting the organism (DR 282/219).
the actual, in exactly the sense that  the world So radically singular philosophy can only
he produces adds nothing to God s essence (SE culminate, in the end, in the definitive specifica-
87/99). God or the Virtual produces a redun- tion of its modes. The more committed Deleuze
dantly expressive world or actuality. becomes to a single plane of immanence, the
In every case,  the essence of a mode is singu- more he must rely on the effectively  pre-exis-
lar in itself (SE 179/196),  events are ideal (LS tent transcendence of its forms.
68/53), and  individuals presuppose only Ideas It is perhaps ironic that one of Deleuze s most
(DR 324/252), which are themselves self-suppos- developed illustrations of this quasi-determinist
ing.  Pour ce qui est de l Id�e on est toujours un logic should be  borrowed from Foucault
patient (DR 283/219). Deleuze does not avoid himself. In his controversial Foucault, Deleuze
the question:  Where do ideas come from, the spends much of his time trying to separate deter-
variations of their relations [rapports] and their mining (composing) forces on the one hand from
distributions of singularities? Here, again, we determined (composed) forms on the other.
follow the path to the bend at which  reason Determining  power relations or  forces always
plunges into a beyond. The ultimate [radicale] come from the outside, i.e., from their self-suffi-
origin was always assimilated to a divine and soli- cient virtuality.31 Any determined actuality
tary game. 27 But what is this game, if not the follows simply from the  definition of the
game of Creation itself? [virtual] diagramme, which  is always an emis-
The individuality of an actual body or state of sion of singularities [ & ], a distribution of
affairs, its bundle of  intrinsic modalities, is singularities (80/73tm). Everything springs
thus delegated from without, in advance (DR from  the spontaneity of power s ability to
53 55/36 37; 323 25/250 51). Every singular or affect, paired with the wholly passive  receptiv-
 remarkable point, every individual, like the ity of the power to be affected (84/77), to be
 conceptual personae who populate Deleuze s stated, or to be made visible. Throughout this
9 8
hallward
highly misleading account of Foucault s work, limits of the specific are not within its domain,
Deleuze simply takes this mysterious, sponta- they cannot be subsumed within a logic of pleni-
neous power to self-specify for granted, and it is tude nor accessed as part of an experience,
only by taking it for granted that he answers the however deterritorialised. Nor do these limits
question of  primacy. Always,  the question of orient our experience one way or another (toward
primacy is essential and if  the statement has consensus or dissensus, toward a sublime tran-
primacy (57/49) it is because it remains unre- scendence or a grotesque materiality, toward the
lated to what it states and to what it makes visi- Creator or alienation from the Creator & ).
ble. Whereas a merely actual  proposition is While the logic of singularity implies that the
supposed to have a referent, the  discursive only valid criteria for its  expression are inter-
object of a virtual statement  does not in any nal to this expression itself, articulation of the
sense derive from a particular state of things, but specific recognises that the only pertinent criteria
stems from the statement itself. It is a derived for action are always external (i.e., specific) to the
object, defined precisely by the lines of variation particular action itself  and thus a matter of
of the statement existing as a primitive function conflict, deliberation, and decision. The specific
(17/8 9), i.e., as a pre-determined or self-deter- subject is inevitably partial, interested:  he is
mining singularity. So as with any singularity, necessarily for one side or the other; he is in the
the  rules governing such a statement  are to be thick of the battle, he has adversaries &  35
found on the same level as itself (15/5), defined For all his well-known proximity to Deleuze, I
 by certain inherent lines of variation, as a want to argue that Foucault s work should be
bundle of  intrinsic positions (16/6, emphasis read as grounded, in every phase of its complex
added). Again,  the statement is not at all evolution, in an ultimately specific rather singu-
defined by what it designates or signifies (FC lar frame of reference.36 In keeping with his now
85/79), but by itself alone, its  spontaneity. 32 familiar conception of the  specific intellectual
The upshot is absolute self-determining power: and micro-political resistances,37 Foucault always
affirmed  the strictly relational character of
The statement has primacy by virtue of the
power relationships (VS 95).  Nothing is funda-
spontaneity of its conditions (language), which
mental, there is no specified subjective norm,
give it a determining form, while the visible
 there are only reciprocal relations, and the
element, by virtue of the receptivity of its
perpetual gaps between intentions in relation to
conditions (light), merely has the form of the
determinable [ & ]. By virtue of their spon- one another. 38 The generalised despecification
taneity, [statements] exert an infinite determi- of such relations is the consistent goal of
nation over the visible element.33
Foucault s work from beginning to end. No less
than the Deleuze he certainly admired, Foucault
This is a conclusion that says a great deal about
labours for  the suppression of categories, the
Deleuze, but very little about Foucault.
subversion of all imposed classification;39 the
 specific role of [the] intellectual is precisely  to
II foucault and the despecification of
disturb people s mental habits [ & ] to dissipate
experience
what is familiar and accepted. 40
The singular creates the medium of its extension, This dissipation operates at the level of archae-
which it fills out  at infinite speed. 34 Singularity ological critique as much as that of genealogical
tends toward a radical plenitude. If we cannot say engagement. In the first case, Foucault resists the
that the singular abhors a vacuum, it only allows specification of particular fields of knowledge
space for one only insofar as it opens an unpre- [savoir] by a general faculty of  understanding,
dictable path for another vector of its own ongo- conceived in terms of a basic  continuity of
ing self-differentiation. The specific, on the other science and experience, a fundamental coher-
hand, always eventually confronts the empty ence of the intelligible and the human.41 Such an
horizon of its extension; what is beyond the anthropological (ahistorical) understanding, to
specific is only the void, pure and simple. The echo the phrase so often used by the Foucault of
9 9
the limits of individuation
the mid-1960s, is what puts thought to sleep. In Alongside its often-discussed  microphysical
the second case, of course, power is first and fore- dimension, then, Foucault s project acknowl-
most that force which specifies the objects in its edges a rather less well-known quasi-transcen-
field. Power certainly relates, but it tends to dental resistance to specification as fundamental
conceal the relational aspect of its reality in terms to the very definition of thought itself. We know
of apparently absolute or universal norms. Only that thought is not a function of representation
a radical practice of de-absolutisation or de-spec- or manipulation:
ification will expose the actual relations of power
thought is not what inhabits a certain conduct
that govern our society. Just as modern discipli-
and gives it its meaning; rather, it is what
nary individuation  specifies delinquency (DP
allows one to step back from this way of acting
277) and  objectifies socio-pathological types
or reacting, to present it to oneself as an object
(101 02), so too does our modern investment in
of thought and to question its meaning, its
sexual discursivity enable a  new specification of
conditions, and its goals. Thought is freedom
individuals (VS 43). And once sexual behaviour in relation to what one does, the motion
became  a principle of classification and intelli- by which one detaches oneself from it, estab-
lishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a
gibility, the result was not so much to the
problem [ & ]. For a domain of action, a
repression or exclusion of  aberrant sexualities
behaviour, to enter the field of thought, it is
as  the specification, the regional solidification of
necessary for a certain number of factors to
each one of them (VS 44).
have made it uncertain, to have made it lose its
Such consolidation or solidification is in every
familiarity.47
case the chief target of Foucault s critique, and
nothing is more consistent with this critique than Such freedom demands to be interpreted, I think,
his adamant refusal to specify an alternative in a loosely neo-Kantian sense  i.e., as some-
model of sexual practice or understanding. thing accessible exclusively as a practice or expe-
Nothing is more foreign to Foucault s conception rience, and not as a specifiable object of
of critical thought than what he derides as  the knowledge.48
Californian cult of the self, whereby  one is So it would be quite wrong to conclude that
supposed to discover one s true self, to separate because Foucault despecifies the subject (in
it from that which might obscure or alienate it, particular, the subject specified as  Man ), he
to decipher its truth  in short, to specify its therefore gets rid of it entirely. Remember that
authentic needs.42 Since we are literally governed  the end of man [ & ] is nothing more, and noth-
by pressures to specify our desires and identities, ing less, than the unfolding of a space in which it
the critical task is thus  not to discover what we is once more possible to think (MC 353/342) 
are, but to refuse what we are, to refuse both the a space in which it is possible to become the true
state and  the type of individualisation which is subject (rather than the object) of thought.
linked to the state. 43 Foucault went to some lengths to clarify this
(Of all the many critical swipes made against point.  Refusing the philosophical recourse to a
Foucault, therefore, none is less fair than the constituent subject does not amount to acting as
assertion that his refusal of a specified normative if the subject did not exist, making an abstraction
basis for resistance and political change, coupled of it on behalf of a pure objectivity. This refusal
with the apparently sinister implications of the has the aim of eliciting the processes that are
 death of Man, implies that he has no concept peculiar to an experience in which the subject
of subjective agency or effective freedom.44 The and the object are  formed and transformed in
whole thrust of his critical histories is to show relation to and in terms of one another. 49 Again,
just how fragile, how contingent, prevailing spec- a  systematic scepticism toward all anthropologi-
ifications really are, and so how vulnerable they cal universals [ & ] does not mean rejecting them
are to concerted pressure for change.45  The all from the start, outright and once and for all,
work of the intellect is to show that what is does but that nothing of that order must be accepted
not have to be what it is. 46) that is not strictly indispensable. 50 It is
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hallward
perfectly obvious throughout all of Foucault s Foucault s historically specific investigations are
work that the general category of relations  rela-  free of any constituent activity, disengaged from
tions between subjects and objects, between one any reference to an origin or foundation.55
subject and another, between subject and self, Though he is no less hostile than Deleuze to the
between subject and truth  is one such indis- illusions of interiority and representation,
pensable  universal. So is the related notion of Foucault s  Outside is emphatically not peopled
limits: though every particular limit is of course with Virtual forms or creative patterns of coher-
historical and contingent,  limitations [them- ence beyond our own. His thought does not flow
selves] are not historical because they are consti- along a singular line of flight so much as confront
tutive of all possible history. 51 And however the limits of the specific, only to return, like a
much Foucault suspects the words transcenden- Bodhisattva, from the edge of the abyss.
tal or universal, nevertheless the formulas he uses Although Foucault uses different terminology,
to describe the nature of freedom and thought what he calls  the critical ontology of ourselves
are generally unqualified if not apodictic (for is close to the general reflexive effort to move
instance, that no form of power is ever from the specified to the specific, an effort
completely determining, that resistance is always deprived of recourse to a singular authority or
present, that the subject always emerges in rela- plenitude.56
tion to the object, and so on). Foucault will quite In order to be convincing, this disentangling
happily speak of freedom as  a permanent provo- of Foucault from Deleuze would require a
cation, 52 just as he seems to presume a kind of demonstration in at least four steps. First, that
universal agonism, a primordial conflict of  all Foucault s conception of the  specific intellec-
against all [ & ; t]here is always within each of us tual, though literally devised with Deleuze s
something that fights something else. 53 In typi- help, directs his engagement in a fundamentally
cally aspecified fashion, Foucault  believe[s] too different critical direction, toward the composi-
much in the truth not to suppose that there are tion of particular histories of how our experience
different truths and different ways of saying it has been specified and confined. Second, that
(FL 314). Foucault s eventual conception of ethical self-
Foucault and Deleuze can be distinguished, reflection does indeed mark a distinct break with
then, in a number of essential ways. Whereas Deleuze s neo-Spinozist alternative. Third, that
Deleuze would like to get rid of the relational Deleuze s own much-vaunted reading of Foucault
subject altogether, to clear some space for a cre- is seriously flawed, especially his determination
ative coherence beyond the creatural altogether, to read Foucault s ethics in terms that anticipate
Foucault wants to purge the subject, to eliminate the terminology of The Fold. Lastly, that
everything that specifies or objectifies the subject Foucault s early fascination with the limits of
(as deviant, perverse, criminal, as much as ratio- experience is less the symptom, as some would
nal, sensible, law-abiding & ). Whereas for have it, of a kind of suicidal mysticism than an
Deleuze, differing relations are always  external interest in the limits of our specification as such
to their differed terms,54 for Foucault such rela- (the pure, ultimately abstract limit of that to
tions are irreducibly constitutive of the situation which we remain, though minimally specified,
in which one strives to become a (de-specified) forever specific): for the early Foucault, what lies
subject. Whereas for Deleuze, thought is the vital at the pure limit of despecification, beyond any
movement of the univocal Cosmos-Brain, the possible recuperation (be it humanist, materialist
medium of creative energy in its purest, most or schizo-analytic), is not the Creative plenitude
anarchic and least  actual state, for Foucault, of a singular vitality but the uncompromising
thought is fundamentally bound up with the con- void of pure indetermination. This indetermina-
frontation of limits and constraints, with detach- tion deserves comparison, at some level, with
ment and self-awareness in an almost Buddhist neo-Kantian conceptions of practical reason as
sense. Whereas Deleuze s virtual Problems or much as with broadly existentialist conceptions
Events presume a virtual determining instance, of subjective freedom.
1 0 1
the limits of individuation
Time blocks the development of so compre- ination becomes inert:  to have an image is to
hensive an argument here, but of these four leave off imagining (71). If morbid pathologies
steps, it is surely the last that is the most slippery paralyse  the free movements of the imagining
and the most suggestive of the broader distinc- subject, then  the aim of psychotherapy should
tion I want to make. I will limit my discussion to be to free the imaginary that is trapped in the
three aspects of this most elusive step, concern- image (72).
ing the status of the subject, the nature of trans-
gression, and the relation between madness and
(b) limit and void
art.
Always for Foucault, reflective language or
thought  should be directed not toward any inner
(a) subject and imagination
confirmation  not toward any kind of central,
We know that Foucault aims to subvert the unshakeable certitude  but toward an outer
constituent subject. But this subversion in no bound where it must continually contest itself. 58
sense implies the death of the subject and the To be sure, short of the essay  Theatrum
consequent birth of a fully objective determina- Philosophicum itself, there is nothing appar-
tion. For remember that the constituent subject ently closer to a Deleuzian orientation in
is itself an emphatically singular configuration  Foucault s work than the literally u-topian posi-
a mode of individuation that constitutes itself tion affirmed in essays like  Preface to
out of itself, as its very medium of existence. Transgression (1963) and  Thought from the
There is nothing more singular than the Outside (1966). Enthusiastic lexical similarities
Cartesian cogito. We can fairly claim that conceal, however, a fundamental distinction.
Foucault is indeed a philosopher of the subject, What is crucially at issue in these and similar
once we accept that his subject is neither speci- pieces from the same period is not the liberation
fied as empirical Man nor singularised as cogito. of a singular creative dynamism so much as what
In the terms he uses to describe our modern confronts a subject carried to the very edge of his
 empirico-transcendental doublet (MC 318), absolute despecification. And what emerges from
Foucault s subject is neither specified as the this confrontation is simply the empty form of
objective reality that speaks, works and lives, the limit as such. In all the limit experiences that
nor singularised as the creative author of Foucault garners from Bataille, Roussel, Artaud
consciousness. and others, the void which defines their limit
In this sense, Foucault s earliest preoccupa- remains precisely that: void. It is the  essential
tions with an existential phenomenology retain a emptiness left by the dissolution of the sover-
certain resonance throughout his career, all retro- eign or singular subject that resonates in
spective disassociations notwithstanding. His first Foucault s early essays.59 It is the  absolutely
substantial piece of writing, the 1954 introduc- void character of what the Foucault of the mid-
tion to Binswanger s Dream and Existence, 1960s imagines as the thought of the future that
already isolates  the freedom of man in its origi- guarantees its promise to rouse us from our long
nal form 57 as his guiding priority and interest.  anthropological sleep. 60 Quite unlike Deleuze s
Whereas an inauthentic existence  gives itself up virtual plane of immanence in which  nothing is
entirely to an objective determinism where its lacking, 61 the Foucauldian  outside cannot offer
original freedom is completely alienated (66), itself as a positive presence  as something
authentic existence resists such specification inwardly illuminated by the certainty of its own
absolutely. In this early text, dreaming and imag- existence  but only as an absence that pulls as
ination provide the privileged forms of such far away from itself as possible. 62 So when
resistance.  To imagine [ & ] is to intend oneself Foucault carefully distinguishes his  Outside
as a movement of freedom which makes itself from any merely mystical asceticism, he also
world (68). But once frozen in a particular provides us with a useful way of distinguishing
image, once specified in a particular form, imag- his position from Deleuze s cosmic vitalism. For
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hallward
 the characteristic movement of mysticism is to answer, provokes a breach without reconciliation
attempt to join  even if it means crossing the where the world is forced to question itself
night  the positivity of an existence by opening (MCiv 288tm).
a difficult line of communication with it, i.e., to Considered in this light, Foucault s eventual
become one with the creative presence that understanding of philosophy as ethical self-fash-
sustains the world. But, Foucault insists,  the ioning reads less as the betrayal of an earlier
experience of the outside has nothing to do with intransigence than the culmination of a broadly
that [ & ]. It opens a neutral space in which no consistent programme  the isolation of an always
existence can take root. 63 At this radical edge of specific experience from all specified conformity.
the specific, subtracted from every positive spec- There can be no specific norms. The essential
ification, what individuates a writer, work or style principle of Foucault s late conception of ethics
is simply  its own particular way of being anony- is precisely that ethical criteria should never be
mous, its particular way of despecifying.64 directly conditioned by  social or economic or
political structures on the one hand,66 nor deter-
mined by intrinsically (i.e., absolutely)  good
(c) madness and work
or liberatory values on the other. It is the ongo-
We know that for the author of Histoire de la
ing, subjective practice of liberty that is alone
folie, a genuine work of art coheres only at its
decisive.  I do not think that there is anything
specific limit with madness, when it is
that is functionally  by its very nature 
confronted by the space that both inspires and
absolutely liberating. Liberty is a practice [ & ].
excludes it. Again, it is the relation of work and
The liberty of men is never assured by the insti-
its limit or outside that is essential.  Since
tutions and laws that are intended to guarantee
Raymond Roussel, since Artaud, madness is the
them ; pace Deleuze,  there are no machines of
place approached by the language of literature.
freedom, by definition. 67 So  if one were to find
However it does not approach it as something
a place, and perhaps there are some, where
that it must enunciate, but rather as something
liberty is effectively exercised, one would find
it must confront, as its limit.65 Artaud s
that this is not owing to the order of objects 
madness, for instance,  is precisely the absence
Foucault is thinking of liberty as something
of the work of art, the reiterated presence of that
built into the environment, freedom ą la Le
absence, its central void experienced and
Corbusier  but rather, always,  to the practice
measured in all its endless dimensions [ & ].
of liberty. 68
Madness is the absolute break with the work of
What is consistent throughout Foucault s
art (MCiv 287). But by the same token,
work, then, and what distinguishes him from
 Artaud s oeuvre experiences its own absence in
Deleuze, is a militant refusal of specification
madness, [and] that experience, the fresh
(however rational, humane or creative) as a way
courage of that ordeal [ & ]  that is the work
of approaching human experience  without
of art itself: the sheer cliff over the abyss of the
redemptive recourse to fusion with some singular
work s absence (288; emphasis added). So what
creative energy as its apocalyp-
fascinates in madness is not, as Derrida and
tic alternative. The specific is
others have alleged, the promise that madness
simply the irreducible medium
itself might speak (might become-work, become-
of our existence, the exclusive
present)  a fascination that certainly inspired
dimension of our unending
the composition of Capitalism and
work upon ourselves.
Schizophrenia  but what it reveals about the
limits of what can be said. Madness itself has
notes
nothing to say, it does not itself speak. It simply
interrupts, contests and despecifies:  by the
1 For a more detailed presentation of this distinc-
madness which interrupts it, a work opens a
tion, see Hallward,  The Singular and the Specific,
void, a moment of silence, a question without Radical Philosophy 99 (January 2000): 6 18.
1 0 3
the limits of individuation
2  In-difference with respect to properties is what Spinozist notions of adequation. And since  an
individuates and disseminates singularities adequate idea is just an idea that expresses its
(Agamben, The Coming Community 19). cause (SE 118 19/133), so then  the adequate
idea for all things will express the cause of all
3 In a more precise sense, the big bang posited by
things. This, of course, is the idea of God (SE
most contemporary cosmologists is a singularity
279 80/299 300; cf. 122/136), or in more
because, rather than an explosion occurring within
 contemporary jargon, of pure  vitality (PP
an already unfolded field of time and space, it takes
143).
place as an  inflation creative of its own ongoing
space of expansion. A singularity is  a state of infi- 12  All desiring-production is, in and of itself,
nite curvature of spacetime. In a singularity, all
immediately consumption and consummation
places and times are the same. Hence the big bang
(AO 23/16).
did not take place in a preexisting space; all space
13 PP 143.  The essential thing for me [is] this
was embroiled in the big bang (Timothy Ferris,
 vitalism, or a conception of life as non-organic
The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report
energy (Deleuze, Lettre-Pr�face, in Buydens,
17).
Sahara 5; cf. FC 93; B 106 07). Deleuze would no
4 Clare O Farrell uses the concept of the limit as
doubt accept Baudrillard s charge of vitalism,
a central organising device in her very useful study,
levelled at him and Foucault in his Oublier Foucault
Foucault: Historian Or Philosopher? (1989).
(1977).
5 Deleuze,  Un concept philosophique 90.
14 Leibniz, in DR 114/84; cf. LB 78/58, 148/110.
Compared to Leibniz, Spinoza is simply the more
6 SE 68/79. Where traditional realism supposes to
insistently univocal of the two; he has a less
some degree the independence of its object,
 analogical (and thus less qualitative) notion of
Deleuze promotes with Robbe-Grillet and
differentiation (SE 309 10/333).
Godard a description that  replaces its own
object, that  erases or destroys its [initially appar-
15 NP 8 9/8; cf. Rose, Dialectic, 107 08.
ent] reality (C2 18/7; cf. 21/12, 34/22,
16 SE 180/197; 166/183; cf. DR 105/77.
68 69/44 45).
17  Difference no longer exists between the poly-
7 I explore the precise implications of this point in
gon and the circle, but in the pure variability of the
my  Deleuze and the World Without Others,
sides of the polygon (LB 88/65). This is not to say
Philosophy Today 41.4 (Winter, 1997): 530 44.
that relations between actualities is restricted to
8 DR 45 52/30 35, 318 26/247 52; SP 65/45 46.
purely quantitative (comparative) differences.
Relations with other actualities fall within the orbit
9 DR 52/35. Since I wrote the first version of this
of Deleuze s philosophy precisely to the degree
article, some of the consequences of Deleuze s
that they allow the individual actualities concerned
univocal and vitalist orientation have been bril-
effectively to escape relationality as such, i.e., to
liantly (if only partially) elucidated in Alain Badiou s
the degree that they provide means of returning
Gilles Deleuze: La clameur de l ętre.
back up along the path that leads  down from the
10 MP 311/254; cf. B 20/29. Deleuze s ontology is
virtual to the actual, from the creating to the
first and foremost a thematic variation on
created (for instance, the relation between Little
Spinoza s singularity of substance, a doctrine that
Hans and horse, or orchid and wasp, or alcoholic
amounts, for Deleuze, to little short of the
and alcohol & ). Such relations, of course, are
revealed truth of philosophy:  Spinoza is the
what Deleuze calls becomings; every becoming-
Christ of philosophers, and the greatest philoso-
other is oriented, ultimately, towards a  becom-
phers are hardly more than apostles who distance
ing-imperceptible (or becoming-virtual).  The
themselves or draw near to this mystery (QP
imperceptible is the immanent end of becoming,
59/59 60; cf. 49/48 49).
its cosmic formula (MP 342/279; cf. DS 56/45).
11 Given Deleuze s unqualified dedication to
18 B 99 100/97; LB 135 36/103.
Spinoza, the analogy is hardly inappropriate. If
every creative definition always implies a  verita- 19  L actuel et le virtuel, DS 181;  Our starting
ble generation of the object defined (SE 68/79), point is a unity, a simplicity, a virtual totality [ & ].
it is because such  generation conforms to Differentiation is always the actualisation of a
1 0 4
hallward
virtuality that persists across its actual divergent lived experience [un v�cu]; but it is itself a pure
lines [ & ]. Why is differentiation an  actualisa- virtual on the plane of immanence which pulls us
tion ? Because it presupposes a unity, a virtual into a life ( L Immanence: une vie &  7).
primordial totality (B 98; 97/95). For Deleuze,
30 Artaud, Oeuvres complŁtes iii, 76, in C2
then, every apparent  dualism is therefore only a
227/170 72.
moment, which must lead to the re-formation of a
monism (B 20/29; emphasis added); again,  we 31 FC 130/122; cf. 90/86. S�an Hand s translation
employ a dualism of models only in order to arrive of Foucault should be avoided if possible: he
at a process that challenges all models [ & ], the renders singularit� as  particular feature, devenir
magic formula we all seek  PLURALISM = as  emergence, d�ploiement as  unveiling, and so
MONISM (MP 31/20 21). on.
20 Leibniz s monads express the entire world, but 32 The statement is conditioned only by the
have  no windows, and no relations with each purely given  il y a du langage, the  spontaneity of
language (FC 67/61), i.e., the very  being of
other (Leibniz, Monadology ż7). Since  the world
language or language-being (FC 63/55 56), much
does not exist outside of the monads that express
it, the latter are not in contact and have no hori- as Heidegger understands it.
zontal relations among them, no intraworldly
33 FC 74/67. Gilbert Simondon provides another
connections, but only an indirect harmonic
significant illustration of the point. His L Individu et
contact to the extent they share the same expres-
sa genŁse physico-biologique (1964) plays an impor-
sion (Deleuze, LB 110/81).
tant role in Diff�rence et r�p�tition and suggests to
Deleuze the central term of his Cinema 2,  the
21  L actuel et le virtuel, DS 185.
crystal image. It is worth quoting Bogue s useful
22 Life,  by actualising itself, by differentiation
summary:
itself, loses  contact with the rest of itself (B
Crystallisation begins when a  seed crystal is
108/104; cf. SE 195 96/214 15).
introduced into a substance which is in an
23 See for instance FC 29/21, 56/49, 120/112 13;
amorphous, metastable state, a state charac-
C1 258/189.
terised by Simondon as an internal resonance
of singularities. The seed crystal communi-
24 See  How to Make Yourself a Body Without
cates its shape to a molecule of the
Organs, MP, plateau 6.
substance, which then communicates the
25 MP 343 44/280; cf. AO 334/281. Again,  the
shape to another, and so on. (In some
experimental cinema tends toward a perception
substances, several different kinds of crystals
as it was before men (or after) [ & ], towards an
may be formed, the seed crystal determining
any-space-whatever released from its human co-
which one will be actualised). The process of
ordinates (C1 171/122).
individuation occurs between each crystal
and the contiguous amorphous substance,
26 MP 91/71ff.  The characteristic [le propre] of
always at the surface of crystal, the individu-
virtuality is to exist in such a way that it is actu-
ally formed crystals being the products of
alised by being differentiated (B 100/97).
individuation and marking the cessation of
27 DR 361/282.  The Aion is the ideal player or
the process of individuation. Individuation,
the game [le joueur id�al ou le jeu], the game itself,
therefore, precedes the individual. (Bogue,
or  as the word jeu implies  pure gambling (LS
Deleuze and Guattari 62)
81/64tm): it is this indistinction that is characteris-
But it is only the individual properties of the given
tically singular.
seed crystal, along with the determinate chemical
28 QP 80/83.  Remarkable points peculiar to any properties of the solution, which first sets the
given  level or degree of the virtual Unity or possible range of derived individuals.  The crystal
 Simplicity are simply posited as so many  points as a whole is only the ordered set of its seeds (C2
brillants (B 103/100), i.e., as self-illuminating. 118/89), yet Deleuze never explains what deter-
mines them.
29  The event considered as non-actualised (as
indefinite) lacks nothing [ & ] A wound incarnates 34 See for instance QP 40/38; CC 186; MP
itself or actualises itself in a state of things or a 480/386.
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the limits of individuation
35 Foucault,  Cours de 14 janvier, 1976, DE iii, 41 Foucault,  On the Archaeology of the
127. As specific, however, the subject is never Sciences, EW ii 331.
specified by an interest. The status of (Foucault s)
42  On the Genealogy of Ethics, FR 362. As Paul
specific subject is ultimately closer to (the later)
Veyne puts it very succinctly,  the originality of
Sartre s situated subject of freedom than it is to
Foucault amongst the great thinkers of this
L�vi-Strauss subject of symbolic exchange, the
century has been that he does not convert our
L�vinasian subject of responsibility, let alone the late
finitude into the foundation for new certainties
Lacanian subject of drive.
(Veyne,  Le dernier Foucault et sa morale 937).
36 Jon Simons balanced study poses a similar
43 Foucault,  Subject and Power, in Dreyfus and
question: does Foucault  write to become some-
Rabinow, Foucault 216. A similar despecification is
thing other than who one is or  to totally
at work, I think, in each of those moments of epis-
dissolve oneself ? Unsurprisingly, Simons disap-
temic shift whose allegedly inexplicable character in
proves of Foucault to the degree that he seems
Les mots et les choses has been so often empha-
tempted by this second option, the lure of an
sised. The part played by Cervantes and Sade, and
 unconstrained transgression or an  unbearably
then by Nietzsche, Roussel and Artaud, refers
light conception of being, drawn by the  urge to
back in each case to the same essential role.
transcend subjectivity altogether (Simons,
Thought wakes up, shakes itself and sets out to
Foucault and the Political 96, 101). My own defence
follow a newly plausible line of enquiry which then
of a specific rather than a singular answer to this
becomes dominant in its turn, and will remain so
question is designed to refute those who, like
until it too is frozen into specified convention and
James Miller (The Passion of Michel Foucault), would
stasis. Genuine criticism can only live in the
classify Foucault along such singularly self-destruc-
austere atmosphere of such moments of radical
tive and quasi-mystical lines.
despecification. As David Carroll puts it,
37 See in particular Foucault, P/K 126 33. Foucault s  critical discourse is located not at the
place(s) where a discourse most fully realises itself
38 Foucault,  Space, Knowledge and Power, FR
and closes itself off to other discourses, but rather
247. Only a relational critique will be adequate to
in the gaps within every discourse where it is not
the actual practices of modern government and
itself but separated from itself, where it is threat-
power, whose primary concern is  men in their
ened with its own disappearance (Carroll,
relations, their links, their imbrication with those
Paraesthetics 69).
other things which are wealth, resources, means
of subsistence, the territory with its specific quali- 44 Critics from Habermas and Dews to Taylor
ties [ & ], customs, habits, ways of doing and and Said have all concurred in a similar condemna-
thinking, etc. ( La  gouvernementalit�  [1978], tion of Foucault s alleged critical impotence and
DE iii 643 44). More generally, relation grounds political sterility. This has become a remarkably
what was to become the great methodological common move, and is far from being confined to
rule of The Archaeology of Knowledge:  paradoxi- the merely reactionary ranks of indignant liberal
cally, to define the individuality of a set of state- humanists. It is not unusual to find casual confir-
ments does not consist of individualising its object, mation, today, in a wide range of  theoretically
fixing its identity, or describing the characteristics informed disciplines, of the commonplace idea
that it permanently retains; on the contrary, it is to that  Foucault pushed to an extreme the idea
describe the dispersion of these objects, to grasp of human beings being determined by the condi-
all the interstices that separate them, to measure tions of their existence (Loomba, Colonialism/
the distances reigning between them  in other Postcolonialism [1998] 34; cf. Norris, The Truth
words, to formulate their law of distribution About Postmodernism 33; Norris, Reclaiming Truth
( On the Archaeology of the Sciences [1968], 9 10; Rose, Dialectic of Nihilism 207; Haber, Beyond
EW ii 313). Postmodern Politics 77 78).
Lois McNay s recent critique is typical of the
39 Foucault,  Theatrum Philosophicum, EW ii
prevailing trend:  Foucault s attack on the subject
360.
is so total that it forecloses any alternative theo-
40 Foucault,  The Concern for Truth, PPC 265; retical space in which to conceive non-hegemonic
cf.  What is Enlightenment?, FR 49;  On the forms of subjectivity [ & ]. There remains no cate-
Genealogy of Ethics, FR 343. gory around which a notion of active agency may
1 0 6
hallward
be formulated (McNay, Foucault 6 7). Because Preface to Transgression, EW ii 76). And when,
she assumes, like so many critics, that for Foucault some fifteen years later, Foucault came to write
the subject is merely the effect of power, McNay the entry on his own work for the new Dictionnaire
condemns his theory for its apparent inability  to des philosophes [under the pseudonym of Maurice
explain how, despite the normalising forces that Florence], he begins:  to the extent that Foucault
overdetermine the process of subjectification, fits into the philosophical tradition, it is the critical
individuals are never subsumed entirely by these tradition of Kant, and his project could be called
forces (165). But the point is precisely that a Critical History of Thought ( Foucault, EW
Foucault has never suggested that the  despeci- ii 459; cf. Rajchman, Foucault 103 04). Unlike
fied  subject, the subject of thought, was merely Kant, of course, Foucault s critique is directed
the effect of power; such derivative status applies not toward the consolidation of what can be
exclusively to the objectified or specified subject. known and what should be done, so much as
To confuse the two is to make Foucault s whole oriented in the direction of an always renewable,
project virtually unintelligible. always  possible transgression ( What is
Enlightenment?, FR 45). Beatrice Han s recent
45 Foucault,  Practising Criticism, PPC 156.
book explores the properly philosophical compar-
ison of Foucault and Kant in suggestive detail (Han,
46 Foucault,  How Much Does it Cost for Reason
L Ontologie manqu�e de Michel Foucault 1998).
to Tell the Truth? [1983], FL 359. Such despecifi-
cation should not be confused with anarchism
49 Foucault,  Foucault [c.1982], EW ii 462.
pure and simple. The question is  not whether a
culture without restraints is possible or even
50 Foucault,  Foucault, EW ii 461.
desirable but whether the system of constraints in
51 Foucault,  D�bat sur la po�sie [1964], DE i
which a society functions leaves individuals the
398. As a rule, we can never have  any complete
liberty to transform the system ( Sexual Choice,
and definitive knowledge of what may constitute
Sexual Act, PPC 294).
our historical limits & We are always in the posi-
47 Foucault,  Polemics, Politics and
tion of beginning again ( What is
Problematisations, in FR 388; cf. Bernauer,
Enlightenment?, FR 47).
Foucault s Force of Flight 20; Schwarz,  Critical
52 Foucault,  The Subject and Power 222,
Reproblematisation 19. Like his friend Boulez,
emphasis added.
what Foucault  expected from thought was
precisely that it always enable him to do some-
53 P/K 208, emphasis added. Elsewhere he
thing different from what he was doing. He
presumes, for instance, that  there is probably not
demanded that it open up, in the highly regulated,
a single culture in the world that does not estab-
very deliberate game that he played, a new space
lish heterotopias: that is a constant of every
of freedom [& ]. For him the main thing was to
human group (Foucault,  Different Spaces
conceive of practice strictly in terms of its internal
[1967], EW ii 179). Paul Patton is one critic who
necessities without submitting to any of them as if
recognises the consistency of a certain minimal or
they were sovereign requirements. The role of
 thin notion of the subject, if only a  body
thought is here  to supply the strength for break-
endowed with capacities, throughout Foucault s
ing the rules with the act that brings them into
work (Patton,  Foucault s Subject of Power in
play (Foucault,  Pierre Boulez, Passing Through
Moss, ed., The Later Foucault).
the Screen [1982], EW ii 244). Nothing bears out
the fruitfulness of this theory better, of course, 54 Cf. Deleuze, ES 122 23/108 09; DR
than the restlessly inventive and relentlessly self- 3 4/xx xxi.
critical evolution of Foucault s own intellectual
55 Foucault,  On the Archaeology of the
practice.
Sciences [1968], EW ii 332 33.
48 The question of Foucault s qualified proximity
56 Foucault,  What is Enlightenment?, FR 50.
to Kant is too complex to be addressed here.
Suffice it to say that even his hostility to the  slum-
57 Foucault,  Dream, Imagination and Existence
bering Kant of The Order of Things (OT 341 42)
53.
can be framed in terms of an effort to complete
rather than reverse Kant s critical project ( A 58 Foucault,  Thought of the Outside, EW ii 152.
1 0 7
the limits of individuation
59  It is at the centre of the philosophical subject s 68  Space, Knowledge and Power, FR 246; cf.
disappearance that philosophical language  Truth, Power, Self in Technologies of the Self 10,
proceeds as if through a labyrinth, not to recap- 14.  I ve always been a little distrustful of the
ture him, but to test (and through language itself) general theme of liberation, to the extent that [ &
the extremity of its loss. That is, it proceeds to the ] there is a danger that it will refer back to the idea
limit and to this opening where its being surges that there does exist a nature or human founda-
forth, but where it is already lost, completely tion which, as a result of a certain number of
overflowing itself, emptied of itself to the point historical, social or economic processes, found
where it becomes an absolute void (Foucault,  A itself concealed, alienated or imprisoned in and by
Preface to Transgression, EW ii 80; cf.  The some mechanisms of repression. For instance,
Father s  No,  EW ii 12). The Foucault who  when a colonial people tries to free itself of its
affirms a practice of writing that opens  a space coloniser, that is indeed an act of liberation, in the
into which the writing subject constantly disap- strict sense of the word. But we know very well,
pears is determined to avoid those alternative regarding this precise example, that this act of
notions  most importantly, the very notion of liberation is not sufficient to define the practices of
writing itself  which effectively  suppress the real liberty that later on will be necessary for this
meaning of [the author s] disappearance by trans- people, this society and these individuals to decide
posing his  empirical characteristics into a tran- upon admissible and acceptable forms of their
scendental anonymity ( What is an Author?, existence or political society. That is why I insist
EW ii 206, 208). Arguably, this is precisely the on the practices of freedom ( The Ethic of
consequence of Deleuze s neo-Spinozism  freed, Concern for the Self, EW i 282 83).
of course, from any merely writerly thematics.
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