Martin Hägglund “Radical Atheism. Derrida and the Time of Life”

Hägglund, Martin 2008. Radical Atheism. Derrida and the Time of Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Introduction
The notion of survival that I develop is incompatible with immortality, since it defines life as essentially mortal and as inherently divided by time. To survive is never to be absolutely present; it is to remain after a past that is no longer and to keep the memory of this past for a future that is not yet. I argue that every moment of life is a matter of survival, since it depends on what Derrida calls the structure of the trace. The structure of the trace follows fom the constitution of time, which makes it impossible for anything to be present in itself. Every now passes away as soon as it comes to be and must therefore be inscribed as a trace in order to be at all. (1)

The trace can only live on, however, by being left for a future that may erase it. This radical finitude of survival is not a lack of being that is desirable to. Rather, the finitude of survival opens the chance for everything that is desired and the threat of everything that is feared. (1-2)

The desire for survival cannot aim at transcending time, since the given time is the only chance for survival. There is thus an internal contradiction in the so-called desire for immortality. […] the state of immortality would annihilate every form of survival, since it would annihilate the time of mortal life. (2)

[…] différance articulates the negative infinity of time. No moment is given in itself but is superseded by another moment in its very event and can never be consummated in a positive infinity. The negative infinity of time is an infinite finitude, since it entail that finitude cannot ever be eliminated or overcome. (3)

His [Derrida’s] notion of autoimmunity spells out that everyting is threatened from within itself, since the possibility of living is inseparable from the peril of dying. (9)

I argue that the reason why autoimmunity is inscribed at the heart of life is because there cannot be anything without the tracing of time. The tracing of time is the minimal protection of life, but it also attacks life from the first inception, since it breaches the integrity of any moment and makes everything susceptible to annihilation. (9)

I – Autoimmunity of Time: Derrida and Kant
In Derrida’s analysis the autoimmunity of democracy is not a deplorable fact that we could or should seek to overcome. Rather, Derrida emphasizes that there can be no democratic ideal that is exempt from autoimmunity, since the very concept of democracy is autoimmune. In order to be democratic, democracy must be open to critique and to the outcome of unpredictable elections. But for some reason, democracy is essentially open to what may alter or destroy it. […] It must both protect itself against its own threat and be threatened by its own protection. (14)

The coimplication of life and death spells out an autoimmunity at the heart of life as such. Even if all external threats are evaded, life still bears the cause of its own destruction within itself. The vulnerability of life is thus without limit, since the source of attack is also located within what is to be defended. (14)

If we follow the philosophical logic of identity, autoimmunity is inconceivable. What is indivisibly identical to itself has no need to immunize itself against itself. It may be threatened by what is other than itself, but it cannot turn against itself. (14)

Given that the now can appear only in disappearing […] it must be inscribed as a trace in order to be at all. This is the becoming-space of time. The trace is necessarily spatial, since spatiality is characterized by the ability to remain in spite of temporal succession. Spatiality is thus the condition for synthesis, since it enables the tracing of relations between past and future. Spatiality, however, can never be in itself; it can never be pure simultaneity. Simultaneity is unthinkable without a temporalization that relates one spatial juncture to another. This becoming-time of space is necessary not only for the trace to be related to other traces, but also for it to be a trace in the first place. (18)

If the spatialization of time makes the synthesis possible, the temporalization of space makes it impossible for the synthesis to be grounded in an indivisible presence. The synthesis is always a trace of the past that is left for the future. Thus, it can never be in itself but is essentially exposed to that which may erase it. (18)

For Derrida, the spacing of time is an “ultratranscendental” condition from which nothing can be exempt. (19)

To think the trace as an ultratranscendental condition is thus to think a constitutive finitude that is absolutely without exception. From within its very constitution life is threatened by death, memory is threatened by forgetting, identity is threatened by alterity, and so on. (19)

For Kant, the unconditional is the Idea of a sovereign instance that is not subjected to time and space (e.g., God). For Derrida, on the contrary, the unconditional is the spacing of time that undermines the very Idea of a sovereign instance. (19)

Sovereignty is by definition unconditional in the sense that it is not dependent on anything other than itself. In contrast, Derrida argues that the unconditional is the spacing of time that divides every instance in advance and makes it essentially dependent on what is other than itself. What makes X possible is at the same time what makes it impossible for X to be in itself. Such is the minimal formula for the illogical logic of identity that deconstructive reason employs. (25)

For Derrida, time and space are not transcendental forms of human intuition, which would be given in the same way regardless of their empirical conditions. Rather, the ultratranscendental status of spacing deconstructs the traditional divide between the transcendental and the empirical. If time must be spatially inscribed, then the experience of time essentially dependent on which material supports and technologies are available to inscribe time. That is why Derrida maintains that inscriptions do not befall an already constituted space but produce the spatiality of space. (27)

If the essence of X is to be identical to itself, then the consummation of X must be thinkable as an Idea even though it is inaccessible for our temporal cognition. Finitude is thus a negative limitation that prevents us from having access to the fullness of being. But given the deconstructive logic of identity, a completely different argument emerges. If the essence of X is to not be identical to itself, then the consummation of X cannot even be posited as an Idea since it would cancel out X. finitude is thus not a negative limitation that prevents us from having access to the fullness of being. On the contrary, finitude is an unconditional condition that makes the fullness of being unthinkable as such. (30)

The relation between the conditional and the unconditional in Derrida’s thinking can thus be described as an autoimmune relation. Inscribed within the condition for X is the unconditional coming of time that attacks the integrity of X a priori. Accordingly, Derrida maintains that there can be nothing without autoimmunity. (30)

Derrida first asserts that for something to happen, there must be both a chance and a threat. He then asserts that this double bind cannot even in principle be eliminated, since if nothing happened there would be nothing at all. What I want to stress is that this argument presupposes that being is essentially temporal (to be = to happen) and that it is inherently valuable that something happens (the worst = that nothing happens). In other words, it presupposes that temporal finitude is the condition for everything that is desirable. (32)

The finitude of survival is not a lack of being that it is desirable to overcome. Rather, Derrida makes clear that whatever is desired is finite in its essence. Even the most intense enjoyment is haunted by the imminence of death, but without such finitude there would be nothing to enjoy in the first place. […] There is no way out of this double bind because the threat of loss is not extrinsic to what is desired; it is intrinsic to its being as such. (34)

There is no opposition between undecidability and the making of decisions. On the contrary, it is because the future cannot be decided in advance that one has to make decisions. If the future could be predicted, there would be nothing to decide on and no reason to act in the first place. (40)

Derrida describes the undecidable future as the very possibility of justice or quite simply as a “justice” beyond law. The point is that decisions concerning justice cannot be reduced to a rule for how the law should be applied. Rather, the demand for justice is always raised in relation to singular events, which there is no guarantee that the law will have anticipated. The condition of justice is thus an essential contingency. (40)

The exigency of “justice” is not something positive in itself but designates that every decision is haunted by the undecidable coming of time, which opens the risk that one has made or will have made unjust decisions. Without such risk, there would be no question of justice in the first place, since the execution of law would be nothing but a faultless application of rules. (41)

Absolute destructibility entails that deferral, detour, and delay is internal to life as such, since the final destination is nothing but death. From the first inception, life has to protect itself against the force of destruction that it bears within itself and without which it could not be. Life can thus only be given through the movement of survival, which takes the time to live by postponing death. (47-48)

On the one hand, life is opposed to death because to live is to be mortal, to resist and defer death. On the other hand, life is internally bound to what it opposes because mortality is inextricably linked to death. The defense of life is thus attacked from within. There can be no cure for such autoimmunity since life is essentially mortal. From the definition of life as essentially mortal, it follows that immortality is death. To live is to be mortal, which means that the opposite of being mortal – to be immortal – is to be dead. If one can no longer die, one is already dead. (48)

IV – Autoimmunity of Life: Derrida’s Radical Atheism
[…] Derrida maintains that we love the mortal as mortal and that there can be nothing beyond mortality. For Augustine, to love the mortal as mortal is deplorable and misguided. If one is bound to the mortal, the positive can never be released from the negative. Any mortal bond is a double bind, since whatever is desirable cannot be dissociated from the undesirable fact that it will be lost. (109-110)

The other is infinitely other – its alterity cannot be overcome or recuperated by anyone else – because the other is finite. (110)

It is because the beloved can be lost that one seeks to keep it, and it is because the experience can be forgotten that one seeks to remember it. As Derrida strikingly puts it, one cannot love without the experience of finitude. (111)

[…] Derrida relies on the desire for mortal life to read even the most religious ideas against themselves. Messianic hope is for Derrida a hope for temporal survival, faith is always faith in the finite, and the desire for God is a desire for the mortal, like every other desire. (120)

There is thus no exception to the law of survival, which is inscribed in the movement of life as such. To live is necessarily to affirm the time of survival, since it gives the possibility to live on in the first place. But to live is also to fear the time of survival, since it entails that one may always become dead or be left to mourn the death of the beloved. (122)

When Derrida argues that the coming of time is the undeconstructible condition of justice, he thus emphasizes that it is a “de-totalizing condition,” which inscribes the possibility of corruption, evil, and mischief at the heart of justice itself. If this impossibility of absolute justice were to be overcome, all justice would be eliminated. (123)

Every recognition is thus haunted by a possible misrecognition, every identification by a misidentification, and every decision by an undecidable future that may call it into question. (125)

The threat of evil does not testify to a lack of the good; it is internal to whatever good that we desire. (126)

Insofar as salvation is understood as the absolute immunity of immortality, it is out of the question. There can be no such salvation, since nothing can happen without the greeting of an other that can come to compromise any immunity. However, insofar as salvation is understood as a survival that saves one from death by giving one more time to live, it is not out of the question. It is rather a precarious possibility that always can “be refused, threatened, forbidden, lost, gone” because of the infinite finitude of time (“the endlessness of the end that is never-ending”). (131)

The crucial question […] is why Derrida chooses to retain the term messianic to designate the opening to the undecidable future. Derrida’s use of the term may seem counterintuitive and easily invites religious appropriations. My argument, however, is that Derrida’s notion of the messianic without messianism follows the radically atheist logic that we traced in his notion of the salut without salvation. A radical atheism cannot simply denounce messianic hope as an illusion. Rather, it must show that messianic hope does not stem from a hope for immortality (the positive infinity of eternity) but from a hope of survival (the negative infinity of time). (136)

V – Autoimmunity of Democracy: Derrida and Laclau
[…] the finitude of survival opens the possibility of everything we desire and the peril of everything we fear. The affirmation of survival is thus not a value in itself; it is rather the unconditional condition for all values. Whatever one may posit as a value, one has to affirm the time of survival, since without the time of survival the value could never live on and be posited as a value in the first place. (164)

Democracy to come does not designate a utopian hope for a democracy that will come one day and bring about a just society. […] Rather, all aspects of democracy require political negotiations that cannot be grounded in deconstruction or anything else. […] On the contrary, he argues that solutions and norms cannot be justified once and for all, since they are instituted in relation to the undecidable coming of time that precedes and exceeds them. Far from absolving us from politics, it is the undecidable coming of time that makes politics necessary in the first place, since it precipitates the negotiation of unpredictable events. (171)

If Derrida privileges the concept of democracy, it is not because he thinks it can guarantee a good or just society but because the concept of democracy more evidently than other concepts takes into account the undecidable future. (171)

The concept of democratic freedom is thus autoimmune, since the equality that protects it also attacks it from within and compromises its integrity. Inversely, the same autoimmunity is at work in the concept of democratic equality. If everyone is equally free, it follows that freedom is intrinsic to equality and threatens it from within. The calculation of equality is always the calculation of an incalculable freedom that opens the possibility of inequality. (174)

[…] it is misleading to say that democracy is “always deferred” insofar as this implies that there is a democracy (or an Idea of democracy) that remains out of reach. The point is not that democracy is deferred but that democracy is deferral and cannot overcome the movement of deferral without ceasing to be democracy. (175-176)

Even the most despotic monarch or totalitarian dictator is engaged in a “democratic” relation, since he must negotiate with past and future selves that may overturn his rule. (177)

[…] Derrida argues that what Schmitt denounces as depoliticization – namely, the absence of an autonomous domain for the political – answers to a “hyperpoliticization” that marks the political from its beginning. In other words, there has never been an autonomous domain for the political. The impossibility of a definitive delimitation of the political is both the reason why there is politics in the first place and why politics has no end. (181)

[…] what Derrida calls “the condition of the event” is radically descriptive, since it designates the condition for anything to happen and for everything that happens. Even the most active and sovereign decision is passive, for the same reason that even the most immediate autoaffection is inhabited by a heteroaffection. (184)

For a hyperpolitical thinking, nothing (no set of values, no principle, no demand or political struggle) can be posited as good in itself. Rather, everything is liable to corruption and to appropriation for other ends, which also means that no instance can have an a priori immunity against interrogation and critique. (184)

More forcefully than any other political concept, democracy brings out the autoimmunity that is the condition for life in general. In the name of democratic freedom one can assault the given delimitation of democratic freedom, and in the name of democratic equality one can assault the given delimitation of democratic equality. […] What distinguishes the concept of democracy […] is that it explicitly takes into account that the violence of exclusion does not have an ultimate justification. (195-196)

Thus, the concept of democracy testifies to an “absolute and intrinsic historicity” where nothing is immune from its own destructibility. (196)

The constitutive drive for survival is quite incompatible with the constitutive drive for fullness that Laclau assumes as the foundation for his theory. Laclau wants to recognize that “freedom and consciousness of our own contingency go together.” However, if we really desire an absolute fullness, the freedom of contingency can only be disappointing. (197)

Elizabeth Balskus “Examining Potentiality in the Philosophy of Giorgio Agamben”

Balskus, Elizabeth 2010. Examining Potentiality in the Philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. Macalester Journal of Philosophy, 19(1): 158-180.

Both Aristotle and Agamben maintain that anything potential is capable of not existing in actuality, and that “what is potential can both be and not be, for the same is potential both to be and not to be”. (160)
Aristotle states that nous, or the intellect, “has no other nature than that of being potential, and before thinking it is absolutely nothing”. This statement leads Agamben to establish the intellect as the perfect example of pure potentiality, a potentiality “which in itself is nothing, [but] allows for the act of intelligence to take place”. (162)
When viewed as the ability to know or reflect, pure potentiality of the intellect becomes extremely important. This potentiality can exist apart from the actualization of any thought of a particular object because it is, in fact, this potentiality itself that allows for an object to even be thought. Therefore, the potentiality of the intellectnot only allows for thought to maintain a supreme position ontologically, it is also the foundation of thought in general. (163)
“Inoperativeness… represents something not exhausted but inexhaustible—because it does not pass from the possible to the actual”. The reason that Bartleby is so disturbing to his employer (who is the narrator of the short story) is that, in removing himself from the constraints of reason and, indeed, the constraints of society as a whole, he is the paradigm of the inoperative, of “the other side of potentiality: the possibility that a thing might not come to pass”. And because Bartleby never offers a reason for his refusal to work and never actually denies the requests made of him, the authorities at hand are completely bewildered as to how to deal with the scrivener. (167 – quotes „Agamben: Critical Introduction”)
Through his phrase “I would prefer not to,” Bartleby challenges the principle of sufficient reason. If the laws of reason do not apply, then there is no legitimate justification for why this world exists and the infinite number of potential worlds were never actualized. This is why Agamben refers to Bartleby as a messiah who has arrived to “save what was not”. Because the laws of reason do not apply to him, Bartleby asserts the right of those possibilities that have never and will never exist to be actualized. (172)
In decreation, contingency is returned to all events, causing us to rememberthat, along with the few potentialities that are actualized, there are an infinite number of potentialities that will never be and, yet, will continue to shape and influence our lives. (174)
The sacred realm of capitalism is, according to Agamben, consumption, and capitalism in its most pure, extreme form is concerned with making experience unusable or unprofanable by separating our actions from ourselves and presenting them back to us as a spectacle, to be observed and not used. A good example of this attempt to alienate ourselves from ourselves is pornography: the human form is appropriated, filmed, and then presented to us as something that can be watched but never experienced. Agamben calls this phenomenon “museification.” “Everything today can become a Museum, because this term simply designates the exhibition of an impossibility of using, of dwelling, of experiencing”. (175)

Richard Rorty “Sattumislikkus, iroonia ja solidaarsus”

Rorty, Richard 1999. Sattumuslikkus, iroonia ja solidaarsus. Tallinn: Vagabund.

[…] pole võimalik astuda välja kõigist käibivatest sõnavaradest ja leida mingi metasõnavara, milles kuidagi kirjeldada kõiki võimalikke sõnavarasid, kõiki võimalikke otsustus- ja tundeviise. (18)

I.I Keele sattumuslikkus

[…] Kant ja Hegel hülgasid idee, et tõde on „väljaspool”, üksnes poolenisti. […] Kuid nad jäid selle juurde, et vaimul, hingel või inimteadvuse sügavustel on sisemine loomus, mida võib tunnetada mitteempiiriline üliteadus nimega filosoofia. See tähendas, et ainult pool tõde – alumine, teaduslik pool – on tehislik. Kõrgem tõde, tõde vaimu kohta, mis on filosoofia pärusmaa, jäi aga ikka veel avastamise, mitte loomise tandriks. (25)

Meil tuleb eraldada väide, et maailm on olemas meist väljaspool, väitest, et tõde on olemas meist väljaspool. (25)

Ei saa olemas olla väljaspoolset tõde, mis eksisteeriks inimvaimust sõltumatult, sest laused ei saa niimoodi eksisteerida, olla olemas väljaspool meid. Tõesed ja väärad saavad olla üksnes maailmakirjeldused. Maailm omaette – ilma inimese kirjeldustegevuseta – seda olla ei saa. (26)

Romantikute veendumus, et tähtsaim inimvõime pole mõistus, vaid kujutlus, tähendab, et kultuurimuutuse põhihoob on anne kõneleda teistmoodi, mitte anne hästi argumenteerida. (29)

Idealistlike tunnetusteooriaid ja romantilisi arusaamu kujutlusest saab paraku „teadvuse” žargoonist hõlpsasti „keele” žargooni üle kanda. (34)

[…] „poeet”, mis minu avara sõnavara järgi tähendab seda, „kes teeb asjad uueks” (37)

Öelda, et kahel kogukonnal on läbisaamisraskusi, sest sõnu, mida nad kasutavad, on raske vastastikku tõlkida, tähendab lihtsalt öelda, et ühe kogukonna liikmete keelelist nagu kogu muudki käitumist on teise kogukonna liikmetel raske ennustada. (40)

Meie keel ja kultuur on sattumused, tuhandete pisikeste oma niši leidnud (ja miljonite elunišši mitte leidnud) mutatsioonide tulemus täpselt samamoodi kui orhideed ja antropoidid. (42)

Tuua kuuldavale lause, mil pole kindlakskujunenud kohta keelemängus, tähendab, nagu positivistid õigesti märkisid, lausuda midagi, mis pole tõene ega väär – midagi, mis pole (Ian Hackingi väidet kasutades) „tõeväärtuse kandidaat”. Sest tegu on lausega, mida ei saa kinnitada ega ümber lükata, mille poolt ega vastu ei saa tuua argumente. Selle võib üksnes alla neelata või välja sülitada. (45)

[…] meil ei ole keele-eelset teadvust, mille üksikasjalikum sõnastamine oleks filosoofide kohus. See, mida pakutakse niisuguse teadvuse pähe, on lihtsalt meie kalduvus kasutada oma esiisade keelt, kummardada nende metafooride surnukehi. (50)