The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2009) Vol.

Z V I I

On Post-Heideggerean Difference:
Derrida and Deleuze
Daniel Colucciello Barber
LaGuardia College ( C U . )
Abstract
This paper takes up the Heideggerean question of difference. I argue
t h a t while Heidegger raises this question, his response to the question
remains ambiguous and that this ambiguity pivots around the question
of time. The bulk of the paper then looks a t how Derrida and Deleuze
respectively attempt to advance beyond Heideggers ambiguity regarding
the questions of difference and time. Derrida is able to demonstrate the
manner i n which time-as delay-is constitutive of a n y a t t e m p t to
think difference. I argue, however, t h a t his innovative articulation of
differance maintains a n extrinsic r a t h e r t h a n intrinsic relation to
difference in-itself. To achieve a n intrinsic relation, it is necessary to
turn to the work of Deleuze, particularly to his discussion of nonsensen
and singularity.

1. The Ambiguity of

Heideggerean Difference
It may be asserted, without controversy, that the philosophical
endeavor of Martin Heidegger is extremely important for
contemporary thought. Equally uncontroversial, however, is the
assertion that Heideggers thought, in spite of the possibilities
i t has generated, is inextricable from certain limits. Here we
face the banal mode of reception that intends to encapsulate a
philosophical effort by pronouncing i t to be simultaneously
promising and limited, both a n opening and a dead end. We

Daniel Colucciello Barber received his PhD from Duke University

w i t h a dissertation entitled, The Production of Immanence: Deleuze,
Yoder, a n d Adorno (2008). He h a s recently p u b l i s h e d articles o n
political ontology and philosophy o f religion in Political Theology and
Modern Theology. His current work focuses on the relation between
philosophies of immanence, biopolitics, and secularism. He teaches in
the philosophy department a t LaGuardia College (CUNY).

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might observe, for instance, how Heideggers novel insistence

t h a t the question of being is fundamentally inseparable from
the question of difference has now become common sense, but
also how this common sense is marked by ambiguity. Indeed,
despite the apparently widespread acceptance of a link between
being and difference, t h e precise n a t u r e of t h i s link still
remains in question.
This essay, which attempts t o step outside of a paradoxically
epochal and confused Heideggerean inheritance, rests on two
propositions. First, it proposes that, in order to make an advance
beyond Heideggers formulations, the question of the beingdifference relation must itself be brought into relation with the
question of time. In other words, while Heidegger rightly makes
the relation of being and difference that which matters most for
thought, we must still make time that which matters most for
being and difference. Second, this essay proposes that the philosophical efforts of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze may be
understood as attempts t o draw upon and exceed Heideggers
own work. These two attempts, despite being divergent and
even mutually exclusive, proceed by attending to the question of
time. The ultimate aim of this essay, then, is t o investigate and
evaluate the respective manners in which Derrida and Deleuze
elaborate the nexus of being, difference, and time. In order to
fulfill this aim, however, it is first necessary t o articulate the
ambiguity of such a nexus within Heideggers own thought. This
articulation can be achieved in brief by attending to the problematic of Heideggers Identity and Difference and, in particular,
to the role of the unthought.
The unthought is of paramount importance for Heidegger
because it names an open relation between thought and being.
It is that which is exterior to thought, insofar as it has not been
thought, yet it is also that which is intrinsic t o being. Thus the
possibility of a novel configuration between thought and being
will s t a n d or fall on thoughts endeavor to understand and
encounter the unthought. This endeavor can be understood as a
dynamic of reduction and donation: reduction names the need to
bracket the given thought-being relation, in order t o discover
what is unthought in this relation; donation names the soughtafter, novel thought-being relation, the emergence of which
depends on an encounter with the unthought. The unthought
thus has a negative and a positive significance: negatively, it
stands as what thought has failed to think; positively, it may
furnish, when encountered by way of reduction, the donation of
a new relation between thought and being.
For Heidegger, the particular determination of the unthought
is ontological difference. Its negative and positive aspects are
delineated rather tersely in one of his declarations: We speak
of the difference between being and beings. The step back goes
from what is unthought, from the difference as such, into what
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gives us thought [Das zu-Denkendel .z Ontological difference is

the unthought difference of being and beings, and ontotheology
is the blockage that must be reduced. Ontotheology names the
tendency of thought that joins ontology (as science of being) and
theology (as science of God, the ground of being) through a
certain complicity between the grounded (ontos) and the ground
( t h e o s ) . One cannot think the difference between being and
beings directly, for both being and beings are thinkable only by
way of their inherence in God, the being t h a t grounds being.
Heidegger draws the evident conclusion that, in order for thought
t o encounter directly the difference of being and beings, the
ontotheological, identitarian account of being must be reduced.
Thought, by thus moving into the between of ontological
difference, can move into what Heidegger calls the Same; the
Sameness of thought and being can be appropriated only by way
of difference. Heidegger appeals to an idiosyncratic interpretation of Parmenides: for the same perceiving (thinking) a s
well as being.3 Whereas the doctrine of metaphysics (in the
improper, ontotheological sense) states that identity belongs to
Being, Heidegger develops a more fundamental condition
where thinking and Being belong together in the Same and by
virtue of this Same.4The Same distinguishes itself from the
identical insofar as the Same is a belonging together where
belonging determines together. The benefit of this distinction is
the possibility of no longer representing belonging in the unity
of the together, but rather of experiencing this together in terms
of b e l ~ n g i n g . The
~ Same, in other words, frees the sense-and
experience-of thought and beings belonging together from the
presuppositions of identity. At stake is a reduction of identity in
virtue of unthought difference, and consequently a new articulation of the relation of thought and being (a relation vaguely
invoked by the belonging together of the Same). Reduction
thus puts identity out of play in order to advance toward a n
event of appropriation-an event in which thought encounters
ontological difference and appropriates t h e concomitant
possibility of thought and beings belonging together.6 Thus the
Heideggerean reduction opens ua more originary way-a way
prior to the identity that is reduced-and moves out of [improper, ontotheological] metaphysics into the essential nature of
metaphysics, a n essence encountered through unthought
difference.I
Two critical questions arise in the wake of Heideggers
analysis, and the points they present are those around which
any Heideggerean inheritance pivots. First, there is the matter
of constitution. The fact that, with the Same, belonging determines togetherness-rather t h a n vice versa-undoubtedly
suffices, at least in an initial manner, to separate thinking from
identity and representation. There are, however, places where
the nature of this separation remains vague. We experience,

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rather than represent, sameness-yet what is it that takes place

in experience? It involves a belonging together where belonging
is the experience of thinking. But one must ask whether the
Same is already there and then enters into the experience of
thinking, o r whether there is some sense in which the experience of thinking genuinely constitutes the Same? We have
Heideggers ambiguous claim that the event of appropriation
moves us from (improper) metaphysics to the essential nature
of the metaphysical, yet this essential nature is indeterminate.
A thinking of the Same, by way of unthought difference, seems
both to open a new thought-being relation and to return t o a
yet more primordial and originary metaphysics. Accordingly, we
must ask whether t h e event appropriates what is already
constituted, or whether the event genuinely constitutes what it
appropriates?
Second, there is the temporality of thinking-or of coming to
think-the event of appropriation. The relation between the
reduction of being-as-identity and the donation of being-asdifference must be temporalized. On one hand, being is already
available since it arrives neither incidentally nor only on rare
occasions, but on t h e other, i t is not present in the proper
manner (due t o ontotheological blockages).8 I t is therefore a
matter of enabling being t o emerge otherwise, as difference
rather than as identity. Crucial t o this process, however, is the
question of time. The donation of a belonging together of thought
and being is promised, through the reduction of identity, but it
is not something that could be achieved in a day ... it must take
its time, the time of thinking.g It is within this indeterminate
time of thinking that the processual dynamic of reduction and
donation is located. Accordingly, the event of appropriation, the
passage from the reduction of identity t o the donation of the
Same, is set forth not only by the thought of unthought difference, but also by t h e time of thinking. This means a novel
relation between thought and being pivots not only around the
question of difference, but also around the question of time. In
order t o advance further into these questions, o r into the link
between the question of difference and the question of time, we
must move from Heideggers ambiguous formulation of this
problematic to the development of t h i s problematic as i t is
found in Derrida and Deleuze.

2. The Delay of the

Event of Appropriation
We can first turn to Derrida, who offers a significant elaboration
(or renovation, perhaps) of the theme of difference. Derridas
elaboration, like Heideggers own thought, has a phenomenological provenance. Yet while Heidegger moves straightforwardly
from phenomenology t o ontology (due to phenomenologys
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inability t o answer the question of being), Derrida seeks to

delineate the exact degree to which phenomenology truly permits
an opening onto being. For Derrida, in other words, the validity
of Heideggers discourse on being must be crossed by a phenomenological analysis of the move from phenomenology to ontology.
Derrida argues t h a t phenomenology, while attempting t o
distance itself from (improperly) metaphysical philosophies by
subjecting every (first) principle to the principle of principlesthat is, the principle that evidence lies solely in the immediacy
of lived experience-still remains (improperly) metaphysical in
t h a t i t conceives lived experience according t o a notion of
presence. Derrida demonstrates that presence can come to be
only on the basis of what amounts to a n absence, such t h a t
absence is just as much a part of experience as is presence. The
very criterion t h a t phenomenology uses in order to separate
real experience from baseless metaphysical presupposition is
itself presupposed-or, a t the very least, not given in experience. If phenomenology seeks t o break from the (improperly)
metaphysical by perceiving things according to lived experience,
or to their mode of appearance (i.e., presence), then it must also
carry out a further critique (or phenomenology) of notions of
experience and appearance-a phenomenology of phenomenology. In this sense, one could say t h a t Derrida t u r n s the
impetus of phenomenology against phenomenology proper.
The argument that absence is a condition of appearance opens
a layer of experience that might be named as the inapparent.l0
But if phenomenology sets the conditions of possibility for
appearance, and that which is is such only because it presents
itself according to the conditions of phenomenality, then phenomenology itself enters a n undecidable state-for the determined conditions of appearance necessarily carry a layer of
experience that cannot finally present itself according to these
conditions. The phenomenon is essentially prevented from
presenting itself as a phenomenon due t o the irreducibility of
the inapparent. For this reason, it is insufficient to say t h a t
Derrida preserves the phenomenological method while discarding
phenomenology. He calls into question the methodological
criterion itself. Furthermore, the phenomenological evidence is
doubled: on one hand, it shows nothing, but on the other (if we
follow Derrida), the failure to show is not a lack-this would be
the case only if we retain the metaphysical presupposition of
presence. Phenomenology shows nothing, but this nothing is not
simply nothing; what it shows is inapparent, and this inappearance is neither appearance nor not-appearance.
The ambiguity of the inapparent is extended by Derridas
claim that the polemical unity of appearing and disappearing
[is] irreducible. This polemos signifies the authenticity of
phenomenological delay and limitation.12Phenomenology thus
makes valid the reality of the between of appearing and dis-

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appearing, a between t h a t makes temporality and spatiality

ineluctable. It is through this temporalization and spatialization that differance is articulated. The verb differer,Derrida
points out, has two valences: first, it indicates a deferring, the
action of putting off until later, a delaying; second, it indicates
a differing, a discernibility or nonidenti~a1ity.l~
The former
valence implies a temporalization of difference, while the latter
implies a spatialization of difference. Therefore difference is
said in t w o valences, one of which must be foregrounded.
Differance, however, says both valences at once by putting
them in circulation. It can do this because it adopts the middle
voice ( - a n c e ) ,which refuses t h e choice between active and
passive, and thus prevents a situation in which either spatial
difference (discernibility) o r temporal difference (delay) is the
effect of the other. Derridas differance affirms this middle voice
by articulating the becoming-time of space and the becomingspace of time.14Now, if it is this play of differance-f
appearance
and inappearance, of presence and absence-that phenomenology
makes irreducible, what are we t o say of a phenomenological
path into being?
Derrida both affirms and critiques Heideggers path. He
affirms the necessity of a phenomenological opening onto the
question of being. If one commits oneself t o the phenomenological approach and attempts to fulfill the phenomenological
task, one finds t h a t phenomenology opens onto a question it
cannot resolve from within its own resources. This question is
the question of being. Such a question also involves the question
of a history of being. This is the case because, as thought poses
the question of being, it rearticulates o r modifies the thoughtbeing relation. The various emergences of these modifications of
the thought-being relation are dependent on the manner in
which the relation is exercised through questioning, and they
make up beings history. It is in this sense, Derrida says, that
phenomenology can be articulated, without confusion, within
In this
philosophy posing the question of being or Hi~tory.~
moment we a r e beyond phenomenology, but legitimately so.
However, if we are t o grasp Derridas critique of Heidegger, we
must understand what makes the advance from phenomenology
t o ontology legitimate. Heideggers advance is illegitimate
insofar as it assumes t h a t phenomenology, because i t cannot
answer the question of being, may simply be discarded in favor
of ontology. Against Heideggers ontological supercession of
phenomenology, Derrida argues t h a t the question can never
simply precede transcendental phenomenology as its presupposition or latent ground.lGOne may-indeed, one must-move
from phenomenology to the question of being, but one must do
so by following phenomenology all the way to the end, such that
the question would mark within philosophy in general t h e
moment wherein phenomenology terminates as the philosophical

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propaedeutic for every philosophical d e ~ i s i o n . All

~ this,
however, raises the question, why is it so important to pursue
phenomenology to its limit, if indeed it is limited? We must do
so, Derrida argues, because phenomenology still retains the
capacity t o articulate conditions for ontological decisions. Even
though phenomenology cannot make such decisions, ontology
cannot ignore certain phenomenologically delineated structures
of experience. For Derrida, one key structure t h a t Heidegger
ignores is temporalization.
The decisions made by thought are what modify the thoughtbeing relation and, thus, the history of being. These decisions,
however, cannot be separated from their condition. Decisions
determinative of the thought-being relation, and thus of the
history of being, are themselves conditioned by a fundamental
temporalization of the thought-being relation that is decided.
We return here to what Derrida highlighted as the authenticity
ojEphenomenologica1 delay and limitation. This delay, far from
being that which may finally be overcome by a decision-such as
is found in Heideggers event of appropriation-is that which
must itself be appropriated. The delay is no longer the time
until appropriation, nor the time it takes to appropriate, it is
now the very object of appropriation. Reduction is only pure
thought as ... delay, pure thought investigating the sense of
itself as delay within philosophy.l* Derrida thus resolves, or
perhaps complicates, the Heideggerean ambiguity between the
event of appropriation and the temporality of this appropriation.
It is resolved insofar as time is not just that which lies between
(improperly) metaphysical thought and thought t h a t appropriates the essence of metaphysics; rather, it is t h a t which
itself must be thought in order to accede t o any appropriation.
But is this still the same event of appropriation? Here t h e
ambiguity remains. Derridas reformulation claims that delay
and limitation are irreducible, and this seems to turn the event
of appropriation in a very different direction. Yet he also claims
that, within this delay, there appears an alterity of the absol u t e rig in,"'^ and this certainly corresponds (even if only
loosely) to Heideggers essence of metaphysics.

3. What Comes After Diffhrance?

Derrida, we can now see, pushes phenomenology to its limits, as
well as to its most fundamental insights, through the discovery
of a polemical play between appearance and disappearance (or
between presence and absence), and of a delay intrinsic t o the
temporality of reduction. Differance names the condition in
which t h e s e p h e nom e n o 1og i c a1 structure s become fully
operative. It radically temporalizes and spatializes difference,
such that difference cannot be equated with the differentiation
of an organic whole o r the teleology of a dialectical negation of

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negation. Differance is anterior t o these paradigms, which are

then grasped as stoppages or inadequate resolutions of differential play. In this sense, the movement of differance is irreducible and cannot be surpassed (although we will qualify this
below). One could say that we find ourselves in the movement
of differance. At the same time, the play of difference articulated
by differance does not unfold according to an eternal law-on
the contrary, i t is historical. Derrida notes t h a t if the word
history did not in and of itself convey the motif of a final
repression of difference, one could say that only differences can
be historical from the outset and in each of their aspects.20
How, then, are we t o negotiate differances dual status as phenomenological structure and historical openness?
We have already discussed Derridas complicated proximity to
Heidegger. This proximity is further evinced-and
in an
especially direct manner-when Derrida claims that differance is
irreducible to any ontological or theological-onto-theologicalreappropriation and is the very opening of the space in which
onto-theology-philosophy-produces
its system and its history.21
In other words, Derridas differance, like Heideggers ontological
difference, is prior to and effects a reduction of ontotheology.
What, then, is the relationship of priority between differance and
ontological difference? It initially seems possible to lean toward
either of two alternatives. In the first alternative, differance is
simply a deployment or unfolding of ontological difference, a
way of giving ontological difference more precision. In t h e
second alternative, differance is the very condition of thinking
the difference of being and beings, such that ontological difference amounts to an effect of differance. Here differance requires
the thinking of a n unheard-of thought, t h a t is, one not yet
called for by Heidegger. I t marks the very possibility of a n
ontological difference and is thus, as Derrida says, older than
being.22This second alternative would initially seem preferable,
though i t might be imprecise to derive its propriety from its
transcendental antiquity. Perhaps it would be better t o say that
differance, though not older than being, is faster-not in the
sense of a quantitative speed, but in the sense that differance is
able to think its temporalization. Differance puts difference and
time in circulation. The delay of phenomenological reduction,
which is at the essence of the movement of differance, makes the
question of difference unthinkable apart from the question of
time. In doing so, it interweaves the problems of temporalization and constitution. Differance, then, does not deploy ontological difference, for it is the delay that constitutes ontological
difference.
Let us return t o the question of history. If differance names
the movement that constitutes and temporalizes the passage of
reduction and donation, and if this movement-that is, deconstruction-is irreducible, what then does i t mean to say t h a t
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this play of difference is itself historical from the outset? If

differance is historical, then does this mean differance can be
reduced to history? Certainly not, if this involves forgetting that
differance is the condition for thinking history. History only
emerges as history through diffkrance. This means not t h a t
differance is the essence of history but, rather, that differance is
the condition for thinking history as genuinely history, as the
openness of difference. No history without differance, then, but
where this is true it seems that differance need not be the final
word. And this is actually quite literally true when Derrida
remarks that differance is neither a word nor a concept, but a
strategic name.23He wish[esI to emphasize that the efficacy of
the thematic of differance may very well, indeed must, one day
be superseded, lending itself if not to its own replacement, at
least to enmeshing itself in a chain that in truth it never will
have commanded. Whereas, once again, it is not t h e o l o g i ~ a l . ~ ~
The relation between the name differance and the (historical)
differential movement it marks out is determined by strategy. It
is important t o note the slippage between a movement-here
determined as the play of difference-and its strategic name
(differance). This slippage is conditioned by the manner in
which (historical) differential movement produces an exteriority
that cannot be named beforehand. This is the reason not only for
the strategic origination of its name, but also for the possibilityindeed, the necessity-of this strategic names nonfinality.
All Derrida wishes to observe by this strategic name-a
name that is ultimately conditioned, and in principle exceeded,
by the very character of the movement it describes-is that any
replacement for it cannot belong to a thought that would resolve
differential play in virtue of a preconceived manner of identification. Granting this, there is still the question of whether the
gap between differance and the differential play it strategically
names requires a further deconstruction of diffbrance itself?
One cannot reduce differance in any basic manner, but one can
pass through it, in virtue of the differential play that exceeds it.
In this passage one may exceed differance not by way of identity
but, rather, by way of differential play. We can, therefore, see how
a history conditioned by differance may surpass differance as a
result of the historical openness t h a t differance strategically
names.
Perhaps the essential question is: What comes after differance? This question can be posed in two senses. First, we view it
in the obvious relation t o chronological position. If the name of
diffkrance will be replaced, then what replaces it? Yet what
truly matters is a second, more fundamental question concerning
differances role as a transcendental-that is, as a condition of
t h e movement or play of difference. If differance must be
replaced (though in a manner consistent with the sort of conditions i t delineates), then there is a condition belonging t o
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differential play that exceeds differance itself. In other words, if

differance can or must be replaced, then there is a capacity of
differential play-which thought must encounter-that is not
named by the transcendental condition of differance. The
question of after-differance would be not simply historically
after, but transcendentally before. That which is donated in the
movement named by differance may exceed, and thus cause us
to replace, the reduction articulated by differance. There is,
intrinsic to the passage of reduction and donation, a n open
relation between thought and difference t h a t exceeds t h e
articulation of differance.
Derrida, in a critique of Edmund Husserls phenomenology,
stresses the need to make this excess-described here in terms
of time and matter-into the essential object of thought. Derrida
argues that Husserl, despite his attempts to integrate structural
and genetic phenomenology, failed to grant sufficient attention to
the latter. A specific point of contention is Husserls division of
labor between morphe a n d hyle. Derrida remarks t h a t , for
Husserl, h y l e indicates the sensate ... material of affect before
any animation by intentional form. I t is t h e pole of pure
passivity without which consciousness would be severed from
its outside and receive only itself.25In this sense, consciousness
is dependent on hylt7. Yet even as Husserl requires hyle in order
for phenomena to emerge, he does not adequately thematize
this condition of phenomenal emergence. Husserls hyle, Derrida
says, is primarily temporal matter and the possibility of genesis itself.26But despite hylZs value, Derrida continues, Husserl
arranges phenomenological concepts such that h y l e is always
placed in a derivative relation to morphe. HylF provides the
material necessary to morphe and, in this sense, concerns the
genesis of morphe. Nonetheless, Husserl makes the sense of
what is generated the property of morphe, rather than of hyle.
Consequently, the genesis of phenomena, by means of hyle, is
subordinated to a predetermination by morphe. Because morphe
holds a privileged position in a structural phenomenology, we
can see how the structural delimitation of the genetic turns on
morphes delimitation of hyle. To grant proper weight t o hyle
would be to mark the (phenomenological) necessity of moving
from a structural to a genetic phenomenology. Derrida signals
the distance between Husserls account and what is required by
his own strictures by asserting that there must be a break or a
conversion toward the genetic.27Thought must, in other words,
attend to the alterity presented by time and matter, which
belong to the genetic and are constitutive of phenomena.
At the heart of Derridas criticism of Husserl is the claim
t h a t thought must t a k e primarily temporal matter as its
essential object. Husserls exclusion of time and matter from the
object of thought rests on the baseless presupposition that form
is primary. Derrida argues, on the contrary, that the formlessness

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of temporal matter, rather than forms givenness, is primary.

Husserl, by granting form primacy over temporal matter,
effectively grants the generated primacy over the condition of
possibility for its generation. This formless, temporal, material
condition of generation, we should add, is the play of difference.
Accordingly, we can see t h a t Derrida, in strategically naming
differential play as differance, repeats Husserls mistake.
Husserl indicates the role of time and matter, but he fails to
grant primacy t o this role. He does not achieve a point of view
intrinsic t o time and matter, preferring instead t o maintain an
extrinsic point of view. Similarly, Derridas differance remains
extrinsic to the differential play it strategically names, failing
to provide a point of view intrinsic to differential play in-itself.

4. From an Extrinsic to an
Intrinsic Relation to Difference
In order to find a point of view intrinsic to difference, it is
necessary to turn to Deleuzes work. I will first attend to his
theory of language, noting its affinity with some of Derridas
claims, before showing how Deleuzes theory of difference
advances beyond that proposed by Derrida.
Deleuze argues that, in addition to the three conventional
dimensions of a proposition-denotation (or indication), manifestation, and signification-there is a fourth dimension, which is
that of sense. Denotation, manifestation, and signification form
a circle. When we move from one conditioned dimension (D,) t o
its conditioning dimension (DJ, we also move from the condition
back t o the conditioned, for the conditioning dimension (D,) is
conditioned by the third dimension (D,)-which itself is conditioned by the conditioned dimension (D,) with which we began.
To escape this turning about, it will be necessary to have something unconditioned capable of assuring a real genesis of denotation and of the other dimensions of the proposition. Thus the
condition of truth would be defined no longer as the form of conceptual possibility, but rather as ideational material or stratum,
that is to say ... as sense.28This fourth dimension, sense, is that
which conditions all three dimensions of our circle without being
conditioned by any of them.
The truth of a proposition, then, lies not in what it denotes,
manifests, or signifies, for all of these are conditioned by sense,
or ideational material. A propositions sense is irreducible to
any of these conditions. Accordingly, to judge a proposition as
nonsensical in virtue of its failure to denote, manifest, or signify
something logical or recognizable is t o miss the point. Such a
judgment addresses the proposition from the point of view of a
logical form of sense, rather than from the unconditioned ideational material upon which the proposition depends. Judgment of
this kind gets it backwards, for the imperative is not to subject

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the proposition t o forms of sense, it is instead t o subject these

forms of sense t o the unconditioned. At stake is a reduction of
forms of sense, such that unconditioned sense-the ideational
material upon which forms of sense depend-might be donated.
The reduction of sense sets forth the emergence of nonsense.
Importantly, nonsense appears not as the privation of sense-as
the judgment set forth by forms of sense would have it-but
rather as the excess of sense. The fact t h a t nonsense is the
generative condition of sense can be highlighted by contrasting
the sense-nonsense relation with the true-false relation. The
judgment of a proposition as true or as false is dependent upon
its accord or lack of accord with a determined form of sense. Yet
sense, when understood in terms of its nonsensical generation,
is unconditioned and formless. While the false is derived from
its disaccord with a form of truth, nonsense is derived from the
formless condition of all forms. Nonsense belongs t o the excessiveness of sense; when a proposition has no sense, this is not
due to a lack. As Deleuze remarks, Nonsense is that which has
no sense, and that which, as such and as it enacts the donation of
sense, is opposed to the absence of sense.29Sense, as the unconditioned, is excessive, and the non-of sense names this intrinsic excessiveness. A proposition is not sensible for adherents of
common forms of sense, but this not is prior to the very form
of sense that would exclude such a proposition from the sensible.
Common forms of sense a r e t h u s rendered accidental o r
secondary, for they presuppose a donation of sense in relation to
which they are epiphenomenal.
Deleuze is thus far in close proximity to Derrida, who argues
that morphe functions in Husserl according to a logic analogous
to what Deleuze calls common sense. Derridas demand t h a t
Husserl convert to a genetic phenomenology resembles Deleuzes
call t o move from conditioned forms of sense t o an unconditioned, formless dimension of sense. I t is in fact Derridas
additional achievement t o show that Husserls phenomenology
of language is still too formal, for the latter ties sense, or the
quality of being logical, to classical notions-those t h a t are
formal or already fully constituted, apart from open temporality-of knowledge, objectivity, and reason. A phenomenology
stripped of these unfounded constraints, Derrida argues, would
have t o affirm t h e signifying force of such formations a s
Abracadabra or Green is where.30The point is simply that
Derrida-not unlike Deleuze-wants t o grant sense to nonsensical propositions. Both Derrida and Deleuze call for a reduction
of those formal conditions t h a t would distinguish sense from
nonsense. For both thinkers, reduction effects a donation of
nonsense, such t h a t t h e real primacy of t h e nonsensical is
asserted. The ensuing task, however, is to find a way not only to
assert the primacy of the nonsensical, but also t o make the
nonsensical into the object of thought.
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While Derrida and Deleuze are basically in agreement with

regard to the imperative of reduction, they diverge with regard
t o the possibility of becoming adequate to what is donated. For
Derrida, the donation of nonsense is set forth through differance.
Nonsense exceeds given sense in virtue of the play of difference.
Differance articulates the irreducibility of this differential play
t o any form or telos. What is nonsensical is the play of difference, and differances essential function is t o affirm the impossibility of resolving this differential play from a point of view
extrinsic t o difference. What remains, however, is the task of
providing a point of view intrinsic t o the play of difference.
Derrida himself asserts that differance does not provide such an
intrinsic point of view. We can see this by recalling his admission
t h a t differance must be superceded. I t must be superceded
because its relation to differential play is strategic and extrinsic.
Differance articulates a strategic denial of any thought t h a t
would resolve and foreclose differential play, but i t does not
articulate the play of difference itself. Its strategy is to draw a
border around differential play, such that differential play is
secured against any resolution of difference from the outside. In
doing so, however, differance itself remains extrinsic t o the
differential play it secures. Again, i t is for this reason t h a t
Derrida admits the necessity of differances replacement, and it
is in view of this necessity t h a t we have spoken of an afterdifferance. What, then, comes after differance? It would have to
be a manner of thinking that sets forth a point of view intrinsic
t o differential play. I contend t h a t such an intrinsic point of
view can be found in Deleuze.
In order t o understand how Deleuze provides a point of view
intrinsic t o the play of difference, we can turn t o his theory of
singularity. For Deleuze, difference consists of and persists as a
transcendental field of preindividual singularities. These
singularities constitute a field of pure difference, of difference
in-itself. Therefore individuals are not singular, they are on the
contrary resolutions of the pure difference set forth by the field
of singularities. As transcendental, the differential play of
singularities furnishes the condition of possibility for t h e
constitution of individuals. Similarly, this transcendental field
sets forth the condition of possibility for the constitution of
sense. If nonsense exceeds every presumed form of sense, it is
because the transcendental field of singularities, as pure difference, remains nonsensical and formless in-itself. Singularities
thus provide the ideational material that Deleuze points t o as
the unconditioned dimension of sense.
Unlike Derrida, however, Deleuze proceeds not simply t o
secure the donation of difference against its occlusion, but also
t o envision a manner in which thought might engage with, and
perhaps become adequate to, this donation. Deleuze does this by
emphasizing the objectively problematic character of difference.

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The transcendental field of singularities poses a field of differences, a differential field that is objective and determinate. To
be objective and determinate, however, is not to be closed. The
great advance of Deleuze here is to bring together objective
determinacy and openness. Singularities make difference objective, but t h e manner in which they do s o makes objectivity
problematic. Objectivity, as the intensive difference of singularities, is immediately open or problematic-that is, the problem
posed by difference opens beyond the given solutions furnished
by common forms of sense. Thus the field of singularities, as
nonsensical, formless difference in-itself, provides a problematic
horizon in excess of any predetermined sense or form. At the
same time, however, the singular determination of a differential
problematic sets forth the conditions for the generation of new
senses and forms. The play of difference, objectively determined
by singularities, certainly refuses any thought driven by given
sense and forms, but it simultaneously provides the object of a
new kind of thought. This new kind of thought is one that begins
from the nonsensical and formless, one that finds in the nonsensical and formless a possibility for the constitution of novel
senses and forms. The objectivity of singularly determined
difference in-itself does not become something t o be negatively
secured against what is already given, it becomes-more affirmatively-that which must be thought. Here we find a point of view
intrinsic to difference, for difference becomes the matter of
thought.
Deleuze gestures at this possibility when he describes the
unconditioned dimension of the proposition-sense, o r more
precisely nonsense, a s senses excess over every conditioned
dimension of sense-as ideational material. Difference is the
objective material of thought, but because this material is problematic and nonsensical, the only manner in which thought generates ideas adequate to difference is through creation. The aim
of ideas is not to correspond t o difference, but rather t o create
new ideas out of the ideational material of difference. Ideas
cannot achieve isomorphism with difference, since difference is
formless. Nevertheless, this formless material provides a horizon
for creation, whereby the created senses and idea-objects are generated by the composition of differences problematic ideational
material. It is in view of this compositional process of differential
creation that Deleuze can say that problems are Ideas themselves, and that Ideas are the differentials of
Thought
achieves a point of view intrinsic t o difference, for it affirms
difference in the same moment that it creatively composes it.

5. Time
Let us now return to the question of time. I argued, at the outset
of this essay, that the essential ambiguity of Heideggers efforts

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resides in the question of constitution, and particularly in the

question of the temporality of constitution. Heidegger aims at
the constitution of a new relation between thought and being,
and he makes this constitution pivot around a thinking of what
has remained unthought-namely, difference. A new relation
between thought and being t h u s calls for a reduction of a n
identitarian (or ontotheological) thought-being relation. What is
donated by this reduction is difference, which makes possible
the sought-after novel thought-being relation. But again, it was
unclear whether the temporality of thinking difference reveals a
novel thought-being relation that is already there yet presently
occluded, o r whether the temporality of thinking difference
actually constitutes a novel relation.
Derrida argues convincingly that the temporality of thinking
difference cannot be accidental to what it constitutes. He demonstrates that difference involves some manner of deferral, such
that the thought of difference must become a temporal thought.
Accordingly, the temporality of thinking difference must truly
constitute the donation of difference. Derrida, in support of this
point, goes so far as to install a delay into any attempt t o think
difference. He does this through his articulation of differance,
which names the play of difference, but in doing so affirms a
gap between this naming and the play of difference in-itself.
The gap between the name of differance and difference in-itself is
a temporal one-it is in virtue of this temporal gap that Derrida
observes the necessity of a supercession of the name of differance. Accordingly, the articulation of differance is also an articulation of after-differance, or also an articulation of a temporality
of thinking difference that exceeds differance.
The significant benefit of Derridas differance, I argued, is
t h a t i t secures the play of difference in-itself from any premature attempt t o capture, foreclose, and resolve difference.
Putting this benefit in terms of the question of time, it becomes
clear that Derrida, in securing difference in-itself from its premature closure, also secures the temporality of difference. The
gap between the strategic name of differance and difference initself is a temporal one. I argued, however, that difference initself is secured by Derrida only by way of an extrinsic point of
view on difference. We can now see that, similarly, the temporality of thinking difference is secured only by way of an extrinsic point of view on time. For Derrida, time-as perpetually
indefinite delay-names the measure of the gap between the
present and the play of difference, but this prevents time from
ever naming the process by which we encounter and enter into
the play of difference. What is needed, then, is a manner of
achieving a point of view intrinsic to difference and to time.
Deleuzes account addresses this need, for it makes formless,
nonsensical difference not only the irreducible excess of every
predetermined form of sense, but also the problematically objec-

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tive matter of thought. Difference in-itself, a s unconditioned

ideational material, makes possible novel encounters of thought.
Importantly, with regard t o the question of time, this means
that the temporality of thinking difference becomes the temporality of creatively composing difference. Deleuze affirms, with
Derrida and against Heidegger, t h a t time is essential rather
than accidental to the constitution of difference. He departs from
Derrida, however, by envisioning time in a creative manner.
Derrida secures difference in-itself by conceiving time as the
insuperable delay between thought and differential play. Deleuze,
on the contrary, conceives time affirmatively-he conceives it not
as t h a t which opens a gap between thought and differential
play but, rather, as t h a t by which thought enters into differential play. The temporality of thinking difference thus becomes
the temporality of encountering differential plays problematic
objectivity. Because this problematic objectivity becomes the
essential matter of thought, thought can creatively compose
difference. Derrida, of course, might fear t h a t such compositional endeavors would amount to a foreclosure of time, and thus
of difference. But this fear has no ground in Deleuzes account,
for thought creates only by composing, and it composes only by
returning, temporally, to the objectively differential and problematic ideational matter of thought.

Notes
I t should be noted t h a t , i n m a k i n g u s e of t h e language of
reduction and donation, I am borrowing from the work of Jean-Luc
Marion (see especially his Reduction and Givenness, trans. Thomas
A. Carlson [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 19981, but
also his Being Given, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky [Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 20021). While I do not find t h e entirety of his work
compelling, I do think t h a t this language of reduction and donation
provides a n excellent way of getting at the heart of what is at stake in
the work of Heidegger and Derrida (and, I would add, beyond Marion,
in the work of Deleuze).
M a r t i n Heidegger, Identity a n d Difference, t r a n s . J o a n
Stambaugh (New York: H a r p e r & Row, 2002), 50. Stambaugh, i n a
corresponding footnote, aptly comments t h a t t h i s key term, Das z u Denkende, is t h a t which gives thinking to us and it is t h a t which is
to be thought.
Ibid., 27.
Ibid.
Ibid., 29.
Ibid., 39.
Ibid., 40, 51.
Ibid., 31.
Ibid., 41.
lo The concept of t h e inapparent, like those of reduction a n d
donation, may be derived from t h e work of Marion. I n t h i s case,
however, I would note t h a t t h e lineage described by Dominique

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Janicaud-in Toward a Minimalist Phenomenology, Research i n
Phenomenology 30, no. 1 (2000): 89-106-provides
a better point of
reference for the concept.
l 1 Jacques Derrida, E d m u n d Husserls Origin of Geometry:A n
I n t r o d u c t i o n , t r a n s . J o h n P. Leavey, Jr. (Lincoln: U n i v e r s i t y of
Nebraska Press, 19891, 153.
l 2 Ibid.
l 3 J a c q u e s Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, t r a n s . Alan B a s s
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 8.
l4 Ibid.
l5 Derrida, Edmund Husserls Origin of Geometry, 150.
l6 Ibid.
l 7 Ibid.
l 8 Ibid., 153.
l9 Ibid.
2o Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, 11.
21 Ibid., 6.
22 Ibid., 22, 26.
23 Ibid., 7.
24 Ibid.; my emphasis.
25 J a c q u e s Derrida, W r i t i n g a n d Difference, t r a n s . Alan B a s s
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19781, 163.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., 164.
28 Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, t r a n s . Mark Lester (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 19.
29 Ibid., 71.
30 Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on
Husserls Theory of S i g n s , t r a n s . David B. Allison (Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press), 99.
31 Gilles Deleuze, Difference a n d Repetition, t r a n s . Paul Patton
(New York: Columbia University Press, 19941, 162, 181.

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