From Singularity to Identity and Back: The Secret Solidarity Between Deleuze and

Sartre

Rowan G. Tepper

In his 1964 piece entitled “He Was My Teacher,” Gilles Deleuze writes admiringly of

Jean-Paul Sartre. Intriguingly he writes that Sartre’s “whole philosophy was part of a

speculative movement that contested the notion of representation, the order itself of

representation: philosophy was changing its arena, leaving the sphere of judgment, to

establish itself in the more vivid world of the ‘pre-judgmental.’” 1 In this statement, Deleuze

shows a certain solidarity with Sartre on a key philosophical issue, that is, representation. In

the context of other statements on the part of Deleuze regarding Sartre’s philosophy, this

speaks to a fundamentally complex relation between the thought of Deleuze and Sartre. This

becomes all the more fascinating by virtue of our being well aware of Deleuze’s ostensible

rejection of consciousness as a useful concept, despite numerous statements that cast doubt

upon the strength of this position. Critically, in The Logic of Sense, Deleuze writes, tellingly,

that “despite Sartre’s attempt, we cannot retain consciousness as a milieu while at the same

time we object to the form of the person and the point of view of individuation.” 2 This

comes in the course of Deleuze’s differentiation of his term “transcendental field” from the

Sartrean concept of the same name. Deleuze’s primary point of divergence from his former

teacher’s position is evident in the language used. It must be emphasized that Deleuze writes

specifically that “we cannot retain consciousness as a milieu.” 3 This is to say that

consciousness cannot be the medium in which the transcendental field is situated or be

1
Gilles Deleuze, “He Was My Teacher” in Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974, Translated by Michael
Taormina Edited by David Lapoujade (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004), pg. 78
2
Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, Translated by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, Edited by Constantin V.
Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pg. 102
3
Ibid.
1
constitutive thereof. It is not that Deleuze discounts consciousness as a philosophically

relevant concept, but rather that it is an epiphenomenon of the resonance of specific series

and as such is in most ways always a particular, and as such, subordinate to the

transcendental field in which consciousness as an event inheres. Moreover, Deleuze writes in

his final piece “Immanence: A Life…” that “The relation of the transcendental field to

consciousness is only a conceptual one. Consciousness becomes a fact only when a subject is

produced at the same time as its object, both outside the field and appearing as

‘transcendents.’”4 Notwithstanding these strong distinctions, as will be seen, Deleuze’s

critique of Sartre on the concept of consciousness seems to be fundamentally undermined

by a footnote to The Transcendence of the Ego in which Sartre writes:

I shall use here the term ‘consciousness’ to translate the German word Bewusstsein, which
signifies both the whole of consciousness – the monad – and each moment of this
consciousness. The expression ‘state of consciousness’ seems to me inaccurate owing to the
passivity which it introduces into consciousness. 5

Thus, when reading The Transcendence of the Ego a distinction must be made between the

ambiguous term consciousness and the more specific term ego. Moreover, this distinction

demands that consciousness be interpreted in terms of its dual meaning, that is, of the

whole of consciousness and each moment of consciousness. I believe that here Deleuze

misreads Sartre by neglecting this inherent ambiguity. Furthermore, in the final evaluation,

the notion of consciousness and its relation to the empirical ego in Deleuze is fundamentally

in agreement with the corresponding concepts and relation in the early Sartre.

This paper will be divided into two principle parts: the first concerning the nature of

consciousness and the ego in both Deleuze and Sartre and their relations to the conceptions

of time developed principally in Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense. Additionally,

after refining the sense of the term consciousness operative in Deleuze it will become

4
Gilles Deleuze, “Immanence: A Life…” in Pure Immanence: Essays on a Life, Translated by Anne Boyman, with
an introduction by John Rajchman (New York: Zone Books, 2001), pg. 26
5
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego, Translated and annotated with an introduction by Forrest
Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick (New York: Hill and Wang, 1960), pg. 109n1
2
necessary to sketch out the relationship born by consciousness to spatio-temporal

dynamisms, the relationship with the other, and most importantly, the faculties of memory

and perception. Moreover, the relationship between consciousness, memory and perception

will bring us to the second portion of this paper, In this part, the processes of perception,

memory and consciousness, and their respective different/ciations, syntheses, integrations

and resonances will be examined in depth and extended in order to model what for Deleuze

would approximate the Sartrean concept of the pre-reflective cogito.

I. Consciousness, Ego and Time

In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze writes,

Actualization takes place in three series: space, time and also consciousness. Every spatio-
temporal dynamism is accompanied by the emergence of an elementary consciousness
which traces directions, doubles movements and migrations, and is born on the threshold of
the condensed singularities of the body or object whose consciousness it is. It is not enough
to say that consciousness is consciousness of something: it is the double of this something,
and everything is consciousness because it possesses a double, even if it far off and very
foreign.6

This is to assert the ultimately epiphenomenal character of particular consciousness for

Deleuze. Particular consciousnesses double the object of which they are conscious. This is

to say that my consciousness of this computer on which I am typing entails not merely the

representation of my computer in consciousness, but consciousness in that moment is

constituted and doubles my computer completely. However, as a series in which actualization

takes place, consciousness must not only consist of present intentional perceptions.

Moreover, in the same section as the above quote, Deleuze writes that “Repetition is

everywhere, as much in what is actualized as in its actualization… it runs through the

varieties of relations and the distribution of singular points. It also determines the

reproduction of space and time, as it does the reprises of consciousness.” 7 Moreover, in The

Logic of Sense, Deleuze writes:

6
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, Translated by Paul Patton, (New York: Columbia University Press,
1994), pg. 220.
7
Ibid.
3
 In fact, this bestowal of sense, on the basis of the immanent quasi-cause and the static
genesis which ensures for the other dimensions of the proposition, may occur only within a
transcendental field which would correspond to the conditions posed by Sartre in his
decisive article of 1937: an impersonal transcendental field, not having the form of a
synthetic personal consciousness or a subjective identity – with the subject on the contrary,
being always constituted. The foundation can never resemble what it founds. 8

This furthers the interpretation that Deleuze differs from Sartre primarily in the locus in

which the transcendental field is found. Moreover, in his admitted solidarity with Sartre on this

point, we can definitively say that consciousness for both Deleuze and Sartre is not a

“synthetic personal consciousness or subjective identity.” Thus we find the first essential

characteristics of what could be called a Deleuzean consciousness: impersonal or rather, pre-

personal, a-subjective, and given rise to by the world and not vice versa. However, the

question remains whether consciousness is synthetic or otherwise. At this juncture, I will

merely hint at the directions which will be pursued shortly. I will assert that for Deleuze,

consciousness is fundamentally both differential and synthetic (or integral) in nature.

Consciousness is a first order integration of the results of the two step differential-integral

perceptive and mnemic processes. The ego constituted out of the basis of consciousness is

an integration of a second order, and one that is founded upon the syntheses of time.

The upshot of this is that in order to fully grasp the relationship between the

thought of Deleuze and Sartre, the aforementioned distinctions must be strictly applied. It

has been determined that consciousness as such is of the ontological status of the event.

Furthermore, Deleuze writes that “the transcendental field cannot be defined by the

consciousness that is coextensive with it…” 9 Thus we obtain a second doubling. Not only

does consciousness double that of which it is conscious, but at the same time pre-personal

consciousness is, in fact, coextensive with the transcendental field from which it is

distinguished. Thus consciousness is on the ontological level of an actualized event and is, in

its pre-personal state, coextensive with the transcendental field in which it inheres.

8
The Logic of Sense, pp. 98-99
9
“Immanence: A Life…” pg. 26
4
Perception and Memory have both been preliminarily defined as processes of differentiation

and then synthesis (integration).10 It would stand to reason that the content of consciousness

is provided by these two processes and as such, I have chosen to examine in greater detail

their constitutive relation to consciousness in addition to what Deleuze refers to as spatio-

temporal dynamism and the relationship with the Other. As regards the nature of

consciousness, Deleuze writes in The Logic of Sense, that “A consciousness is nothing without

a synthesis of unification, but there is no synthesis of unification of consciousness without

the form of the I, or the point of view of the Self.” 11 This is Deleuze’s strongest statement

on this topic. In effect, this quote establishes a strong implicative link between a unifying

synthesis of consciousness and the form of an I or Self. This is to say that wherever

synthetic consciousness appears, the I, Self or Ego necessarily appears. This position,

however, is readily undermined from within. At the time of The Logic of Sense, however,

Deleuze’s position on a synthetic unity of consciousness is firm. However, in a passage from

“Immanence: A Life…” he writes: that “[A life] is a haecceity no longer of individuation but

of singularization: a life of pure immanence, neutral, beyond good and evil, for it is only the

subject that incarnated it in the midst of things that made it good or bad.” 12 It is this term

haecceity (which is, incidentally a borrowing from Duns Scotus, as noted in a footnote to a

passage from A Thousand Plateaus), that I see brings synthetic consciousness back into play

for Deleuze. In A Thousand Plateaus, published just over ten years after The Logic of Sense, he

writes “There is a mode of individuation very different from that of a person, subject, thing,

or substance. We reserve the name haecceity for it.”13 A haecceity defines a mode of

individuation proper to “relations of movement and rest between molecules or particles,

10
The issue of the nature of memory and perception will be treated at length in section two of this paper. In
the context of Deleuze’s mathematization of the differential/perceptual process in chapter four of Difference
hand Repetition and The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, in accordance with several suggestions in these and other
works, I have equated synthesis and synthetic acts with the mathematical procedure of integration.
11
The Logic of Sense, pg. 102
12
“Immanence: A Life…” pg. 29
13
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia Volume Two, Translated by
Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), pg. 261
5
capacities to affect and be affected.” 14 This is to say that consciousness prior to its

degradation into a structure fundamentally dependent upon an ego is by nature a haecceity.

This notion of a life or a consciousness or for that matter any pre-personal individuation as

haecceity, brings along with it the discussion of the different notions of time that not

coincidentally follows in the afore-cited section of A Thousand Plateaus. These are the same

notions of time present in The Logic of Sense: Chronos and Aion. We will first take the sketch

of these forms of time found in A Thousand Plateaus before proceeding to explicate them in

more depth as they appear in The Logic of Sense and in a different form in Difference and

Repetition. Deleuze writes in A Thousand Plateaus:

Even when times are abstractly equal, the individuation of a life is not the same as the
individuation of the subject that leads it or serves as its support. It is not the same Plane: In
the first case, it is the plane of consistency or of composition of haecceities, which knows
only speeds and affects; and in the second case it is the altogether different plane of forms,
substances and subjects. And it is not in the same time, the same temporality. Aeon: the
indefinite time of the event, the floating line that knows only speeds and continually divides
that which transpires into an already-there that is at the same time not-yet-here, a
simultaneous too-late and too-early, a something that is both going to happen and just
happened. Chronos: the time of measure that situates things and persons, develops a form,
and determines a subject… the ‘pulsed time’… versus the ‘non-pulsed time’… both floating
and machinic, which has nothing but speeds or differences in dynamic. In short, the
difference is not at all between the ephemeral and the durable, nor even between the regular
and the irregular, but between two modes of individuation, two modes of temporality. 15

Thus, the temporality of an indefinite, pre-subjective, pre-personal haecceity, which has an

ontological status on the same order as that of the event, is essentially that of Aion.

Moreover, if we interpret this as implying that anything that is of a pre-subjective and pre-

personal nature necessarily participates in the mode of temporality referred to as that of

Aion, then the pre-personal consciousness is a haecceity (At very least the pre-personal

consciousness participates in the temporality of Aion). Thus, for Deleuze, pre-individual

consciousness fundamentally pre-exists the appearance of the Ego.

14
Ibid.
15
Ibid, pg. 261-2
6
Excursus on Jean-Paul Sartre’s theory of consciousness in The Transcendence of the Ego.

Here we must undertake an appraisal of Sartre’s theory of consciousness insofar as it

pertains to our present discussion of consciousness in Deleuze. Here we will proceed to

establish the salient distinctions present in Sartre’s text and examine his account of the pre-

reflective consciousness and the manner in which the Ego is constituted thereupon.

At the beginning of The Transcendence of the Ego, Sartre writes “We should like to

show here that the ego is neither formally of materially in consciousness: it is outside, in the

world. It is a being of the world, like the ego of another.” 16 This is to say that for Sartre, the

Ego is not only not synonymous with consciousness, but more radically, it is not even

inherent in consciousness, but a transcendent product of conscious processes in the world.

We will not grasp the full significance of this statement until we have outlined a key

distinction in Sartre’s text, that is, the distinction between the I (Ego, Self, Reflective

consciousness, transcendental consciousness) and the me (the pre-reflective, pre-personal self).

Sartre writes that transcendental consciousness is “a real consciousness accessible to each of

us as soon as the ‘reduction’ is performed. And it is indeed this transcendental consciousness

which constitutes our empirical consciousness, our consciousness ‘in the world,’ our

consciousness with its psychic and psycho-physical me.”17 This is to set up a dilemma:

whether one need double ‘this psychic and psycho-physical me… Need one double it with a

transcendental I, a structure of absolute consciousness.”18 The consequences of the

resolution of this dilemma in the negative are clear, that is, that the I is “only one aspect of

the me, the active aspect… the existence of a transcendental I may be justified by the need

that consciousness has for unity and individuality. It is because all my perceptions and all my

thoughts refer themselves back to this permanent seat that my consciousness is unified. It is

16
Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego, pg 31
17
Ibid, pg. 35-6
18
Ibid, pg. 36-7
7
because I can say my consciousness…”19 Moreover, it seems that at this juncture, Sartre is

giving a psychological basis for the belief in a transcendental I. Although there is neither

time nor space here to address this, such a psychological explanation brings to mind the

Nietzschean idea that individuality and moreover, the I constitute fictions that make life

easier to live.20

Sartre continues to write that “The individuality of consciousness evidently stems

from the nature of consciousness. Consciousness can be limited only by itself. Thus it

constitutes a synthetic and individual totality entirely isolated from other totalities of the

same type, and the I can evidently be only an expression of this incommunicability and

inwardness of consciousness.. It is consciousness… which makes possible the unity and the

personality of my I. The transcendental I has no rasion d’etre.”21 Moreover, he continues to

write that “consciousness is aware of itself in so far as it is consciousness of a transcendent object…

Consciousness knows itself only as absolute inwardness. We shall call such a consciousness:

consciousness in the first degree, or unreflected consciousness… Is there room for an I in such

a consciousness? …evidently not…”22 This is to say that unreflected consciousness is, for

Sartre, pre-individual in nature and constitutive in reflection of the personal I. The question

follows: to what extent can unreflected consciousness persist over time, and moreover, by

what process is the personal I constituted? Is it only in reflection that the I emerges from the

pre-individual me? Let us assume for the present examination of Sartre’s text that reflection

19
Ibid. This fundamentally active nature of the I will come to be of importantance.
20
In a 1967 interview entitled “Nietzsche’s Burst of Laughter” published in Desert Islands, Deleuze writes of
Nietzsche’s individualism:
“Yes, but a bizarre individualism, in which modern consciousness undoubtedly recognizes itself to
some degree. Because in Nietzsche, this individualism is accompanied by a lively critique of the
notions of ‘self ’ and ‘I.” For Nietzsche there is a kind of dissolution of the self. The reaction against
oppressive structures is no longer done, for him, in the name of a “self ’ or an “I.” On the contrary, it
is as though the ‘self ’ and the ‘I’ were accomplices of those structures.” Pg. 130
This is to say that while Nietzsche embraces the I or Self as an individual, he is well aware of the artificial and
fictional nature of such apparently self-evident unities. In fact, such apparently self-evident unities are
undermined in the activities that they are purported to justify. It is all too fitting that Nietzsche’s apparent
individualism was accompanied by a scathing critique of that same concept.
21
Sartre, pg. 39-40.
22
Ibid, pg. 40-41
8
is in fact essential to the forging of personal identity. Sartre continues by writing that

“Insofar as my reflecting consciousness is consciousness of itself, it is non-positional

consciousness… All reflecting consciousness is, indeed, in itself unreflected, and a new act

of the third degree is necessary in order to posit it… every unreflected consciousness, being

on-thetic consciousness of itself, leaves a non-thetic memory that one can consult. To do so

it suffices to try to reconstitute the complete moment in which this unreflected

consciousness appears” and he continues to write that “all the non-reflective memories of

unreflected consciousness show me a consciousness without a me, and since, on the other

hand, theoretical considerations concerning consciousness which are based on intuition of

essence have constrained us to recognize that the I cannot be a part of the internal structure

of Erlebnisse, we must therefore conclude: there is no I on the unreflected level.”23 This is to

say that because when in memory we reconstitute the past, the self is absent in non-reflected

memories, the self must be absent from non-reflective consciousness. However, there is a

stratum that is more primordial than that of reflection. There is a level that supports

reflection in both Sartre and Deleuze, and that level is that of temporality. Reflection is not

possible, I will argue, in the infinitesimally small duration of consciousness in the mode of

Aion. Reflection is only possible in chronological time that subsumes at least two moments

of kairological time (Aion). Time fundamentally underlies the constitution of the I, although

Sartre will argue for the essentiality of the reflected act. Sartre writes that

The I never appears except on the occasion of a reflective act. In this case, the complex
structure of consciousness is as follows: [1] there is an unreflected act of reflection, without
an I, which is directed on a reflected consciousness. [2] The latter becomes the object of the
reflecting consciousness without ceasing to affirm its own object (a chair, a mathematical
truth, etc.). At the same time, [3] a new object appears which is the occasion for an
affirmation by reflective consciousness, and which is consequently not on the same level as
the unreflected consciousness, nor on the same level as the object of the reflected
consciousness. This transcendent object of the reflective act is the I.24

This is to say that the I or ego is neither the reflected consciousness, nor in the unreflected

23
Ibid, pg. 44-48
24
Ibid, pg. 53
9
consciousness, but emerges as the transcendent object as such of the reflective act.

Moreover, Sartre confirms this conception in line with his initial statement of intent, that

“an I is never purely formal, that it is always… an infinite contraction of the material me.”25

This is to say that the crucial distinction between the I and the me for Sartre is the fact that

the me is the object of reference in non-reflected consciousness, and that the I only comes

into play in reflection and by virtue of the passage of time. It would also follow that non-

reflected consciousness is not possible provided that chronological time passes. Pure

unreflected consciousness can only exist as an incorporeal event suspended in the time of

Aion. However, “unreflected consciousness must be considered autonomous. It is a totality

which needs no completing at all, and we must acknowledge with no qualifications that the

character of unreflected desire is to transcend itself by apprehending on the subject the

quality of desirability… the me must not be sought in the states of unreflected

consciousness, nor behind them. The me appears only with the reflective act, and as a

noematic correlate of reflective intention.”26

It is here, at the end of part one of The Transcendence of the Ego that the distinction

between the I and the me begins to blur. Sartre then equates both with the Ego in some

form. He writes “We are going to try to show that this ego, of which I and me are but two

aspects, constitutes the ideal and indirect unity of the infinite series of our reflected

consciousness. The I is the ego as the unity of actions. The me is the ego as the unity of

states and of quantities.”27 However, the distinction between ego and consciousness remains.

Sartre maintains that the ego in both of these manifestations is constituted only in the

reflective act. He writes that “the ego is not directly the unity of reflected consciousness.

There exists an immanent unity of these consciousnesses: the flux of consciousness

constituting itself as the unity of itself. And there exists a transcendent unit: states and actions.
25
Ibid, pg 54
26
Ibid, pg. 58-60
27
Ibid, pg. 60
10
The ego is the unity of states and of actions… It is the unity of transcendent unities, and

itself transcendent. It is a transcendent pole of synthetic unity…” 28 This is to say that ego is

integrally linked to the reflection of consciousness, but is not equivalent to the reflected

unity of consciousness, but is a specific subset of this unity.

Sartre continues the distinction between the ego of the me and of the I. He writes

that “We readily acknowledge that the relation of the hatred to the particular Erlebnis of

repugnance is not logical. It is a magical bond, assuredly. But we have aimed only at

describing. Moreover, we will soon see that it is exclusively in magical terms that we should

speak of the relations of the me to consciousness.”29 This it to say that the relation of the me

to consciousness are not readily comprehensible, the relation exists essentially as a self-

transcendence that is experienced in the transcendence constituted by the transition from an

immediate unreflected experience to a state related to a self.

For Sartre, the constitution of the active I is more complicated. He writes, “the I is

not necessarily here, since it is never a direct unity of consciousnesses. One can even

suppose a consciousness performing a pure reflective act which delivers consciousness to

itself as a non-personal spontaneity.”30 Furthermore, “the ego is an irrational synthesis of

activity and passivity, it is a synthesis of interiority and transcendence. It is, in a sense, more

‘internal to’ consciousness than are states. This is precisely the interiority of the reflected

consciousness, contemplated by the reflective consciousness.” 31 The I, thus fundamentally

arises in reflection and is fundamentally synthetic in nature. The I is also the source of

activity and is acted upon as well. Furthermore, in agreement with Deleuze’s relegation of

the Ego to a second-order concept, Sartre writes of the ego, that:

It is the infinite totality of states and of actions which is never reducible to an action or to a
state… The ego… always appears at the horizon of states… if judgment separates the I
from its state, this can be only in order to bind them at once. The movement of separation
28
Ibid, pg. 60-61
29
Ibid, pg 68
30
Ibid, pg. 91
31
Ibid, pg. 83
11
 would end in an empty and false meaning if it were not given as incomplete, and if it did not
complete itself by a movement of synthesis.32

Furthermore, in the same section Sartre writes:

We begin therefore with this undeniable fact: each new state is fastened directly to the ego, as
to its origin. This mode of creation is indeed a creation ex nihilo, in the sense that the state is
not given as having formerly been in me… reflection intends a relation which traverses time
backwards and which give the me as the source of the state.33

And moreover, while the I, as an agent is possessed of a certain degree of spontaneity, its

spontaneity, as Sartre writes, is not of the same nature as the absolute spontaneity of

consciousness, for “the ego, being an object, is passive. It is a question, therefore, of a

pseudo-spontaneity which is suitably symbolized by the spurting of a spring…” 34

Thus, we may come to some preliminary conclusions regarding the Sartrean

conception of consciousness and its relation to the ego. (1) Consciousness is characterized

by absolute spontaneity and by intentionality. (2) The modality of consciousness is

predicated upon reflection. (3) Reflection implicates time as a determinant of the modality

of consciousness. (4) The ego is a modality of consciousness that occurs in reflection. (5)

The ego has two aspects: the me of states and the I of actions. (6) The ego is fundamentally

both active and passive in nature; the ego acts on the world and is acted upon. (7) The ego,

while existing fundamentally in the world, appears as coextensive with consciousness and

becomes subject.

Following these conclusions we may posit some consequences which are relevant to

the larger context of showing the affinities between Sartre and Deleuze on the matter of

consciousness. Fundamentally, we may now propose that if time is the element that enables

the constitution of the ego, to which temporality does this time belong to? Furthermore,

what would be the status of consciousness in the instant that divides past from present in

32
Ibid, pg 74-5
33
Ibid, pg. 77
34
Ibid, pg. 79
12
the Aion? And moreover, if I may allude to a conclusion I will draw later, in the fracture of

the I of which Deleuze writes in Difference and Repetition. What would the status of

consciousness be in “the instant without thickness and without extension, which subdivides

each present into past and future, rather than vast and thick presents which comprehend

both future and past in relation to one another?” 35 A fortiori, is there any possibility of an ego

in instantaneous consciousness? If not, who commits an action? Furthermore, what, for

Deleuze, is the structure that determines consciousness in general and in each moment?

Here we must pause in order to refine the terms in which Deleuze’s discussion takes

place. One will recall that earlier we defined the term haecceity, which in effect breaches the

self-evidence of modes of individuation. This is, as it were, that the modes of individuation

are not entirely pre-given or evident. Furthermore, one will also recall that the indefinite as

such is of a similar nature to a haecceity. The indefinite is also the impersonal. The a or one

rather than the or a definite article. Deleuze and Guattari write in A Thousand Plateaus, that

“Blanchot is correct in saying that ONE and HE – one is dying, he is unhappy – in no way

take the place of a subject, but instead do away with any subject in favor of an assemblage

of the haecceity type.”36 This is to say that coexisting with the subject, person or individual is

a multiplicity of singularities. Furthermore, this multiplicity of singularities to which we shall

return shortly still answers to the proper name. Consequently “the proper name does not

indicate a subject; nor does a noun take on the value of a proper name as a function of a

form or a species. The proper name fundamentally designates something that is of the order

of the event, of becoming or of the haecceity.” 37This would seem to imply that the pre-

personal individuation is a grouping of singularities to which correspond a proper name.

This is to say, more forcefully, that the name does not refer to the ego. The name refers to

something on the order of a life; an event, a multiplicity of singularities. The problem

35
Deleuze The Logic Of Sense, pg. 164
36
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, pg. 265
37
Ibid, pg. 264
13
remains, however, as to what form and nature of which this “instantaneous consciousness”

is possessed.

We will now return to Deleuze’s brief treatment of The Transcendence of the Ego to see

whether the footnote mentioned earlier would introduce significant change. Deleuze writes

in The Logic of Sense:

In fact, this bestowal of sense, on the basis of the immanent quasi-cause and the static
genesis which ensures for the other dimensions of the proposition, may occur only within a
transcendental field which would correspond to the conditions posed by Sartre in his
decisive article of 1937: an impersonal transcendental field, not having the form of a
synthetic personal consciousness or a subjective identity – with the subject on the contrary,
being always constituted. The foundation can never resemble what it founds. 38

It does not seem to use therefore that the problem is really advanced, insofar as Husserl
inscribes in the transcendental field centers of individuation and individual systems, monads,
and points of view, and Selves in the manner of Leibniz, rather than a form of the I in the
same manner. One finds there, nevertheless, as we shall see, a very important change. But
the transcendental field is no more individual than personal, and no more general than
universal… The idea of singularities, and this of anti-generalities, which are however
impersonal and pre-individual and must now serves as or hypothesis for the determination
of this domain and its genetic power.39

It is thus apparent that for Deleuze, his point of dispute with Sartre is as to the locus in

which the transcendental field appears. He writes in a note to the above cited sections that

“What hinders this thesis from developing all its consequences in Sartre’s work is that the

impersonal transcendental field is still determined as the field of a consciousness, and as

such it must the be unified by itself through a play of intentionalities or pure retentions.” 40

Thus Deleuze primarily disputes Sartre’s first conclusion, that “the Transcendental Field,

purified of all egological structure, recovers its primary transparency. In a sense, it is nothing,

since all physical, psycho-physical, and psychic object, all truths, all values are outside it; since

my me has itself ceased to be any part of it. But this nothing is all since it is consciousness of all

these objects.”41 This is to say that as Deleuze wrote in his last essay, the transcendental field,

despite seeming to be an impersonal consciousness, is radically other than consciousness and

38
The Logic of Sense, pp. 98-99
39
Ibid, pg. 99
40
Ibid, pg. 343-4
41
Sartre, pg. 93
14
interestingly, he writes that “were it not for consciousness, the transcendental field would be

defined as a pure plane of immanence, because it eludes all transcendence of the subject and

the object.”42 It would thus seem to follow that consciousness perturbs the plane of

immanence and thus disturbs the transcendental field.

One will recall that in Difference and Repetition consciousness is defined as a milieu in

which actualization takes place, and moreover, consciousness constitutes not the

representation of the transcendent object, but the double of said object. Consciousness is

the product of the actualization of virtuals in the series of space, time and consciousness. In

this section, Deleuze writes of “larval consciousnesses” and “elementary consciousnesses.”

This begs the question of whether Deleuze makes a strong distinction between

consciousness and the ego. Furthermore, if they are distinct, they seem to be constituted by

a similar spatio-temporal process. From the passage cited from the end of Chapter Four of

Difference and Repetition, it would seem that the interaction between the series of space and

time are generative of the event of consciousness. This is supported by Deleuze’s statement

that “Every spatio-temporal dynamism is accompanied by the emergence of an elementary

consciousness.”43 Moreover, we are led to the processes of perception and memory by virtue

of their relationship which is structurally analogous to the relationship between space and

time. They are different in kind, however through the intermediary of images, as Bergson

characterized it, they communicate on the same terms. 44 Two disparate series in

communication (which is what is here established) are generative of effects on the order of

events.

42
Deleuze, “Immanence: A Life…” pg. 26
43
Difference and Repetition, pg. 220
44
This is very similar to the move made by Bergson in the third chapter of Matter and Memory. Both immediate
present perceptions and memories that are retrieved from the virtual existence of the past yield images. While
Memory and Perception are qualitatively different for Bergson (as for Deleuze), by virtue of image formation,
they coexist in consciousness. Bergson writes: “from the moment that it becomes image, the past leaves the
state of pure memory and coincides with a certain part of my present. Memory actualized in an image differs,
then, profoundly from pure memory. The image is a present state, and its sole share in the past is the memory
from which it arose.” Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, Translated by N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer (New York:
Zone Books, 1991), pg 140
15
 We have yet to establish the significance of the footnote to The Transcendence of the

Ego. Even allowing for a strong distinction to be made by Deleuze between egos, selves and

consciousness, Deleuze seems at this point to not consider consciousness a philosophical

issue. Indeed, Deleuze leaves empty the probable locus of immediate consciousness, the

fracture in the I. Michel Foucault, in “Theatrum Philosophicum” writes of Deleuze that “We

must conceptualize not the synthesizing and synthesized subject but rather an

insurmountable fissure… The fissure of the I and the series of signifying points do not

form a unity that permits thought to be both subject and object, but they are themselves the

event of thought…””45 Here we encounter the difference between the two senses of the

term consciousness that Sartre notes in the afore-cited footnote. Deleuze and Foucault take

consciousness by definition to imply unity as a state of being. Moreover, they take the

unification of divergent series by consciousness to immediately result in the formation of an

ego and time slipping from Aion to Chronos. However, were time to be conceived as Aion, the

communication between two series would generate momentary consciousness. The difficulty

that Deleuze and Foucault sense, however, is the fact that given chronological time,

spontaneous consciousness invariably crystallizes in the form of an ego. This is a portion of

the thesis, the demonstration of which the second part of this paper will be dedicated.

Concisely stated, and founded upon this dual understanding of consciousness, space and

time, perception and memory, this proposition states: instantaneous and pre-personal

consciousness can be conceived of as the instantaneous synthesis or “local integration” of

two divergent series, which gives rise to a third series. The ego and personal consciousness

is for Deleuze the continuous synthesis or “global integration” of the series that gave rise to

consciousness. The fundamental difference between these two procedures will be seen in

detail when Deleuze’s mathematizations in Difference and Repetition and The Fold: Leibniz and the
45
Michel Foucault “Theatrum Philosophicum” in The Essential Works of Foucault Volume Two: Epistemology,
Method and Aesthetics Translated by Robert Hurley and Others, Edited by James Faubion (New York: The New
Press, 2000), pg. 353-4
16
Baroque are borne out. Thus the importance of the distinction between monadic

consciousness and states of consciousness and the importance of retaining such a

distinction will be seen. The character of instantaneous consciousness that will be derived

will illuminate the affinities between Deleuze and Sartre regarding consciousness. 1

In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze writes:

Once communication between heterogeneous series is established all sorts of consequences

follow within the system… Spatio-temporal dynamisms fill the system, expressing
simultaneously the resonance of the coupled series and the amplitude of the forced
movement which exceeds them. The system is populated by subjects, both larval subjects
and passive selves: passive selves because they are indistinguishable from the contemplation
of couplings and resonances; larval subjects because they are the supports or the patients of
the dynamisms.46

This is to say that spatio-temporal dynamisms are dynamic processes that play out in space

and time, that is, in the case of consciousness, perception and memory respectively. These

dynamisms then are generative of “larval subjects and passive selves.” Deleuze writes again

“Selves are larval subject; the world of passive synthesis constitutes the system of the self,

under conditions yet to be determined, but it is a system of a dissolved self. There is a self

wherever a furtive contemplation has been established… The self does not undergo

modifications, it is itself a modification – this term designating precisely the difference

drawn.”47

Furthermore, he continues in the conclusion to the same book, he writes that “the

self in the form of the passive self is only an event which takes place in pre-existing fields

of individuation: it contemplates and contracts the individuating factors of such fields, and

constitutes itself at the points of resonance of their series. Similarly, the I in the form of a

fractured I allows to pass all the Ideas defined by their singularities, themselves prior to fields

of individuation.”48 What then of the self located immediately at the fracture in the I and

situated at the threshold between past and future? Is this self passive or active? Furthermore,

46
Difference and Repetition, pg. 118
47
Ibid, pg. 78-79
48
Ibid, pg. 276-7
17
does it inevitably become ego?

Before we may proceed to answer this question and move to the next section of our

study, we must address in more detail the distinction between the different temporalities that

Deleuze sketches out and additionally their consequences. The issue has been raised that in

Difference and Repetition, Deleuze presents a set of three temporalities (passive synthesis of

habit, synthesis of memory and active synthesis of future) while in The Logic of Sense and

thereafter, there are simply two figures, Aion and Chronos. Both Aion and Chronos come to

stand for the third and first syntheses in Difference and Repetition, whereas the synthesis of

memory seems to be primarily a function of the temporality of Aion. Here we will briefly

sketch out these forms of temporality. The first synthesis of time is characterized by

Deleuze as the following: “this synthesis must be given a name: passive synthesis… It is not

carried out by the mind, but occurs in the mind which contemplates, prior to all memory and

all reflection. Time is subjective, but in relation to the subjectivity of a passive subject.

Passive synthesis or contraction is essentially asymmetrical: it goes from the past to the

future in the present, thus from the particular to the general, thereby imparting direction to

the arrow of time.”49 To this corresponds the character of Chronos by which this temporality

constitutes a living present, “in accordance with Chronos, only the present exists in time.”50

Interestingly, it is this synthesis that is generative of local egos and selves. Thus, local egos

and selves are inherently part of the living present. These are described by Deleuze in the

following extract: “Drives are nothing more than bound excitations. At the level of each

binding, an ego is formed in the Id; a passive, partial, larval, contemplative and contracting

ego. The Id is populated by local egos which constitute the time peculiar to the Id, the time

of the living present there where the binding integrations are carried out.” 51 Moreover,
49
Difference and Repetition, pg. 71
50
The Logic of Sense, pg. 162
51
Difference and Repetition, pg. 97 This form of time is analogous to Bergsonian duration. In Matter and Memory
Bergson writes that “there can be no question here of a mathematical instant. No doubt there is an ideal
present – a pure conception, the indivisible limit which separates past from future. But the real, concrete, live
present – that of which I speak when I speak of my present perception – that present necessarily occupies a
18
“Chronos is the regulated movement of vast and profound presents.” 52 Thus, the initial

generation of egos fundamentally takes place in the temporality of Chronos, and as such

illustrates why the synthesis is denoted as passive and the subjects created are passive. This is

simply the manner in which time is constitutive of selves, egos and identities. In The Logic of

Sense, Deleuze writes that “in accordance with Aion, only the past and future inhere or

subsist in time… [the present] is an instant without thickness and without extension, which

subdivides each present into past and future…” 53 Thus, Aion subsumes both the syntheses

of memory (because memory constitutes the being of the past) and the future (because this

third synthesis is the direct precursor in Deleuze to the temporality of Aion, as such) . The

third synthesis in Difference and Repetition constitutes time that “unfolds instead of things

unfolding within it… The synthesis is necessarily static, since time is no longer subordinated

to movement; time is the most radical form of change, but the form of change does not

change. The caesura, along with the before and after which it ordains once and for all,

constitutes the fracture in the I.”54 Corollary to this, in The Logic of Sense, Deleuze writes

“Aion is run through by the Instant which is endlessly displaced on this line and is always

missing from its own place… It is the pure moment of abstraction whose role is, primarily,

to divide and subdivide every present in both directions at once, into past-future, upon the

line of the Aion.”55

Essentially, we must assert that instantaneous consciousness takes place in the

temporality of the Aion. This consciousness is not, despite its similar constitutive process, the

same as the ego constituted by the integration of the local egos that inhere in the time of

Chronos. Consciousness itself does in fact inhere on the same plane as events. However, it is

quite evident that the constitution of an ego through the passage of time in the temporality

duration.” Pg 137
52
The Logic of Sense, pg. 163
53
Ibid, pg. 164
54
Difference and Repetition, pg. 88-89
55
The Logic of Sense, pg. 166
19
of Chronos naturally tends to overtake instantaneous consciousness because in Chronos it is

possible to continue based upon the past, whereas in the Aion, each moment of

consciousness is, to borrow Sartre’s phrase “a creation ex nihilo.” Thus it is only ever in the

temporality of Aion, in that infinitely short instant, that consciousness as such is present and

not obscured by the I.

What then is the content and character of this consciousness that inheres in the

Aion? A remark that Deleuze makes in Difference and Repetition is particularly useful in this

enterprise, that is, he writes “It is as though the I were fractured from one end to the other:

fractured by the pure and empty form of time. In this form it is the correlate of the passive

self which appears in time. Time signifies a fault or a fracture in the I and a passivity in the

self, and the correlation between the passive self and the fractured I constitutes the

discovery of the transcendental.”56 This is to say that the passive self of Chronos is essentially

correlated with the fractured I or consciousness that inheres therein. The nature of such a

correlation is left open for a short while, but the relation is readily shown some twelve pages

later, where Deleuze writes “The passive egos were already integrations, but only local

integrations, as mathematicians say; whereas the active self is an attempt at global

integration.”57 Thus we may see that the correlation is one of mutual presupposition, that is,

of a linked series. We can see here that both consciousness and the constitution of a self are

integrally related to the series that constitute it. Moreover, these series, as will be shown in

the next section, are not simple functions. Thus, consciousness is fundamentally active,

whereas it is the ego that doubles as active and passive. It is indeed intriguing to postulate in

what manner the discovery of the correlation between the active and passive self yields the

transcendental. The one question that has been left unanswered is whether consciousness

necessarily becomes ego. However, the ego is not consciousness. The ego co-exists with

56
Difference and Repetition, pg. 86
57
Ibid, pg 98
20
consciousness. However, consciousness does become subject. It will soon be shown that

pure consciousness is necessarily obscured in as the result of its constitution from dynamic

series, however, the spontaneity of consciousness is present as a trace.

II. The Constitution and Character of Monadic Consciousness

From 1967 onward, it becomes evident that the only form that an idea of

consciousness could take would be a model integrally related both to Leibniz’s monad and to

Sartrean alterity. Furthermore, it is also evident, as will be further demonstrated, while the

unconscious is differential in nature, consciousness is integrative. The integrative acts that

constitute consciousness operate on nothing less than the constitutive differential processes

of the unconscious. The passive perceptual and mnemic syntheses are constitutive of the

unconscious, where the active synthesis of memory and reality constitute consciousness as

such. In the further development of his conceptions of temporality in The Logic of Sense,

Chronological time applies to the unconscious whereas the temporality of Aion applies to

consciousness. The directional asymmetry of time is constituted as habitus in the

unconscious aspect, while the passage of time as such and the fracture in the I corresponds

to the presence of the Other and is constitutive of the monadic consciousness and identity

as such. It is also in the period of Deleuze’s writing that commences in 1967 that his

inspiration regarding perception ceases to be Bergson and shifts toward Leibniz. Thus,

beginning with the article, “Michel Tournier and the World Without Others,” which is

reprinted in The Logic of Sense, emphasis shifts from internal/qualitative differences and

duration toward difference as such and the constitution of the perceptual field by Others.

As discussed in the first section of this essay, every spatio-temporal dynamism is

constitutive of larval or local egos. Moreover, these dynamisms constitute differential

relations, the synthesis of which constitute the larval or local egos that constitute the

21
unconscious. Deleuze writes in “The Method of Dramatization,” originally published in

1967, that

Beneath organization and specification, we discover nothing more than spatio-temporal

dynamisms: that is to say, agitations of space, holes of time, pure syntheses of space,
direction and rhythms… These dynamisms always presuppose a field in which they are
produced, outside of which they would not be produced. This field is intensive, that is, it
implies differences of intensity attributed at different depths… Depth is the power of pure
unextended spatium; intensity is the only power of differentiation or the unequal in itself, and
intensity is already difference, of the type E-E’, where E in turn refers to e – e’, and e, to e –
e’, etc. Such an intensive field constitutes an environment of individuation… Dynamisms are
not absolutely subjectless, though the subjects they sustain are still only rough drafts… 58

These larval subjects are not necessarily the precursors to consciousness. It is only by an

active synthesis that these become consciousness, “Active synthesis is defined by the test of

reality in an ‘objectal’ relation… [according to this] the Ego tends to ‘be activated’, to be

actively unified, to unite all its small composing and contemplative passive egos…” 59 Thus,

the passive syntheses do not necessitate the active, however, the active presuppose the

passive. Thus, for Deleuze, the unconscious is ontologically prior to consciousness. This is

the primary point of divergence between Deleuze and Sartre, beyond this, they will be

shown to be in fundamental agreement.

It is a paradox found in Henri Bergson’s Matter and Memory that will up our present

examination of consciousness. The paradox, in short, states that the given always exceeds

consciousness, yet consciousness can always exceed the immediately given. Bergson writes

“While reality, in so far as it is extended, appears to us to overpass infinitely the bounds of

our perception, in our inner life that alone seems to us to be real which begins with the

present moment; the rest is practically abolished. Then, when a memory reappears in

consciousness… In truth, the adherence of this memory to our present condition is exactly

comparable to, the adherence of unperceived objects to those objects which we perceive;

and the unconscious plays in each a similar part.”60 This is to say that monadological

58
Desert Islands, pg 96-7
59
Difference and Repetition, pg 98
60
Bergson Matter and Memory, pg. 145
22
consciousness takes in less and represents more than the given simultaneously. Deleuze

pushes this paradox further in Difference and Repetition, when he writes

Now, the former present cannot be represented in the present one without the present one
itself being represented in that representation… The present and former presents are no,
therefore, like two successive instants on the line of time; rather the present one necessarily
contains an extra dimension in which it represents the former and also represents itself. The
present present is treated not as the future object of memory but as that which reflects itself
at the same time as it forms the memory of the former present. Active synthesis, has two
correlative - albeit non-symmetrical - aspects: reproduction and reflection, remembrance and
recognition, memory and understanding…. Reflection implies something more… this
supplementary dimension in which every present reflects itself as present while at the same
time representing the former.61

This is to say that for Deleuze, the possibility of memory necessarily implies that the

capacity of representation in a given moment is necessarily greater than the capacity for pure

perception. If the capacity of pure perception were to be the total of representation, then

memory would be impossible. The empirical fact of memory implies that representation

necessarily exceeds the given in the moment, while implying nothing about the capacity of

representation as such. Because both memory and perception are abstractions from the

world of sensation, they differ both qualitatively and quantitatively from the world itself.

Deleuze’s mathematization of difference enables us to draw further consequences regarding

the nature of the momentary present and consciousness in that present. Moreover, in

collaboration with Felix Guattari toward the end of their lives, he writes in What is

Philosophy? “It is true that this very opposition between scientific and philosophical,

discursive and intuitive, and extensional and intensive multiplicities, is also appropriate for

judging the correspondence between science and philosophy, their possible collaboration,

and the inspiration of one by the other.”62 Thus, it is not in any way inconceivable that

pursuing Deleuze’s insights into perception and memory via his mathematization of

difference and his discussions of the differential/integral nature of perception, memory and

representation/consciousness would yield significant conclusions that would translate back

61
Difference and Repetition, pg 80-1
62
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell,
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), pg 127
23
into important philosophical insights that are already implicit, albeit in larval form in

Deleuze’s purely philosophical work.

On one important page in Difference and Repetition, Deleuze writes that:

Both the I and the Self are figures of differenciation. The I forms the properly psychic
determination of species, while the Self forms the psychic organization… The differences
included within the I and the Self are, without doubt, borne by individuals: nevertheless,
they are not individual or individuating to the extent that they are understood in relation to
this identity in the I and this resemblance in the Self. By contrast every individuating factor is
already difference and difference of difference. It is constructed upon a fundamental
disparity, and functions on the edges of that disparity as such. That is why these factors
endlessly communicate with one another across fields of individuation, becoming enveloped
in one another in a demesne which disrupts the matter of the Self as well as the form of the
I. Individuation is mobile, strangely supple, fortuitous and endowed with fringes and
margins; all because the intensities which contribute to it communicate with each other,
envelop other intensities and are in turn enveloped. The individual is far from indivisible,
never ceasing to divide and change its nature.63

This is to say that Deleuze is, as mentioned earlier, fundamentally in agreement with Sartre

that the self and the I are constituted rather that constitutive. Moreover, Deleuze takes this

further than Sartre was willing and asserts that neither the self nor the I are individual or

individuating, it constitutes an event inscribed upon the plane of immanence through

differentiation and then actualized by differenciation. The self, the I, the ego, consciousness,

as it were, is constituted by the interrelation of divergent series. Deleuze writes in Difference

and Repetition, that

The principle of differential philosophy must be the object of a rigorous exposition, and
must in no way depend on the infinitely small. The symbol dx appears as simultaneously
undetermined, determinable and determination. Three principles which together form a
sufficient reason correspond to these three aspects: [1] a principle of determinability
corresponds to the undetermined as such (dx, dy); [2] a principle of reciprocal determination
corresponds to the really determinable (dy/dx); [3] a principle of complete determination
corresponds to the effectively determined (values of dy/dx). In short, dx is the Idea… the
problem and its being.”64

This is to say that Deleuze mathematizes difference in such a way that later, in The Fold and

What is Philosophy? he can assert strongly that not only is the self a different/ciation, but

perception and memory are at their most rudimentary level Ideas and as such, differential

relations of thought to the world. Difference as such, dx, dy, etc is undefined in isolation.
63
Difference and Repetition, pg 257
64
Ibid, pg 171
24
However, the “principle of reciprocal determination” allows thought to differentiate itself

from the field in which it is inscribed. At the most rudimentary level, simple perception

differentiates the perceiver from the perceived. The perceiver is in a relation dp/dx65 to the

perceived world. Moreover, insofar as memory is the retention of a past perception and its

representation in thought, memory can be seen as in the relation dm/dx to the world.

Fundamentally, as Deleuze writes, that with respect to themselves, the differentials are

undetermined: “The whole problem, however, lies in the signification of these zeros… it is

not the differential quantities which are cancelled in dy/dx or 0/0 but rather the individual

and the individual relations within the function… In short, the limit must be conceived not

as the limit of a function but as a genuine cut, a border between the changeable and the

unchangeable within the function itself…. dx and dy are completely undifferenciated, in the

particular and the general, but completely differentiated in and by the universal.” 66 This limit

about which Deleuze writes, is precisely the break between differences, the perceiver and the

perceived, the self and the world, the self and the other; the break between the perception

or memory and the world from which it was different/ciated.

It is here that, of necessity, we must break with a straightforward reading of the text

of Difference and Repetition to examine the manner in which Deleuze develops this

understanding of difference in the particular context of perception in The Fold: Leibniz and

the Baroque. It is not insignificant that in What is Philosophy? Deleuze, with Guattari writes that

“The concept of the other person goes back to Leibniz, to his possible world and the

monad as expression of the world.”67 It is the Leibnizian concept of the monad that refers

us back to Sartre’s footnote; that the monad is one aspect that composes Sartre’s

interpretation of the German Bewusstsein, which is not completely retained in the term
65
This notation, where dp refers to the differentiation of perception and dm refers to memory and dc refers to
consciousness, will be developed further, until that which these are differentiated against in the world is
properly explicated, the latter will be referred to as dx, in order that this notation conforms as closely as
possible to that used by Deleuze.
66
Ibid, pg 172
67
What is Philosophy, pg 17
25
consciousness. The first and most important character of the monad, which is in perfect

accordance with its definition by way of the differenciation of difference in a reciprocal

determination is that “as an individual unit each monad includes the whole series; hence it

conveys the entire world, but does not express it without expressing more clearly a small region of

the world… a finite sequence.”68 This means that although each monad expresses the totality of

the world, it is, to a certain extent localizable; the clarity of expression depends upon a

multiplicity of factors, but primary among these is spatio-temporal localization. The monad

expresses most clearly the region of the world that it inhabits and its vicinity in proportion

to its spatiality and temporality. That which is distant but simultaneous with respect to the

monad is expressed less clearly than that which is closer or at a temporal distance

proportionate to its spatial distance. This is due to the fact that the “world [goes] to the

subject, at the cost of a torsion that causes the monad to exist currently only in subjects, but

that makes subjects all relate to this world as if to the virtuality they actualize.” 69 Thus, it is

that monads instantiated in subjects are related to the world as an “infinite curve… the

convergent series of all series”70 by a relation to the a-subjective world that fundamentally

related to space and time. Moreover, if we interpret, as is warranted, that the mode of

relation between the instantiated monad and the world is first, and foremost, one of

perception, then we can define spatiality in terms of temporality because the speed of

perception is limited by the velocity of data transmission as opposed to the infinite speed

and chaos of the world as such. Thus, we may rewrite dp/dx and dm/dx as dp/dt and dm/dt,

that is, perception and memory are differentiations from the world as virtual and the

subsequent integration of each , first with regard to time/space and thence with regard to

each other to form the pseudo-unity of a self. Thus, mathematically, we can write Deleuze’s

68
Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque Translated by Tom Conley (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1993), pg 25
69
Ibid, pg 26
70
Ibid, pg 22
26
skeletal definition of the monadic self and consciousness as:

∫ (∫ dp + ∫ dm)dp
Put simply, that representative consciousness is the attempt at a global integration, in terms

of time, of the perceptive and mnemic series that constitute in the unconscious, the ‘space’

of consciousness. However, this skeletal form tells us little of the nature of this

consciousness. However, despite the shift that is apparent between a Bergsonian

understanding of memory and perception toward a Leibnizian one, Bergson himself

provides the necessary connective, that is, he writes “Now, if it be true that we never

perceive anything but our immediate past, if our consciousness of the present is already

memory, the two terms which had been separated to begin with cohere closely together.” 71

Moreover, Brian Massumi writes in Parables for the Virtual, that “perception of form is

already, virtually, a memory. Perception is an intensive movement back into and out of an

abstract ‘space’ of experiential previousness.” 72 This view is furthered by the experimental

psychological data that Massumi cites regarding a lag-time between an event and its

conscious perception, this is to say, perception and memory, while qualitatively different,

refer to the same substratum of experience. Perception refers solely to the actual, whereas

memory refers to the once-actual and now virtual. Both consist primordially as a differential

relation to the world. Of perception, Deleuze writes in The Fold,

All consciousness is a matter of threshold… If we take thresholds to be so many minimal

units of consciousness, tiny perceptions are in each instance smaller than the virtual
minimum and, in this sense, are infinitely small. The ones selected in each order are those engaged in
differential relations, and hence they produce the quality that issues forth at the given threshold
of consciousness. Inconspicuous perceptions are thus not parts of conscious perception,
but requisites or genetic elements… Far from having perception presuppose an object
capable of affecting us… the reciprocal determination of the differentials dy/dx brings
about the complete determination of the object as a perception, and the determinability of
space-time as a condition.73

And furthermore:
71
Bergson, Matter and Memory, pg 151
72
Massumi, Parables for the Virtual, pg 197
73
Deleuze, The Fold, pg 88-9
27
 Differential relations always select minute perceptions that play a role in each case, and bring to light or
clarify the conscious perception that cones forth. Thus differential calculus is the psychic
mechanism of perception…74

Consequently, it is not that perceptions resemble their objects, but that perception abstracts

from the world and then reconstitutes it virtually in consciousness. Virtually, because when a

perception is received by consciousness, it is no longer actual, it has become past. Memory,

which, is to consciousness a virtual reconstitution of the past, is thus structurally analogous

to perception. Thus we can re-write the prior equation as

∫ 2(∫ dp)dp
This is to state mathematically that memory and perception are structurally analogous and

derived from the same substrate, they may be considered to both be differentiated and

integrated with respect to the same element.

Here it is possible to modify Bergson’s famous representation of memory as a cone

its apex at consciousness with a more complex figure representing the fundamental

interrelatedness of perception and memory.

The use of the figure of a cone is suggested at once by the fundamentally directional nature

of perception and its fundamental relation to time. We can perceive no faster than the data

74
Ibid, pg 90
28
of the world can be transmitted to us, with the greatest possible speed being that of light. In

this way, perception, for science, necessarily actualizes the virtual in such a way as to

transmute primordial chaos into order; it takes stock of a state of affairs. “In general, a state

of affairs does not actualize a chaotic virtual without taking from it a potential that is

distributed in the system of coordinates.” 75 Whereas, for philosophy, Deleuze and Guattari

write, “perception does not transmit any information here, but circumscribes a (sympathetic

or antipathetic) affect.”76 However, it is the scientific model here that is of interest, that “a

well-defined observer extracts everything that it can, everything that can be extracted in the

corresponding system. In short, the role of a partial observer is to perceive and to

experience…”77 This is to say that perception, as a function of time, has as it’s given the total

volume of the cone that is commensurate to the directional field of perception. Although

perception is not that of a single sense or strictly uni-directional, the model here presented is

based upon the human field of vision, in which a 135° field of vision will be assumed. 78

Thus, a perception is given first as the differential with respect to time of the given in

relation to the totality of the given. Thus the volume of the perceptual cone is given by:

θ
π (t tan( )) 3
Pgiven = 2
3

and a perception given by the equation:

θ
3π (t (tan( )) 2
d 2 θ
( Pgiven ) = = π (t (tan( )) 2 dt
dt 3 2

Thus, perception with regard to the totality of the given is:

1 θ
dp / dt = dt = = π t (tan ) − 2 dt
θ 2
π ( t (tan( )) 2
2
75
What is Philosophy?, pg 122
76
ibid, pg 132
77
Ibid, pg 130
78
This is accounting for the inefficiency of peripheral vision.
29
Thus, perception is at first a fraction of the given, which is smaller with respect to the given,

the more spatio-temporally distant the perception is from the point of observations. It is the

same with memory, generally, the more distant the memory, the fainter it becomes and the

smaller the proportion of the totality of memory it constitutes, even though it carries along

with it, much like perception, the entirety of the world. These formulas denote the regions

of the world expressed most clearly in the monadic consciousness. This conceptualization

of perception neglects that which is perceived, and only denotes the pure capacity for the

determination of the contents of perceptual consciousness.

Especially pertinent to our present discussion, Massumi writes that “This total field

of experience is self-intensifying in the sense that it continually folds back on itself to add

variations to itself, as part of the same movement by which it sorts itself out: its integration

and differentiation always going together, for a total field.” 79 Thus, perception and therefore

memory each re-integrated in a passive synthesis which is generative of the local egos and

larval subjects; these are plural, because every perception or memory implies, as a differential

relation generated by spatio-temporal dynamics, a local ego. The population of local egos is

constitutive of the unconscious. Moreover, the perceptual or mnemic awareness that

constitutes the series of local egos is given by the following:

∫ 2.414π (t )
−2
Clocal = dt = − 2.414π (t ) − 1 + C

Thus, the combined series of memory and perception is:

Cm* p = (Clocal ) 2 = 5.827π (t ) − 2 + C

And finally, if we regard consciousness as a whole in the form presented above,

C= ∫ 5.827π (t ) − 2 dt + C = 5.827π 2 (t ) − 1 + C
2

Thus, in order to determine the instantaneous capacity of consciousness, we must evaluate

the above equation at and as we approach the fracture in the I, which is, in principle, t=0. At
79
Massumi, pg 158
30
the fracture or break, consciousness is completely undetermined, and as the fracture is

approached from either the side of perception or memory, the capacity of consciousness is

infinite. At the same time that the virtual capacity of consciousness becomes infinite, the

actual content of consciousness becomes null. This we may then compare to Sartre’s

conception of consciousness above. This conclusion is in excellent agreement with Sartre’s

idea of consciousness, because, like in Sartre, consciousness only becomes determinate

through temporality. Time is fundamentally constitutive for a determinate self, identity or

ego. Thus, we may also conclude that in both perception and memory, there is a

fundamentally creative, or in Massumi’s words, hallucinatory, element that supplements the

reciprocal determination of perception, memory and consciousness, with their contents or

the world. The perceiving, remembering and active self is fundamentally creative. Thus, the

Bergsonian paradox is resolved, in that perception and memory take in less than the actually

given, but by virtue of this creative aspect, in themselves and in relation to one another

necessarily and virtually exceed the given.

There is one further point of convergence between Deleuze and Sartre. This

convergence runs to the heart of Deleuze’s work. This convergence is discussed primarily in

the article “Michel Tournier and the World Without Others,” reprinted in The Logic of Sense

and in What is Philosophy?, and is touched upon in Difference and Repetition. This is specifically

the structural role played by the Other. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze writes “There

must be centers of envelopment which testify to the presence of individuating factors… a

structure belonging to the I-Self system. This structure should be designated by the name

‘other’… The other who is nobody, but who is self for the other and the other for the self

in two systems… [which] expresses a possible world.” 80 The Other is structurally similar to

the self, only that it expresses a different world. It is the differences between possible worlds

which Deleuze and Guattari argue “leads us to consider the components of this [perceptual]
80
Difference and Repetition, pg 260
31
field in a new way… it is the condition of all perception.” 81 The structure of the Other

constitutes the element other than the self that determines the perceptual and experiential

field. Without this structure, the perceptual field would be doubled by the monadic self. In

“Michel Tournier…” Deleuze writes “the Other is initially a structure of the perceptual field

without which the entire field could not function as it does.” 82 The Other disturbs the self

from its indeterminacy in the moment and “causes consciousness to tip necessarily into an ‘I

was’, into a pas which no longer coincides with the object. Before the appearance of the

Other, there was, a reassuring world from which my consciousness could not be

distinguished.”83 This is to say that the structural other produces both the spatiality of the

perceptual field and the temporality of the fractured I. Thus without the Other, time as Aion,

could not be. The other necessarily dislodges the self from the present and results in a

perpetual displacement. This is to say that the structure of the other is necessary for the

spatio-temporal field to have any actuality. However, we are here forced into a speculation: if

the Other is structurally constitutive of the spatio-temporal field for the self while all

individuation follows from dynamisms of the same spatio-temporal continuum, to what

extent is the Other, really other? It would seem that the other, like the self, is but another

pre-individual singularity immanent to the impersonal transcendental field that follows a

different line of different/ciation.

81
What is Philosophy?, pg 18
82
The Logic of Sense, pg 307
83
Ibid, pg. 308
32
 Bibliography
Henri Bergson Matter and Memory, Translated by N.M. Paul and W.S. Palmer (New York:
Zone Books, 1988)

Gilles Deleuze Bergsonism, Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam (New
York: Zone Books, 1991)

Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974, Translated by Michael Taormina Edited by
David Lapoujade (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2004)

Difference and Repetition, Translated by Paul Patton (New York, Columbia University
Press, 1994)

Pure Immanence: Essays on a Life, Translated by Anne Boyman, with an introduction by

John Rajchman (New York: Zone Books, 2001)

The Logic of Sense, Translated by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, Edited by
Constantin V. Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)

The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque Translated by Tom Conley (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1993)

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia Volume
Two, Translated by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1987)

What is Philosophy Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell, (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994)

Michel Foucault “Theatrum Philosophicum” in The Essential Works of Foucault Volume Two:
Epistemology, Method and Aesthetics Translated by Robert Hurley and Others, Edited by
James Faubion (New York: The New Press, 2000)

Brian Massumi, Parables For the Virtual (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002)

Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego, Translated and annotated with an introduction
by Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick (New York: Hill and Wang, 1960)

33
1
“This field can not be determined as that of a consciousness. Despite Sartre’s attempt, we cannot retain consciousness
as a milieu while at the same time we object to the form of the person and the point of vie of individuation. A consciousness is
nothing without a synthesis of unification, but there is no synthesis of unification of consciousness without the form of the I,
or the point of view of the Self. “ D&R pg 102
“On this point, Sartre’s objections are decisive. But is it no more possible to preserve for it the form of consciousness,
even if we define this impersonal consciousness by means of pure intentionalities and retentions, which still presuppose centers
of individuation. The error of all efforts to determine the transcendental as consciousness is that they think of the
transcendental in the image of, and in the resemblance to, that which it is supposed to ground. “ pg 105
“By comparing the primary effects of the Other’s presence and those of his absence, we are in a position to say what
the Other is. The error of philosophical theories is to reduce the Other sometimes to a particular object, and sometimes to
another subject. (Even a conception like Sartre’s in Being and Nothingness, was satisfied with the union of the two determinations,
making of the Other an object of my gaze, even if he in turn gazes at me and transforms me into an object.) “ Pg 307
“An Outside, more distant than any exterior, is ‘twisted’, ‘folded’ and ‘doubled’ by an Inside that is deeper than any
interior, and alone creates the possibility of the derived relation between the interior and exterior. It is even this twisting which
defined ‘Flesh’, beyond the body proper and its objects. In brief, the intentionality of being is surpassed by the fold of Being,
Being as fold. (Sartre, on the other hand, remained at the level of intentionality, because he was content to make ‘holes’ in being,
without reaching the fold of Being) Intentionality is still generated in a Euclidean space that prevents it from understanding
itself, and must be surpassed by another, ‘topological’, space which establishes contact between the Outside and the Inside, the
most distant and the most deep.” Pg. 110 Deleuze – Foucault
“Sartre said that each dream and dream-image differed from a continual state of hypnosis or the ordinary state of
being awake in that it inhabited its own special world. Foucault statements are like these dreams: each one has its own special
object or world.” Pg. 8
“Sartre readily likened the existence of human beings to the non-being of a ‘hole’ in the world: little lakes of
nothingness he called them.” Pg. 77 Desert Islands
At least Sartre allows us to await some vague future moment, a return, when thought will form again and make its
totalities anew, like a power that is at once collective and private. This is why Sartre remains my teacher.” Pg 79
“Even Sartre was content to inscribe this oscillation in the object as such, in showing that the other became object
when I became subject, and did not become subject unless I in turn became object.” Pg. 260 Difference and Repetition.