Introduction: Phenomenon and Difference
François Laruelle
From Phénomène et différence: essai sur l’ontologie de Ravaisson (Paris: Éditions Klincksieck, 1971), p.9-11.
Translated by Jeremy R. Smith
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Difference is nothing but the theme of this essay, not its thesis or its concept. Difference is not posed here but sought: what is the element of difference or its milieu of origin? This element is progressively liberated as that which not only excludes representation (the concept) but also the empirical given: difference is not an original philosophical concept unless it is inscribed in an originary milieu, below the disjunction of the concept and the empirical. In parallel to this originary being of difference, the way of liberating it cannot be one of position or the conceptual thesis. It proceeds through sketches, in an approach of thought aligned with phenomenology and one that responds to the sought, rather than found, character of difference. Here, difference is the object of a quasi-poetics grounded on the reprisal of a few Ravaissonian texts on art. It is progressively extracted from the phenomenon, from which it is sketched, as that which destroys the transcendental interpretation of the phenomenon and manifestation. The couple of difference and expression is liberated rather than constructed, as that which – in the combat between the phenomenon and difference, manifestation and expression – can be turned against transcendental subjectivity and fundamental ontology, to the extent where the latter begins by grounding itself in the former.
Despite his vapidity, his unsupportable and so barely modern sweetness, Ravaisson is the most Nietzschean in the lineage of pre-Bergsonians. Such at least I have implemented it, seeking affirmation and positivity within the reclamation of the sensible concrete, expression within the manifestation of the absolute, and even – pushing re-interpretation beyond reasonable limits – something like the eternal return within the serpentine circularity that makes up the essence of life and grace: the eternal return of grace and beauty…It was inevitable to find within Ravaisson these elements under the form of a quasi-poetics: leading to the critique of Platonism and representation within the concept, the exclusion of negativity and the affirmation of the positive in each being, the definitive refusal of the dialectic, an ontology of expression and the productive circularity of difference. But is this whole modernity in Ravaisson? This objection makes no sense for those who have understood what “being” means. Being is the unique object that calls and supports the violence of re-interpretation. A blessed violence: what use would thinkers be if they didn’t make us think freely? Is their lot not more encouraging for us to be the martyrs of contemporary thought rather than the relics of its museum? Besides, Ravaisson has been so constantly forgotten within the history of philosophy or so poorly treated as the simple mediation between Aristotle and Bergson that his memory owes no debt to history. He belongs to thinkers (Bergson, Heidegger) who pleased themselves to its discretion and its height. Ravaisson is not a “link,” an intermediary in the commerce of philosophers. He is an inspirer, the complete typ of the philosopher-martyr who lets himself be devoured by those who want to become his children.
The thought sketched through some of his texts on the expression of the absolute within art is an onto-theo-phany rather than an onto-theo-logy. The transcendental conception of manifestation is here replaced by what we called “the immediate givens of manifestation.” This immediacy is the immediacy of difference, this manifestation is identical with expression. However, difference can only be liberated within a double combat, both on the front of the phenomenological interpretation of appearing and on the front of an empiricist philosophy of difference. Difference emerges from the element of the concrete, the originary synthesis below any disjunction proper to the history of metaphysics: difference is undoubtedly excluded by Platonism, but also by the anti-Platonism that does not exit from the scission of the concept and the empirical, so barely favorable to a thought of difference. This is why it is sought on the side of the phenomenon rather than on the side of the simulacrum, but from an phenomenon that is no longer conceived through phenomenology: to the extent where phenomenology despite itself envelops dialectical movements foreign to a thought of expression. Difference as “ambiguity” possesses a polemical value with regard to dialectical difference conceived through Identity, and the ontico-ontological difference that has not succeeded in surmounting its origin within the transcendental, within the dialectical element of thought and within negativity. The polemical function of ambiguity and expression must be liberated and isolated from within the Ravaissonian sweetness and elevated to the height of a principle of critique against any ontology with subjective and transcendental fundaments. This critical value of difference is undoubtedly a permanent trait within the philosophical tradition, but the object that undergoes the shock and passion of difference is new: no longer the cogito but the being-there and transcendental interpretation of Being, or, again, the originary ego and the immanent ontological subjectivity of the philosophy of “the essence of manifestation.” At least in its ends, this critique does not directly respond to subjective intentions: it is rather a critique of subjectivity, even if it were elevated to the dignity of pure subjectivity. The thought of difference responds to the aim of one empiricism – but of this “superior empiricism” sought by Schelling and which animates Ravaisson’s thought, above all when it is turned against Schelling. The superior empiricism of difference refutes as secretly dialectical transcendental phenomenology and transcendental ontology, and as abstract the empiricism that is defined first by anti-Platonism and the opposition to the concept. Against the implicit rationalism of the first and against the abstract empiricism of the second, it seeks on the bias of difference this philosophy of contingency ceaselessly reconstructing since The Critique of Judgment and which is nothing other than the authentic philosophical empiricism, the one that is still sought for without being given within the metaphysical tradition. This is why difference is here grasped first in its critical power, as an instrument of combat against the phenomenon interpreted on transcendental bases: Phenomenon and Difference is not a solution, it is the programme of one Idea. Here, this Idea is only sketched through Ravaissonian material, which is therefore never considered for itself or within the perspective of an historical examination.
This free essay formulated concerning Ravaisson rather than its subject was written and defended as a thesis of the third cycle before I knew of the remarkable works that we know about the concept of difference. It was therefore unable to take advantage of it in principle, but only in some of its developments (Introduction, etc…) which were added to the initial text or nuanced differently. This labor of adjustment was imposed to the extent where the difference here in question is distinguished from any “empiricist” conception of difference and fell within that which should be called an “onto-theo-phany.” Phenomenon and Difference is nothing but another version of the original title: The Immediate Givens of Manifestation and its content: the critique of transcendental ontology by means of a thought of expression and difference grounded on art.
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