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Complementarity
Anti-Epistemology after Bohr and Derrida
By Arkady Plotnitsky Duke University Press
Copyright © 1994 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-7950-8
CHAPTER 1
General Economy 1: Bataille
Genealogies
General economy is the theoretical mode developed by Bataille in response to the ideas and discoveries that both defy traditional thinking and define modern intellectual history. Beyond Bataille's own insights concerning the conditions demanding such a new—anti-epistemological—theoretical mode, these developments include the work of Nietzsche, with whom Bataille felt a particular affinity and who is the single most important presence in Bataille's writing; modernist literature and art, especially the works of Proust, Joyce, Blanchot, the surrealists, and the Cubists; the modern social sciences such as economicsand anthropology; psychoanalysis; and modern mathematics and science. Bataille's ambition and ability to interrelate these diverse frameworks and fields enabled him to practice this discursive multiplicity in his writing and extend general economy into a very broadly conceived theory—antiepistemology—of social, historical, and political, or politico-economic, processes. Responding to the conditions, including those of his own experience and writing, no longer accountable for in classical terms, Bataille conceived of and practiced a complex variety of discursive modes, styles, and genres. General economy is what, according to Bataille, theory could be under these conditions.
The genealogy of general economy is complex and multilinear. Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and modern anthropology, as developed by Emil Durkheim, Marcel Mauss and Claude Levi-Strauss, appear to be its most significant sources. One can argue, however, that Bataille's work on general economy was significantly influenced by modern science and, specifically, quantum physics, often directly invoked by Bataille himself. Considerable textual evidence is available to support this claim: the relevant references, ideas, and metaphors permeate Bataille's texts. In historical terms, Bataille developed and refined his theoretical ideas more or less simultaneously with Bohr's development of complementarity. There is, however, a curious bit of historical evidence, by way of a footnote—an acknowledgment (in either sense)—in The Accursed Share: "Here I must thank my friend Georges Ambrosino, research director of the X-Ray Laboratory, without whom I could not have constructed this book. Science is never the work of one man; it requires an exchange of views, a joint effort. This book is also in large part the work of Ambrosino. I personally regret that the atomic research in which he participates has removed him, for a time, from research in 'general economy.' I must express the hope that he will resume in particular the study he has begun with me of the movements of energy on the surface of the globe" (The Accursed Share, 191 n. 2; La Part maudite, 54 n. 1).
Both historically and theoretically, then, one can ascertain not only the general economic character of quantum mechanics, particularly Bohr's complementarity, but also a kind of "quantum mechanical" and complementary character of general economy. Genealogies of both ideas overlap. It is true that one can equally relate Bataille's conception to thermodynamic—entropic—theories. Insofar, however, as the interactions with, and the metaphorical models based on, physics are concerned,the more radical anti-epistemological implications of general economy connect it to quantum theory. For, as will be seen, general economy entails more radical statistics—a deeper stochasticity and something deeper than stochasticity—analogous to quantum physics, or to certain anti-epistemological interpretations of this physics, such as Bohr's. As Deleuze has pointed out in Nietzsche and Philosophy, the indeterminacy of Nietzschean play, which is one of Bataille's key sources, is far more radical than the statistical dreams of chemistry or thermodynamics or, by implications, of any classical model. More generally, the theories whose metaphorical models are based on classical physics—whether Newton's mechanics, classicalstatistical physics such as thermodynamics, special or general relativity, (some versions of) chaos theory, or more classically conceived quantum theories—appear to be restricted economies—epistemologies rather than anti-epistemologies. More recent examples would include Foucault's, Deleuze's (his own or with Guattari), and Michel Serres's economies, many recent applications of chaos and complexity theories, and Adorno's earlier metaphorical economy of force-field (Kraftfeld). Deleuze's analysis in Foucault shows how classical geometry and physics function in Foucault's economy. It can be shown, however, that Foucault's geometry of force is still a restricted economy, as are "geometries" developed in Deleuze's own works, such as A Thousand Plateaus and The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, even though Deleuze uses complex mathematical models, such as Riemann spaces, which are also the basis of Einstein's general relativity. More classical, restricted-economic interpretations of quantum mechanics, or of Bohr's views, are also possible and have been advanced throughout the history of quantum physics. The argument of this study is for the general economic character of Bohr's complementarity and, conversely, the complementary character of general economy.
Bataille's ideas have had a major impact upon recent anti-epistemological developments and throughout modern intellectual history. One can trace his influence across poststructuralist theory—in the work of Lacan, Deleuze, Foucault, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Irigaray, Cixous, and many others, most of whom commented on Bataille's significance for their work and elaborated on Bataille's ideas directly. Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of capitalism and schizophrenia in Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus may be seen as, among other things, a recasting or translation of Bataille's The Accursed Share, which may itself be seen as, among other things, an analogous recasting of Marx's Capital. The Accursed Share is invoked at the outset of Anti-Oedipus (4), and one can trace its significance throughout Deleuze and Guattari's work. Derrida's work, however, offers arguably the most radically anti-epistemological application of the principles of general economy.
Definitions
According to Bataille, the general economy is a "science"—a theoretical framework and a textual practice—by means of which one can relate to the production, material or intellectual, of excesses that cannot be utilized. As he writes:
The science of relating the object of thought to sovereign moments, in fact is only a general economy which envisages the meaning of these objects in relation to each other and finally in relation to the loss of meaning. The question of this general economy is situated on the level of political economy, but the science designated by this name is only a restricted economy—restricted to commercial values. In question is the essential problem for the science dealing with the use of wealth.
The general economy, in the first place, makes apparent that excesses of energy are produced, which by definition cannot be utilized. The excessive energy can only be lost without the slightest aim, consequently without any meaning. This useless, senseless loss is sovereignty. (Méthode de Méditation; Oeuvres Complètes 5, 215-16; emphasis added)
Sovereignty can, thus, be defined in very general terms, although one also can and must, as Bataille does, consider it in relation to specific individual and social practices. By the same token, general economy cannot be confined to the analysis of the structural matter of loss of representation in a formal system. That it must relate to irreducible losses in representation and meaning in any interpretive or theoretical process remains, however, a decisive determination of any general economy. This determination introduces a fundamental indeterminacy, a kind of structural "vagueness" or "more-or-less-ness" within all (non)systems it considers. This loss and indeterminacy—and the multiplicity that results from them—would characterize any general economy—in philosophy, the human or social sciences, literary or critical theory, or (in their theoretical aspects) literature or art itself, psychoanalysis, or the natural and exact sciences. Thus, the loss in the content of observation or measurement makes quantum mechanics a general economic theory, thereby also prohibiting the strict continuity and causality upon which the classical theories are based. The (sovereign) operation itself—the relation to loss—is thus formalizable, and it defines a potentially broad class of theories in various fields.
Although the significance of Marx's political economy is immediately apparent in Bataille's definition just cited and is pronounced throughout Bataille's work, Bataille's general economy is equally opposed to, or is an ambivalent displacement of, both Marx's political economy and Hegelian dialectic. Dialectic of master and slave in the Phenomenology is often directly engaged by Bataille, but general economy relates even more significantly to Hegel's dialectic as an overall (restricted) conceptual economy. The latter provides a kind of universal philosophical model of meaning, particularly conscious meaning, to which Hegel gave an historical and, therefore, also political character. At issue in Bataille is always a general economy (in either sense of the term) of meaning, interpretive or theoretical, extending to and extended by various fields of engagement, rather than only the politico-economic configuration suggested more directly by the definition just cited. Any restricted political economy, however, be it Adam Smith's, Hegel's, or Marx's, would still be predicated on the value of meaning, and particularly conscious meaning—meaningful investment, meaningful expenditure of labor and capital, meaningful production and conservation.
That the general economy of sovereignty in Bataille must be specifically juxtaposed to or is, again, a displacement of Hegel's restricted economy of mastery (Herrschaft) is apparent throughout Bataille's discourse on sovereignty and on Hegel, although Bataille himself sometimes claims a closer proximity to Hegel, especially via Kojève's interpretation. Derrida shows the significance of this displacement of Hegel in Bataille in his reading of Bataille in "From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve" (in Writing and Difference). This relationship to Hegel is equally, if not more, significant for Derrida himself. Hegel's claim, which defines the possibility of mastery (Herrschaft), is that at least at a certain level—the level of Spirit, Geist, and specifically Absolute Knowledge—it is possible to avoid the unproductive expenditure of intellectual, theoretical, or political energy. For Bataille, there is no level at which this can be achieved, in practice or in principle. For, if one maintains the possibility of avoiding unproductive losses only in principle, the resulting theory of this practice would remain fundamentally a restricted economy, even when the practice itself involves losses and expenditures. Bataille's sovereignty cannot be approached by such theories.
'General economy' designates, thus, a science—a rigorous theory—which accounts for or relates to the operation of sovereignty and analogous forms of loss and expenditure. One can also speak of the economy of sovereignty or expenditure, insofar as one uses the metaphor of economy to designate the interplay of energies and forces within a given process. The unequivocal separation between such economic operations and the theories inscribing and processing them is, in fact, impossible in general economy, and the interpenetrations between them may be as theoretically productive as they are inevitable. For one thing, our theoretical economies produce the economies or operations for which we want to account. In a general economy, however, there can be no absolute, Hegelian, fusion between accounts and processes that are accounted for. The difference between them can never be fully reduced in a general economy, whereas such a reduction is possible or necessary in some restricted economies, such as the Hegelian economy. The latter may well offer the most general philosophical calculus of that type. The relationships between different levels of economic interplay are thus not only metaphorically parallel but also metonymically connected. They are complementary—interactively heterogeneous and heterogeneously interactive. Thus, against Hegel, they cannot be fully unified within one system. For such a system would fully control its own operation, its own meaning, its "itsownness," which is impossible under the conditions of general economy.
Nor can there conversely be an absolute difference between an account and that which is being accounted for in a general economy. Once difference is absolute, it is not radical enough for a general economy. An absolute difference or exteriority of that type would always lead to a restricted economy, repressing the radical—but again never absolute—difference defined by and defining the field of general economy. This type of repression characterizes the Kantian economy of "things-in-themselves." The Kantian economy appears to provide a kind of general calculus of absolute difference or exteriority, just as the Hegelian economy offers a general calculus of overcoming it. Some key elements of either calculus are found, however, already in Plato's dialogues, particularly Theaetetus and Parmenides, or in the pre-Socratics.
Similarly, while Bohr sometimes speaks of the wholeness of and within experimental arrangements in quantum mechanics, the interactions, always irreducible, between the objects and the measuring instruments conform to an interactive (general) economy, which neither absolutely separates them in the Kantian fashion nor fully unifies them in the Hegelian fashion. As shall be seen, the border line—the 'cut'—between the object and the observing or measuring device is, in principle, arbitrary, although, in practice, it depends on the technologies of experimentation. These interactions between the inside and the outside (the terms preferable to 'subject' and 'object' under these conditions) entail a shifting complementarity between them, which is at the core of Bohr's economy of matter—or of mind. With this crucial qualification in mind, however, Bohr's complementarity and all general economic anti-epistemologies are materialist theories—general economies of matter.
One can, thus, neither fully identify sovereignty and general economy, nor unconditionally separate them. General economy is a theoretical—scientific—discourse. It takes account of sovereignty and related operations of that type introduced by Bataille, such as interior (or inner) experience, sacrifice, communication, or unknowledge. While it is rigorously theoretical, however, general economy cannot be seen as in any way representing (the structure of) sovereignty or "this useless, senseless loss" itself. General economy only makes apparent that unutilizable excesses of energy are produced and unrecuperable losses in representation take place, and it must relate its theoretical knowledge to such losses. This is why Bohr's complementarity can be seen as a general economy, and this is why I pursue the connections of both concepts in this study, which is concerned mainly with theoretical discourse. General economy defines the limits within which one can consider Bataille's sovereignty or analogous conceptions elsewhere in theoretical terms. As Derrida writes:
Insofar as it is a scientific form of writing, general economy is certainly not sovereignty itself. Moreover, there is no sovereignty itself. Sovereignty dissolves the value of meaning, truth and a grasp-of-the-thing-itself. This is why the discourse that it opens above all is not true, truthful or "sincere." Sovereignty is the impossible, therefore it is not, it is—Bataille writes this word in italics—"this loss." The writing of sovereignty places discourse in relation to absolute non-discourse. Like general economy, it is not the loss of meaning, but, as we have just read, the "relation to this loss of meaning." It opens the question of meaning. It does not describe unknowledge, for this is impossible, but only the effects of unknowledge. "In sum, it would be impossible to speak of unknowledge, while we can speak of its effects" [Conférences sur le nonsavoir].
To this extent, we do not return to the usual order of knowledge-gathering science. The writing of sovereignty is neither sovereignty in its operation nor current scientific discourse. This latter has as its meaning (as its discursive content and direction) the relation oriented from the unknown to the known or knowable, to the always already known or to anticipated knowledge. Although general writing also has a meaning, since it is only a relation to nonmeaning this order is reversed within it. And the relation to the absolute possibility of knowledge is suspended within it. The known is related to the unknown, meaning to nonmeaning. "This knowledge, which might be called liberated (but which I prefer to call neutral), is the usage of a function detached (liberated) from the servitude from whence it springs: the function in question related the unknown to the known (the solid), while, dating from the moment it is detached, it relates the known to the unknown" (Méthode [de la meditation]). A movement that is only sketched, as we have seen, in the "poetic image." (Writing and Difference, 270-71; L'écriture et la différence, 397-98; translation modified)
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Complementarity by Arkady Plotnitsky. Copyright © 1994 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
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