Abstract
In the perhaps most decisive reopening of philosophy in the twentieth century, Heidegger presented an existential analytic. This can be viewed as the highly complex analysis of one simple action: being-there (Dasein). In the paper at hand, a Spinozist interpretation of this action is proposed. This implies a shift in the Aristotelian conceptuality, which, to a large extent, informs Heidegger’s analysis. The action of being-there is not a movement from potentiality (δύναμις) to actuality (ἐνέργεια). It is a force of existence (vis existendi). However, this force is located right at the threshold between potentiality and actuality. Accordingly, it is not a matter of dismissing Aristotle’s concepts, but—with Heidegger—to observe carefully their deconstruction and pursue it to the point where these concepts become indistinct and where—beyond Heidegger—a Spinozian force of existence emerges.
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Notes
Nancy (2003, p. 195)
Cf. Heidegger (2006, p. 243).
Cf. Heidegger (1985, 33–34).
Spinoza appears also in ‘The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics,’ but only through Hegel’s criticism; and he is briefly mentioned in the Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, but only as lacking behind Leibniz in determining the concept of substance.
The concept of indistinction plays an important methodological role in the present analysis. I keep it implicit here and propose to develop it elsewhere. It can be said, however, that it functions similarly to what Agamben calls “archeological epochē” (cf. Agamben (2009, p. 90)).
Agamben (2016, p. 175).
That it was meticulous analyzes of Aristoteles which above all preceded the conception of Being and Time is well-know (cf. Ricoeur 1992 who references Remi Brague for the view that: “Heidegger’s major work is the substitute for a work on Aristotle that did not see the light of day” (p. 311)). To Gadamer, the young Heidegger appeared as an Aristoteles redivivus (cf. Pongratz (1977, p. 69)).
I use the word “use” with reference to Spinoza’s own radical hermeneutical principle, according to which words gain their meaning solely from their use: “Verba ex solo usu certam habent significationem.” (cf. Spinoza (2007, p. 165)). Just as there are no occult powers in nature, there is no hidden meaning behind the surface of the text. There is only the encounter between text and reader and the effects this produces. In this regard cf. Montag (1999, p. 21–25).
Cf. Plato (1997, 80d).
Deleuze (1988, p. 104). Deleuze, of course, is not alone in highlighting this aspect, which has informed the French Spinoza-reception at large. This reception has been framed by the alternative Hegel or Spinoza (so the title of Macherey’s important 1979 book). From the impetus of the few remarks on Spinoza made by Macherey’s mentor, Louis Althusser, a trajectory of Spinozian (sub)versions of Marxism has emerged. This trajectory includes, e.g., Antonio Negris The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics (1981) and Etienne Balibar’s Spinoza and Politics (1985). In that context Spinoza’s “ontology of power”—to deploy Alexandre Matheron’s expression—has obviously been addressed in its political sense. Incidentally, Foucault’s concurrent analysis of power could very well be assessed in this context also, and if Spinoza is largely absent in Foucault, the Spinozist undercurrent of his analysis may become more detectable if one reads Deleuze’s 1986 book on his friend, simply titled Foucault (cf. Casarino (2018) and Juniper and Jose (2018)). As for the anglophone reception, it is the merit of Valtteri Viljanen’s 2011 book on Spinoza’s Geometry of Power to have offered a full interpretation that puts power at the center stage. This achievement has ignited a still ongoing debate among Spinoza-scholars on the genealogy of Spinoza’s conception of power, on the way power is imparted from substance to modes, and how power relates to surrounding—and to some extent interchangeable—concepts in Spinoza’s metaphysics such as essence, causality, conatus and virtue (cf. e.g. Lærke (2011) and Sangiacomo (2015)). This recent discussion addresses power in its metaphysical more than its political sense. Lærke, for instance, argues that Spinoza’s ontology of power must be summoned as the suitable framework for understanding the pivotal in-relation of Spinoza’s metaphysics. He opposes this to the purely conceptualist framework provided by Michael Della Rocca’s interpretation (cf., e.g. Della Rocca (2008)). However, Lærke concludes with the observation that even if his argument is successful, it does not explicate what power is or means (2011, p. 462). It is to this remaining question that the present paper proposes a Heideggerian response. The suggestion is that the kind of power entailed could fruitfully be interpreted as (a better take on) what Heidegger in 1927 called potentiality-of-being (Seinkönnen). This shifts once again the way power is addressed: neither politically nor metaphysically but rather existentially—and in this sense as ‘force of existence.’
Obviously, I cannot address Spinoza scholarship very comprehensibly. My main concern is the presentation of Heidegger. In order to extent the invitation properly, however, I will let this section be accompanied with some indications at the level of footnotes.
Spinoza (2006, IAx1).
Cf. Deleuze (1988, p. 63).
Cf. Nancy (2008, p. 61).
In the Ethics, Spinoza speaks of vis existendi only infrequently (cf. ,e.g., Spinoza (2006, IP7 and IP14)). For the most part, he employs the term agendi potentia—but synonymously with vis existendi (‘… agendi potentia sive existendi,’ cf. Spinoza (2006, The General Definition of Emotions, IIIExp)). I prefer the former expression in this context since it reflects better, on a terminological level, that Spinoza is in fact un-working the way power and force is conceptualized in the Aristotelian framework. Di Poppa is right in pointing out that ‘… essence is potentia as power and activity, not potentia as potentiality.’ (2010, p. 277).
Spinoza (2006, IIIP6).
Cf. the epigraph of the present paper.
In his paper on ‘the ontology of determination,’ Sangiacomo offers an erudite account of the genealogy of Spinoza’s conception of the force associated with conatus (cf. Sangiacomo (2015)). Sangiacomo demonstrates that Spinoza, in his presentation of The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, introduces a distinction between “force of motion” and “force of determination” which is then generalized in the Ethics as conatus and power of acting (potentia agendi). Leaving the intricacies of the genealogy behind, the point of the matter is that this distinction allows Spinoza to resolve an otherwise threatening contradiction between the inner causal activity of modes on account of their essences and the external causality that thoroughly determines modes not only to produce the effects they produce but even to come into existence at all. According to Spinoza, then, each mode is endowed with a conatus—which generalizes the force of motion—by which it brings about the perseverance in its being. This is the essence of a mode (which, since it is wholly causally effective in this way, is never a mere possible being). When a mode, however, enters existence, due to a certain external causality, the causal account of its encounters with other existing modes needs to refer not only to the conatus but also to a power of acting which generalizes the force of determination. In the Cartesian setting, Spinoza introduces force of determination to explain the direction of movement of a physical body in interaction with other bodies. Whereas force of motion does not in itself have such a direction, the force of determination does and this direction is explained by the degree of contrariety of the collisions into which it enters. The pivotal point, however, is that the force of determination is not another force than the force of motion, but rather a mode of it. In the generalized metaphysics of the Ethics, this means that we can account for the same force in two distinct ways, i.e., intrinsically and in encounters. If we add that this distinction may ultimately be rooted in the distinction between eternity and duration, it will be tenable that the overall conception of force conveyed by Sangiacomo is not irreconcilable with the present paper, even if the existential context proposed here is justifiably absent from Sangiacomo’s more scholarly account. The commonality is that a distinction—the terminological expression of which we may leave undecided—is evoked such that it is possible to say that the force of a mode is perfectly exercised all the while being modified in encounters that enhances or inhibits it and thus gives rise to joyous or sad passions.
Cf. Blumenberg (1976, p. 144). Even if they accounted differently for the genesis of the principle, Blumenberg and Dieter Henrich were in agreement that Heidegger was the great anti-modern thinker. A line from Spinoza to Heidegger—as suggested here—might therefore prompt us to revisit the discussion on subjectivity and self-preservation from the 1970s (cf. Ebeling 1976).
Cf. Blumenberg (1983, p. 125–227).
Cf. Diogenes Laërtius (1853, p. 290).
On oikeiôsis, cf. Forschner (1981, p. 142–159).
Cf. Sommer (1976, p. 345–349).
Cf. Spinoza (2006, IIIPIV, IIIPV).
Cf. Spinoza (2006, IIIPVIII).
Cf. Blumenberg (1976, p. 188).
Viljanen (2011, p. 105). Similarly, Renz (2008, p. 317). With his meticulous analysis of ‘Teleology in Spinoza’ (1999), Don Garret has provided a pivotal contribution to the debate. A recurrent point in Garret—which was already raised by Edwin Curley vis-à-vis Jonathan Bennet (cf. Curley (1990))—is that a contextual analysis of Spinoza’s claim that ‘… all final causes are nothing but human fictions’ reveals that this apparently universal rejection is in fact limited to all final causes ascribed to God (cf. Garrett (1999, p. 315) and Spinoza (2006, I, Appendix)). If this is true, Spinoza’s rejection of final causes need not preclude non-theological applications of teleological modes of explanations—for instance anthropological ones. However, this does not necessitate them either and some scholars have maintained that the gist of Spinoza’s anthropology remains non-teleological. A central concern here is how the doctrine of conatus itself should be read. For some, it is almost self-evidently teleological (cf. Garrett (1999, p. 313) and Sangiacomo (2016, p. 396)). Others have defended an inertial or otherwise non-teleological reading (cf. Carriero (2011) and Viljanen (2011)). Without denying the meaningfulness and relevance of assessing whether conatus is teleologically structured or not, the contention in this paper—as will appear—is that an important aspect of the conatus doctrine is lost in this interpretative grid.
Nietzsche (2002, p. 15).
Viljanen (2011, p. 107).
Cf. Spinoza (2006, IIIPIX, Scholium).
Cf. Spinoza (2006, IIIPIX, Scholium).
On inoperativity—which of course translates the much-discussed French term désoeuvrement—cf. for instance Agamben (2015, p. 247).
Viljanen (2011, p. 125).
Sommer (1976, p. 350—my translation). The phrase “inversion of teleology” was coined by Robert Spaemann for whom the modern paradigm of self-preservation was informed not primarily by the reception of the stoic notion of oikeiôsis, but more so by an opposition to Aristotelian teleology.
A convincing account of the specific kind of teleology targeted by Spinoza’s critique of final causes is offered by Sangiacomo (2016). As this absolves Spinoza from a commitment to a general rejection of teleology, a de facto use of teleological explanations need not entail any inconsistency on Spinoza’s part. According to Sangiacomo, the teleology Spinoza rejects is endorsed in a late medieval trajectory from Suárez which Spinoza found embodied in Adrian Heereboord, a contemporary Dutch philosopher. What, in short, characterizes Heereboord’s concept of teleology is that final causes operate as external principles and that these final causes are the object of some kind of intentionality (e.g. thought, will or desire). Furthermore, his teleology is inscribed into a general anthropocentrism according to which God, in a similar teleological sense, creates the world for the best of human beings. Despite Heereboord’s call for a return to Aristotle, Sangiacomo points out that the teleology in question takes τέχνη rather than φύσις as its paradigm and thus runs counter to Aristotle’s natural teleology. This raises the question about what kind of teleology Aristotle actually did endorse. The surprise of Sangiacomo’s account is that Aristotle—allegedly the father of teleology—and Spinoza—allegedly the most vehement opponent of teleology—suddenly may become allies in a shared non-anthropocentric world-view. In the particular context of the present paper, the question is to what extent the conatus doctrine may be interpreted with a genuinely Aristotelian kind of teleology. This enormous issue cannot be settled here. The two main points, however, that should be addressed is that in this kind of teleology, the principle of movement is in the moving thing itself and that this does not necessarily entail any kind of intentionality. Following Garrets discussion of so called “unthoughtful teleology” in Aristotle, Sangiacomo emphasizes especially the second point (cf. Garrett (1999, p. 325–327)). That teleology can be “unthoughtful” goes well together with conatus, which evidently does not need to include intentionality. It is true that Spinoza is more interested in the cases where it in fact does (cf. Spinoza 2006 (IIIPIX, Scholium)). However, as Sangiacomo argues, even in these cases, it is not on the strength of this intentionality that there is also teleology of the Aristotelian kind. What is important is rather that things which is brought about—intentionally or not—‘actualize a certain form’ (cf. Sangiacomo (2016, p. 403)). And this leads us to the first and more decisive point. What does it mean that the principle of movement is in the thing itself? In order to articulate this, Aristotle found it necessary to coin a neologism: ἐντελέχεια. The τέλος, then, is in the thing—but in what sense of being is it there? Here, it seems, that Aristotle deploys his distinction between potentiality and actuality. Accordingly, a teleological explanation will always explain that something which is not yet actual becomes actual. A pivotal point in the existential reading of conatus proposed here, however, is that this conception of teleology is applicable to conatus only in a derivative way. Essentially, conatus designates a mode’s perseverance in its being such that this being is not yet actualized but is also no longer a mere potentiality. This perseverance in its being—as distinguished from an only derivative preservation of its existence (cf. Casarino (2018, p. 66))—takes place at the very threshold between potentiality and actuality. It is dubious—but not to be excluded—that we can detect something like that in Aristotle. However, even if we can, it is still more dubious if we should call it teleology. Perhaps, it is better to speak of perfection, provided that we manage to think of it without teleology (cf. for a similar approach Carriero (2011)). One way to do this is the following: When a mode perseveres in its being at the threshold between potentiality and actuality, it does everything it can and nothing is missing. All its powers are perfectly active although they actualize nothing. They remain in a state of virtuality in which the mode is wholly virtuous but where it will no longer makes sense to ask whether this actualizes something (teleology) or merely maintains something that is already actual (inertia).
Cf. Spinoza (2006, IIIPVII).
Cf. Spinoza (2006, IPXXXIV).
Cf. Heidegger (1996, p. 40).
That also conatus should be interpreted as a demand is an ingenious suggestion from Agamben that I shall consider at the end of this paper. As it will turn out, this suggestion may prove helpful in order to situate conatus beyond teleology or non-teleology and carve out its meaning in terms of an existential interpretation.
I am indebted to the anonymous reviewer who pointed this out.
Heidegger (1995a, p. 281).
Cf. Heidegger (1996, p. 40).
Apart from this commonality, though, Deleuze’s and Viljanen’s interpretations obviously springs both from different trajectories and from different overall interpretations of Spinoza. This makes any straight forward comparison difficult. An important similarity seems to be that Spinoza, for both Deleuze and Viljanen, arrives at his notion of power as essence causation by undoing the Aristotelian distinction between potentiality and actuality (cf. Viljanen (2011, p. 179); Deleuze (1992, p. 93)). Essence causation is the power of a mode to determine its own affections (cf. Viljanen (2011, p. 126); Deleuze (1992, p. 305)). However, whereas Viljanen conceives of this determination in analogy with geometry (thus the subtitle: ‘Spinoza’s geometry of power’), Deleuze writes: ‘The essences are neither logical possibilities nor geometric structures; they are parts of power, that is, degrees of physical intensity’ (Deleuze (1988, p. 65), cf. also Deleuze (1992, p. 192)). Lærke and Sangiacomo—who also presents Spinoza in terms of an ontology of power—seems closer to Deleuze here when they make some noteworthy reservations towards Viljanen’s account. Sangiacomo observes that this account creates a tension between ‘perfect essence actualization’ (Viljanen) and external causation (2015, p. 539). This tension might in turn be explained by the reservation Lærke makes when he points out that the kind of causality involved in immanent causation (and, by implication, in ‘perfect essence realization’) is not, as Viljanen argues, the formal causality developed in late medieval philosophy, for instance by Suárez, but rather a kind of efficient causality. The gist of this reservation is that formal causality will end up reintroducing an ontology of potentiality and possibility that is foreign to Spinoza (cf. Lærke (2011, p. 455). A suitable place to pursue this discussion further would be Spinoza’s notion of non-existent modes. Here, it will be necessary to develop a conceptual apparatus that allows us to say that such modes are not merely potential or possible, although they are not actual (cf. Deleuze (1992, p. 212)).
Deleuze (1992, p. 230).
Cf. Deleuze (1992, p. 303, 315 and 398).
Agamben remarks that: ‘The oxymoron “actual essence” shows the inadequacy of the categories of traditional ontology with respect to what is to be thought here’ (Agamben (2016, p. 171)). What is to be thought—again—is an essence that is not actual but not, therefore, merely potential or possible. When Spinoza chooses to define conatus as actual essence, we might therefore follow the drift of his thinking if we propose to distinguish between the actuality of a mode (its existence in duration) and its essential activity (its virtuousness in eternity). Conatus as actual essence can then be viewed from both perspectives, i.e., known with two distinct kinds of knowledge (namely of the second and third kind).
Spinoza (2006, IIPXLV, Scholium). Interpretations emphasizing that conatus is most fundamentally a desire for eternity—and not, or only derivatively, a desire to maintain durative existence—are probably best suited to enter the existential reading of conatus proposed in the paper at hand (cf. for instance Yoval (1999), Youpa (2009) and, especially, Vatter (2010) and Casarino (2018)).
According to Voss’ informative discussion, the virtual cannot be conflated with the eternal even though ‘… the conceptual couple essence/existence comes close to the Deleuzian couple of virtual/actual.’ (Voss (2017, p. 171)). I shall return to the question why and in what sense I say ‘proximity to eternity.’
It is obvious that Agamben’s famous and fruitful development of the Aristotelian notion of potentiality—at the core of Agamben’s thinking—owes a great deal to Heidegger’s interpretations of Aristotle in general, and perhaps to this lecture in particular (for Agamben on potentiality cf., e.g., 2017 (pp. 33–56)). This is not the place to engage with Agamben, though, even if he has certainly animated the presentation given here of potentiality and actuality. Highly recommendable readings of the lecture in question is offered by Brogan (2005, pp. 110–137)) and Bernet (2017). Connors’ account of ‘force’ in modern thinking from Nietzsche to Derrida also has a valuable chapter on Heidegger (cf. Connors (2010)).
As for terminology, I shall stick to potentiality and actuality. The reader should keep the Greek terms and their literal translation as ‘being-at-work’ and ‘being-able’ in mind. I reserve the term capability for the cases where it is undecided if the force involved should be understood as a potentiality in the Aristotelian sense or otherwise.
Cf. Aristotle (1984, p. 1103a ff.).
Aristotle (1984, p. 1103a).
When developing this point, Agamben refers to Kafka’s fragment on ‘The Great Swimmer’ who holds the world record but must admit that he does not know how to swim (cf. Agamben (2017, p. 46)). Perhaps, the secret of the Socratic docta ignorantia also lies here?
The paradoxical structure of an ‘X without X’ is explored in Derrida’s erudition of the exclamation attributed to Aristotle ‘Oh my friends, there are no friends’ in Politics of Friendship, as well as in Jonathan Lear’s discussion of Socratic-Kierkegaardian irony in the form of the question ‘Among all X, is there an X?’ in The Case of Irony.
I will return to the notion of responsibility at the end of this paper.
This would correspond with the Spinozian idea that conatus is always wholly exercised in its capability of affecting as well as being affected. I shall return briefly to this.
Cf. Heidegger (1995b, pp. 187–188).
Ricoeur (1992, pp. 308–317).
Heidegger (1984, p. 82). The quote is from Leibniz’ De prima philosophiae emendatione et de notione substantiae. I have added both some of Leibniz’ Latin phrases as well as Heidegger’s own translation into German in square brackets.
Heidegger (1984, p. 84).
Heidegger (1984, p. 82)—translation modified.
Heidegger (1984, p. 82).
This corresponds with Spinoza for whom there is nothing in a thing contrary to it, if analyzed according to its conative drive (cf. Spinoza (2006, IIIP4)).
Heidegger (1984, p. 83). We should of course treat the translation of wozu with goal with some caution here, bearing in mind the issue of teleology.
Heidegger (1984, p. 82)—translation slightly modified.
Nancy (2013b, p. 40, 98).
Derrida (2005, p. 3).
Heidegger (1984, p. 92).
Derrida (2008, p. 17).
Spinoza (2006, IIIP8).
Heidegger (1984, pp. 82–83).
Spinoza (2006, IPXXVIII, Scholium).
Cf. Deleuze (1992, p. 172).
On this Deleuzian term cf. Agamben (1999).
Heidegger (1995a, p. 228).
I allow myself to translate both Trieb and Drang with drive. In Fundamental Concepts, Heidegger speaks about ‘triebhafter Drang’ (which the translation, perhaps not quite appropriate, renders as ‘instinctual impulse,’ p. 233).
Cf. Heidegger (1995a, pp. 253–261).
Cf. Heidegger (1995a, pp. 241–246).
Heidegger (1995b, p. 180).
Cf. Nancy’s book Coming which opens with an explicitly Spinozian take on jouissance (2017, pp. 5–7).
The deconstruction of community under labels, such as ‘the coming community’ (Agamben) and ‘the inoperative community’ (Nancy), could perhaps be approached from this perspective. It would then come as no surprise that Nancy, as the thinker of the ‘with,’ indeed takes an interest in the case of copulation (cf., e.g. 2013a, p. 103). A recent book has the telling title Sexistence.
This is why the entelechy of Leibniz’ conatus does not correspond well with Aristotle’s line of thought. It is perfection without teleology. But if conatus is not teleological, it does not mean that it is inertial. On the existential reading we are suggesting here, conatus is rather a case of immanent causation, i.e., a causality where the effect does not leave its cause but stays with it and belongs to it (cf., Deleuze (1992, pp. 171–172)). I know of no better paradigm for this immanent relation of cause and effect than the structure of call and response which I shall return to at the end of this paper.
Heidegger (1995b, p. 141).
Cf. Renz (2009, p. 79).
Cf. Aristotle (1984, p. 1047a).
Deleuze (1992, p. 93).
It is important not to confuse this necessity with the necessity of the disinhibitions that, according to Heidegger, encircle the animal. The latter is a necessity of actualization. The former is a necessity that comes ‘before’ actualization and does not fail to come whether actualization is disinhibited or not. A further question is whether Heidegger, with this concept of necessity, provides an opportunity to reconsider the primacy of possibility (Möglichkeit) asserted in Being and Time (1996, p. 40). If so, the proximity to Spinoza would obviously increase. Conversely, if this primacy makes of Heidegger a thinker of radical contingency, it makes it difficult to establish their complicity. I am indebted to the anonymous reviewer who raised this issue. Without being able to decide the matter conclusively, it is surely important to be aware that necessity, just as possibility in Being and Time, must be understood existentially and not categorically—otherwise we leave the dimension of existential analytic. Dasein does not have possibility in the sense of things present at hand that could (presumably) be otherwise. Dasein is possibility in the sense of a potentiality to appropriate its own ‘there.’ Moreover, this ‘there’ is appropriated in a certain way that is always already decided. ‘It has [Es hat sich] somehow [irgendwie] always already decided in which way [Weise] Da-sein is always my own.’ (Cf. Heidegger (1996, p. 40)). This obviously poses the question of the impersonal ‘Es’ and the specification of its ‘irgendwie’ (cf. more generally on the impersonal Esposito (2012)). Leaving that aside, though, it seems to me that Agamben is right in making a clear distinction between facticity, as the always-already decided way of being, and contingency (cf. Agamben (1998, p. 87)). Heidegger, in this reading, does not endorse contingency (Zufälligkeit) but only fallenness (Verfallenheit). As for the question what the replacement of the primacy of a thus existentially understood possibility with an equally existentially understood necessity would entail, some important clues are offered in Heidegger’s lectures on Schelling’s Treatise on the essence of human freedom. As it turns out here, the essence of human freedom is necessity. ‘But what kind of necessity?,’ Heidegger asks. ‘Man,’ he continues, ‘… can only be free when he has himself decided originally for the necessity of his own essence. This decision was not made at some time, at a point of time in the series of time, but falls as a decision on temporality. Thus where temporality truly presences, […] man experiences the fact that he must always already have been who he is, as he who has determined himself for this.’ (Heidegger (1985, p. 154–155)). This, it seems, is not far from Spinoza’s necessity, which implies that agent regret is never the regret that I could have done otherwise but did not. Rather, it is the regret that I turned out otherwise than I imagined myself to be (cf. Pippin (2015, p. 660)).
One avenue to explore from here would be ‘the ontology of the virtual’ along with the Latin semantic field of vir (man), vis (force), and virtus (excellence, efficacy) including its derivatives, such as virtue, virtual, vigor, virile, and violence. Here, only a brief remark: When Hegel plays what is merely potential (and possibly chimerical) out against what has proved to be actual (by way of dialectics), the virtual could serve as a Spinozian riposte. Consider that when the runner is ready in the starting blocks, he can be said to have virtually already run. There is nothing chimerical here. All force is gathered, wholly active although not actualized. Compared to this virtual force, what is merely actual adds nothing. It is only a banal acting-out of what is already as good as done. Needless to add (and Heidegger must have had this in mind) that the analysis of the runner, who in this way runs ahead of himself, should be seen as a development of the existential of running-ahead (Vorlaufen).
Cf. Spinoza (2006, VP42).
Cf. Kierkegaard (1983, p. 63).
Deleuze (2017).
Cf. Deleuze (1992, p. 226, 240).
Cf. Heidegger (1996, p. 265).
Nancy (2000, p. 183)—translation slightly modified.
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Is being [das Sein] imparted to the individual modes [Weisen] in such a way that by this imparting [Mitteilung] it in fact parts itself out, although in this parting out [Verteilung] it is not partitioned [zerteilt] in such a way that, as divided, it falls apart and loses its proper essence, its unity? Might the unity of being lie precisely in this imparting parting out [mitteilende Verteilung]? And if so, how would and could something like that happen? What holds sway in this event [Was waltet in diesem Geschehen]? (These are questions after Being and Time!) (Heidegger (1995b, p. 25)—translation slightly modified.)
