The word “object” derives from the Latin prefix ob, meaning “against”, and the word jacere, meaning “to throw”. Presumably there is a relationship between objects, on the one hand, and existence on the other hand. To be an object is also to exist. The term “existence” comes from the Latin term existere (ex and sistere) meaning “to stand forth”. It would thus seem that to be an object is “to be thrown against” or “to stand forth”. Here, then, would be a first reason for conceiving objects in relation to difference. If to be an object is to stand forth or to be thrown against, then it follows that to be an object is first and foremost to differ. On the one hand, we here see why objects must always be attached to a field. If objects stand forth or are thrown against, there must be something from which they stand forth or against which they are thrown. Minimally, then, it must be said that there are not just objects, but object-field relations. There is nothing for the object to stand-forth from if there is no field against which the object stands. This field could be anything and the question of what constitutes a field would be a central question of ontological speculation. Is the field in question the void, as in the case of Lucretius? Is it other objects? Is it a background-foreground relation as in the case of the Gestaltists? Is it the One substance of Spinoza? The question is open. All that can be said is that minimally objects are a differentiating. For this reason objects are necessarily attached to a world; or rather, there are no worldless objects.
The second notable feature of the etymology of the terms “object” and “existence” is that both contain verbs. “Object” contains the verb jacere, meaning to throw. “Existence” contains the verb sistere, meaning “to stand forth”. The term “object”, of course, is a noun. When we think of nouns we tend to think of something fixed and established. Something that presides. Yet the etymology of the terms “object” and “existence” suggests a verb or action at the heart of objects and existence. If objects stand-forth or are thrown, then there is an activity at work in the object or the existent. In this respect, the Greek concept of φύσις or phusis as that which emerges, grows, or is born would be at the heart of objects. When the Ontic Principle claims that there is no difference that does not make a difference, we get one sense in which objects are. The difference of an object is a difference that is made and constantly remade, emerging from out of a field. Consequently, objects should be thought as events.
It is unfortunate that we so often use “difference” as a noun. The differences that constitute an object should not be understood as the properties by which an observer distinguishes two objects from one another, but should instead be understood as difference internal to the object, presiding over the process of how it stands forth from a field or throws itself. Difference should be understood in the sense of “to differ” or “differing“, as the activity by which the objects unfolds, blooms, or emerges against a field. Perhaps the term “differentiating” would be preferable to “difference”, so long as differentiating is understood as what objects do, not what minds do in distinguishing objects from one another. While we do indeed make distinctions, so long as difference is understood primarily as distinction, difference becomes a negative term describing relations between identicals. When we speak of difference as distinction, we here speak of difference in terms of what something is not, rather than affirmatively as the differentiating taking place in the heart or volcanic core of objects. “This cat is black, that cat is not.” Hence Deleuze will remarks that,
The difference ‘between’ two things is only empirical, and the corresponding determinations are only extrinsic. However, instead of something distinguished from something else, imagine something which distinguishes itself– and yet that from which it distinguishes itself does not distinguish itself from it. Lightning, for example, distinguishes itself from the black sky but must also trail it behind, as though it were distinguishing itself from that which does not distinguish itself from it… Difference is this state in which determination takes the form of unilateral distinction. We must therefore say that difference is made, or makes itself, as in the expression ‘make the difference’. (Difference and Repetition, Columbia University Press, 28)
As I argued in a previous post, the epistemic and the ontological are deeply intertwined due to the philosophical tradition, such that we must perpetually struggle to untangle the two if we are to get anywhere. Difference-between is a relation between three terms where, on the one hand, we have two objects that differ from one another (black and white cats) and a mind contemplating that difference or distinguishing these two terms. Such would be difference epistemically conceived. Implicitly this form of difference would involve an observer or mind distinguishing the two objects. However, difference as Deleuze here conceives it would be ontological and strictly an affair of the object itself, regardless of whether any minds were about to distinguish the object from other objects. Here we would have the object distinguishing itself through some sort of internal force or power– an internal difference –rather than objects being distinguished.
read on!
ASIDE: There has been a recent trend assimilating Deleuze to Kantian transcendental idealism in the Deleuzian secondary literature, for which I am partially responsible. Under this account of Deleuze’s thought the syntheses he discusses in Difference and Repetition and Anti-Oedipus are an affair of the mind rather than being. Passages such as this and others suggest that Deleuze’s project is strictly ontological, rather than critical in the Kantian sense. When Deleuze does make references to mind, these references should be understood in the Spinozist sense of an attribute of substance, not the Kantian sense of a transcendental subject. That is, Deleuze can certainly be read as a panpsychist– though I prefer not to read him that way –but he cannot be understood as a correlationist, radicalized or otherwise. His claims are claims about being, not claims about being-for-us.
How, then, to think this difference that distinguishes itself? Much later, in chapter five of Difference and Repetition, Deleuze gives us a clue as to how this difference that distinguishes itself is to be thought. Deleuze writes,
Difference is not diversity. Diversity is given, but difference is that by which the given is given, that by which the given is given as diverse. Difference is not phenomenon but the noumenon closest to the phenomenon. It is therefore true that God makes the world by calculating, but his calculations never work out exactly, and this inexactitude or injustice in the result, this irreducible inequality, forms the condition of the world. The world ‘happens’ while God calculates; if the calculation were exact there would be no world. The world can be regarded as a ‘remainder’, and the real in the world understood in terms of fractional or even incommensurable numbers. Every phenomenon refers to an inequality by which it is conditioned. Every diversity and every change refers to a difference which is its sufficient reason. Everything which happens and everything which appears is correlated with orders of differences: differences of level, temperature, pressure, tension, potential, difference of intensity. (DR, 222)
If there would be no world with inequalities, if the world would not exist were it composed of equations like 12 divided by 3, then this is because objects can only stand-forth as objects where there is an inequality that conditions the phenomenon as its sufficient reason. The absence of this inequality would cause the phenomenon, the object, to recede back into the field like a wave that disappears in a body of water after the force propelling the wave dissipates. Deleuze attributes three properties to this sufficient reason or intensive difference. First, claims Deleuze, intensive difference or intensive quantity contains the unequal in itself (DR, 232). “It represents difference in quantity, that which cannot be canceled in difference in quantity or that which is unequalisable in quantity itself: it is therefore the quality which belongs to quantity” (ibid.). The temperature at which water boils at a particular altitude or air pressure is an inequality that generates a particular difference. It is a difference that makes a difference. Here the difference made is the quality of water boiling, whereas the inequality is the temperature and the air pressure. In this connection, Deleuze gives the illuminating example of number to illustrate his point:
In the history of number, we see that every systematic type is constructed on the basis of an essential inequality, and retains that inequality in relation to the next lowest type: thus, fractions involve the impossibility of reducing the relation between two quantities to a whole number; irrational numbers in turn express the impossibility of determining a common aliquot part for two quantitites, and thus the impossibility of reducing their relation to even a fractional number, and so on. (ibid.)
The number type would here be the “phenomenon”, whereas the inequality would be the “noumenon” by which the number type is constituted or generated. The irreducibility of the inequality is what opens the domain of the particular number type, generating a new type of number.
“A second characteristic,” claims Deleuze, “flows from the first: since it is already difference in itself and comprises inequality as such, intensity affirms difference” (DR, 234). Difference here is not a negation or the distinction between two things (what something is not), but rather the intensive difference or inequality that conditions the object. As such, intensive difference is affirmed or is affirmative. Better yet, it could be said that intensive difference is not so much affirmative, as it is something positive, a power, a potency. While the unequal distinguishes itself from a ground or field, this unilateral distinction is not a negation, but a positive being in its own right. We might think of a child’s soap bubble floating through the spring air. The form this bubble takes in the variations of its adventure through time-space involve air pressure, the different fluctuations of the wind, heat, and so on. Consequently, the shape of the bubble constantly shifts, now appearing as a sphere, now obloid, now a contorted cylinder, etc. Each of these intensive differences must be translated by the differences of the molecules composing the soap, which are, in turn, intensive differences in relation to one another.
Finally, claims Deleuze, “…a third characteristic which includes the other two, intensity is an implicated, enveloped or ’embryonised’ quantity” (DR, 237). Thus,
…intensity is neither divisible, like extensive quantity [space], nor indivisible, like quality. The divisibility of extensive quantities is defined in the following manner: by the relative determination of a unit (this unit itself never being indivisible but only marking the level at which division ceases); by the equivalence of the parts determining the unit; by the consubstantiality of the parts with the whole which is divided. Division can therefore take place and be continued without any change in the nature of what is being divided. By contrast, when it is pointed out that a temperature is not composed of other temperatures, or a speed of other speeds, what is meant is that each temperature is already a difference, and that differences are not composed of differences of the same order but imply series of heterogeneous terms. (DR, 238)
Deleuze argues that these embryonic or larval intensive differences preside over the genesis of extensive qualities insofar as they are the volcanic inequalities through which qualitative differences are generated. Color, for example, is conditioned by a difference in light frequency reflecting off of a surface. Qualitative differences thus implicated (contain enfolded) intensive differences which are the sufficient reason for these qualities. In Bhasker’s terms we could say that intensive differences are the causal mechanisms by which phenomena are generated.
Deleuze tells argues that these intensive differences are themselves composed of heterogeneities. Thus, according to Deleuze,
Every phenomenon flashes in a signal-sign system. In so far as a system is constituted or bounded by at least two heterogeneous series, two disparate orders capable of entering into communication, we call it a signal. The phenomenon that flashes across this system, bringing about the communication between disparate series, is a sign… Every phenomenon is composite because not only are the two series which bound it heterogeneous but each is itself composed of heterogeneous terms, subtended by heterogeneous series which form so many sub-phenomena. The expression ‘difference of intensity’ is a tautology. Intensity is the form of difference in so far as this is the reason of the [object]. Every intensity is differential, by itself a difference. Every intensity is E – E’, where E itself refers to an e – e’, and e to ε – ε’ etc.: each intensity is already a coupling (in which each element of the couple refers in turn to couples of elements of another order), thereby revealing the properly qualitative content of quantity. We call this state of infinitely doubled difference which resonates to infinity disparity. Disparity– in other words, difference or intensity (difference of intensity)– is the sufficient reason of all [objects], the condition of that which [stands forth]. (DR, 222)
Insofar as intensive difference stands-forth as an inequality from a field, it must be coupled to that field. This disparity or inequality produced in that coupling, this affirmative or positive difference, flashes across these heterogeneous series producing the extensive qualities as a result or product of the inequality through which it is conditioned. Consequently we see the rationale behind the Hegemonic Fallacy. If it is a fallacy to treat one difference as making all the difference or the most important difference, then this is because in the coupling of differences new disparities or inequalities are produced that generate or produce new objects and qualities. When the instances of the Hegemonic Fallacy treat other objects as pure vehicles without friction for other differences, these models forget to track the intensive differences produced in and through these couplings of series.
This heterogeneity and serial nature at the volcanic heart of every intensive difference will lead Deleuze to claim that,
There is a crucial experience of difference and a corresponding experiment: every time we find ourselves confronted or bound by a limitation or an opposition, we should ask what such a situation presupposes. It presupposes a swarm of differences, a pluralism of free, wild or untamed differences; a properly differential and original space and time; all of which persist alongside the simplifications of limitation and opposition. A more profound real element must be defined in order for oppositions of forces or limitations of forms to be drawn, one which is determined as an abstract and potential multiplicity. Oppositions are roughly cut from a delicate milieu of overlapping perspectives, of communicating distances, divergences and disparities, of heterogeneous potentials and intensities. Nor is it primarily a question of dissolving tensions in the identical, but rather of distributing the disparities in a multiplicity. Limitations correspond to a simple first-order power– in a space with a single dimension and a single direction, where, as in Leibniz’s example of boats borne on a current, there may be collisions, but these collisions necessarily serve to limit and to equalise, but not to neutralise or to oppose. As for opposition, it represents in turn the second-order power, where it is as though things were spread out upon a flat surface, polarised in a single plane, and the synthesis itself took place only in a false depth– that is, in a fictitious third dimension added to the others which does no more than double the plane. In any case, what is missing is the original, intensive depth which is the matrix of the entire space and the first affirmation of difference: here, that which only afterwards appears as linear limitation and flat opposition lives and simmers in the form of free differences. Everywhere, couples and polarities presuppose bundles and networks, organised oppositions presuppose radiations in all directions. (DR, 50 – 51)
Such would be ontological difference that makes itself, where we have assemblages of assemblages of assemblages all the way down and all the way up.
Larval Subjects . 
February 13, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Hi LS,
I have a quick question over your notion of fields. You state above that,
“This field could be anything and the question of what constitutes a field would be a central question of ontological speculation. Is the field in question the void, as in the case of Lucretius? Is it other objects? Is it a background-foreground relation as in the case of the Gestaltists? Is it the One substance of Spinoza? The question is open. All that can be said is that minimally objects are a differentiating. For this reason objects are necessarily attached to a world; or rather, there are no worldless objects. ”
Does this mean that theoretically all objects could be set against (and set forth from) the same field? Or, to put it another way, are we talking about some kind of aether from which everything else is born?
I know you said the question of “what the field is” was open, so I don’t want to start a needless discussion; however, I have to wonder, since the field is seemingly a necessary condition for the object, is it also only recognized as a field when an object is thrust from it? In other words, does a field only exist in its relations with it its objects? Or, is it possible to discuss the home from which objects become seemingly unhomely?
On the flip side, how much of an object is this residual field relation? It seems that eventually down the line (i.e., from assemblage to assemblage to assemblage etc.) a field would fade away. Is this important to recognize, or not?
I hope I’m not repeating the same question over and over, but if I am just let me know.
February 13, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Great questions, NrG! Honestly I haven’t worked through all of these issues. At this point my inclination is to argue that all objects cannot be set forth from the same field, though I’m still trying to work through arguments for this position. In part, I’m inclined to share Badiou’s position that there is not a world (a totality), but rather worlds. I set forth these arguments in the very first month I started this blog, so you can find the relevant arguments in the archive if you’re so inclined. Today I would say that these arguments are far too formal. Perhaps a more compelling argument would arise from two considerations: First, I don’t accept the position that all objects are interconnected or interrelated with one another. If this is a sustainable position, then it would follow that objects develop in different fields. Second, and in a related vein, I am strongly leaning towards the thesis that since there are different scales of time and space, there are also different fields relating to these differences in scale. Reid often like to reference the example of neutrinos along these lines. The difficult thing about studying neutrinos is that they pass right through most matter without a trace. As such, there are important ways in which neutrinos do not belong to or contribute to the fields of larger scale objects.
I think there are other considerations pertaining to my position that are at odds with any notion of fields as a sort of pre-objective “aether” or chaotic “chora” from which objects emerge. First, it is very difficult to see how anything could emerge from such a field insofar as we would require some principle or process heterogeneous to the field to introduce disequilibrium or disparity leading to differentiation. I take it that this is one reason that advocates of such positions have so often been led to posit God as bestowing form on the chaos of matter (Genesis talks of God imposing form on the firmament, Plato speaks of the “demiurge” imposing form on the chora). Following Graham, by contrast, I hold that matter is always already formatted or has structure. Under this model, new objects emerge from relations among existing objects, not out of something “an-objectal”. What I require here, however, is some principle of “closure” that allows me to explain when something moves from being a mere aggregate that doesn’t form an object in its own right to being an assemblage that has a sort of closure or independence from a world. Still working on that. Second, insofar as I adopt Whitehead’s Principle which states that act-ualities are only by virtue of other act-ualities, I’m committed to the thesis that all objects are formed from other objects. As a consequence, fields would themselves be aggregates of objects out of which a new object emerges. An object stands-forth from a field when it reaches a degree of closure or independence.
I think the question of how much of the object is this residual field relation is variable and will depend on the ontological kind we’re discussing. First, I take it that no objects are ever completely independent of their fields. Were the air pressure to change on the planet earth my body would either explode or implode. One might say “but what about rocks? certainly rocks just sit around doing rocky things without depending on their field in any way.” However, it’s notable that were a rock to be thrown into the sun or enter into relations of the relevant chemicals it would undergo profound transformations that would destroy its rockyness. In other words, rocks can only exist as rocks within a certain range of temperatures. When we’re talking about organic systems such as ourselves, social systems, or meteorological systems, these relations of dependence become far more complex as these entities only sustain their disequilibrium and closure through the maintenance of constant relations with a field (i.e., they require a constant influx of various forms of energy to continue existing, among other things). There are certainly circumstances in which fields can fade away. Capitalism social systems, for example, require a constant influx of materials to maintain their particular organization. These materials are finite unless we invent something like they have on Star Trek where shit is recycled to make food and so on without limit. Of course, where goods become replenishable and self-sustaining in this way, the whole rationale for capitalism collapses as well.
February 13, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Hey LS,
In the comment above, you state:
“Following Graham, by contrast, I hold that matter is always already formatted or has structure. Under this model, new objects emerge from relations among existing objects, not out of something “an-objectal”. What I require here, however, is some principle of “closure” that allows me to explain when something moves from being a mere aggregate that doesn’t form an object in its own right to being an assemblage that has a sort of closure or independence from a world.”
And, I understand that you are still working on this idea (especially given your last two posts). Yet, I’m wondering if language is getting in the way here – specifically when we talk about the object “standing forth” from the field. What would happen if we use the definition you gave of the object as “against” and let the object stand “against the field”?
If an object is “against” a field, wouldn’t this also bring in a sense of violence that is absent from merely “standing forth”? But it could be that through this violence as difference (as standing against), objects are thrust out of their fields, shunned, or fallen, rather than simply appearing. I’m thinking here of how lightning is discharged from a cloud rather than simply stepping forth from the cloud as lightning.
Wouldn’t thinking this way leave you free from thinking closure or independence since it isn’t necessarily the object’s choice to stand forth? To become an object is merely to become difference, be differentiated, and therefore be cast out of what is familiar – its field.
An example of this difference in word choice might be the difference between a rebellious teenager who is thrown out of his house rather than the teen who chooses to rebel (but still lives and eats with his folks). The teen who is cast out of his house is left on his own, to create (or not) new friendships, alliances, relationships. The teen who merely chooses to rebel still needs to break away from his home, find independence, or in your words closure, in order to be fully differentiated.
Allowing an object to be set against its field requires the object to be in competition with the field, to be its own independent assemblage based upon its differenc(ing) with the field.
I don’t know…just a thought.
February 14, 2009 at 12:16 am
Hi NrG,
I like your suggestions here and think you’re right in suggesting that one way in which objects can be formed is through a sort of expulsion not unlike something being kicked out of a tornado. Here I think we should leave open the possibility that there are a variety of processes that can lead to object formation. I think my resistance to emphasizing the term “against” is that it implies negation or negativity, whereas my thesis is that the differentials or disparaties that preside over these processes are positive in nature. Negation would be an after-effect of these processes, not their catalyst.
August 19, 2010 at 11:18 am
Hi
Just a few sidenotes. ‘Object’ could also be translated as ‘thrown in front of’ in the sense of ‘facing’ – cf. the greek hypokeimenon, the underlying thing, which translates into subjectum in latin. Paired with phainomenon, the underlying steps out or is shown. My pet theory is that Hypokeimenon/phainomenon is translated into subject/object. With a change in meaning from that which appears in front of (thrown in front of) over ‘covering/hiding’ the hypokeimenon/subject, to latin subject (as agens) against (facing) an object. [the subject switches place, since the subject is what animates the particular objects that are us (bodies)]
Juxtapose with modern greek antikeimenon, which seems to be a ‘back-translation’ from object – in the sense of ‘against.’ This would create a link between phainomenon, object and ‘exsisto’ = that which steps out.
Stepping out (in a gestalt sense) of the object from a background would support the idea of a field. And a question which might be off – how does ‘field’ differ from ‘plane’?