The Problem of Difference: Phenomenology and Poststructuralism (Toronto Studies in Philosophy)

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Summary: Paradoxa and the Repetition of Irreducible Difference
Review: The central matter of this text is that the difference between two things, a difference that is irreducible, brings about a paradox, in that the things that are irreducibly different are nevertheless related. This problem is what Bell names as 'the problem of difference' (p. 3). This is not a new problem, as it dates back to at least Plato: only the proposed solutions are. And it is for the same purpose, so at least appears to me, that Bell discusses Husserl (part 1), Merleau-Ponty (part 2), and Deleuze (part 3).

Bell starts with Husserl and his recognition of a previously neglected difference, especially by Kant, between acts that intend an object and acts that experience an object, in an effort to break away from the traditional quest for the origin of such a difference. As Bell explains, with Husserl one is aware of an object in an act of consciousness, which has interpretive sense. Hence a dual focus, one on language (linguistic model), and the other on perception (perceptual model). Bell however shows that each model has its own difficulty to account for the problem of difference (that sense needs sense to be meaningful; that an object needs a sense-content to be meaningful). This regress (paradox of fulfillment) Husserl eventually comes to admit as taking place within the continuity of consciousness. To correct his position, Husserl tries to account for the constitution of the datum of sensation, hence the difference between the intuited object and the act of intuition giving form to what is form-less. Such an act is moreover meaningful as it is grounded on noema, the neutral 'condition for the expressibility of consciousness', which accounts for the 'irreducible difference in consciousness itself' (pp. 69-70). Against Follesdal (concept theory) and Gurwitsch (percept theory) Bell argues that noema is the 'neutral, non-positing boundary between sense and object' (p. 86). And it is this view of the noema that becomes for Bell not only the tread linking Husserl to Deleuze to Merleau-Ponty, but also the basis for defining paradox as 'the simultaneous affirmation of two contrasting senses (p. 95).

However meritorious the effort to develop noema as that which accounts for difference, it seems, according to Bell, that in assigning a 'mediating identity' (p. 96) to noema as being that between a positing consciousness and reality, Husserl provides us with an interpretation that denies the paradoxical character of noema. And to avoid it becomes subservient to a more fundamental identity Merleau-Ponty sees noema to be the 'condition which makes possible the distinction between subject and the word' (p. 99). It is not a mediate identity because it is unable to account for the other, since such a position tends to reduce the other within oneself. Instead, in adopting a noematic reflection, Merleau-Ponty proposes to reveal the body and the world as being the condition for self and other, hence an emphasis on structure: the perceived is not form-less. To avoid however accounting for the existence of a structure by claiming another structure of a higher order, Bell explains that Merleau-Ponty argues for the paradoxical nature of perception, in that it makes all binary oppositions possible. But in this sense perception is also primordial whereupon language as excess is grafted, a leakage that precludes any direct perception. Thus, self and the other can only be related in a divided consciousness in a perceiving body: 'it is the paradoxical experience of the perceiving body, of being already constituted and constituting, that is the condition for perceiving an already constituted object' (p. 136). This characterization, however, causes a tension between paradox as the differentiating condition and a fundamental identity, that is the body, hence accounting for the other (paradox of limitation and access). For this reason, Bell elucidates, Merleau-Ponty shifts emphasis from the body onto the Being, as that which makes inter-subjectivity possible along the notion of "reversibility", in particular that of the flesh, to account for the other. Against Lefort (flesh is immanence) and Dillon (flesh is transcendence) Bell argues that for Merleau-Ponty flesh is a differentiating condition, a paradox that plays a constitutive role (in the same vein as Husserl's noema). From this Bell arrives at stressing two types of paradox, namely, 'of infinite series' and 'of identity and difference' (p. 185).

Bell clarifies Merleau-Ponty's position: the former type refers to the fundamental synthesis of being whereas the latter to the fundamental difference of Being: a paradox is 'something which is itself conditioned, conditioned by Being' (p. 187). With this Deleuze seems to be in complete disagreement: the body, following Bergson and a discussion on cinema, takes snapshots of passing reality in that it frames the world and therefore is the condition of differentiation for perception (in the same manner as noema). For Bell then 'the frame is paradoxa' (p.203). And given the importance of time in the treatment of cinema, time is 'the fundamental difference that cannot be measured - that is, non-identifiable, un-present-able' (p. 222). Deleuze, in Bell's reading, is thus confronted with the problem of difference to which he responds by making it a neutral event dependent upon its actualization (playing a similar role as Husserl's noema). More importantly, Deleuze recognizes that the problem is not a matter of accounting for difference in terms of a fundamental identity, but the other way round.

Overall, this is a well-structured and thought-provoking text, albeit challenging in the sense that it is not always easy to follow unless familiar with the authors discussed, but the frequent reminders of the issues at stake does help maintain focus. And this is the focus on difference. In this respect it is a very important and highly recommended text because Bell has put together some original arguments and ideas on difference. Particularly that of seeing difference as a problem, not only in terms of a problematic to be solved, but as a recurrent problem that upsets the previous endeavor.

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Summary: Good book!
Review: The most important part of Bell's book, I believe, is the chapter on Merleau-Ponty, a chapter which marks the transition from phenomenology to post-structuralism. The preceding discussion on Husserl is good, but dozens of books are out there interpreting Husserl. Rather, his exposition not only of Merleau-Ponty but of current Merleau-Ponty scholarship, is what raises this book a notch above other books of its kind. In particular, he sheds light on the contemporary debates over Merleau-Ponty's ambiguous notion of the "flesh". And he uses the ambiguity surrounding this notion as impetus into his sections on post-structuralism, notably, the philosophy of Deleuze. As far as I know, this is the first work to present the philosophical ties between Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the development of French thought in the 20th century.