Through the Fold

Abstract

In a short paper bearing title Deleuzian Fold of Thought (1996), Jean-Luc Nancy engages a concept that has a prominent place in contemporary continental philosophy, fold, so as to accentuate a shared tendency that nevertheless estranges his own thought from Gilles Deleuze's. The carefully selected concept as an entryway into Deleuze's philosophy plays on Deleuze's argument in The Fold: Leibniz and Baroque (1993) that is a in two, since every can only be thus-but a 'fold of two,' an entredeux, something 'between' in sense that a difference is being differentiated.1 Nancy engages so as to bring to forefront that which is between two thinkers, their shared impetus, which, as he notes, defines tone of what means to be a contemporary. This shared tendency deals with shifting conception of thinking through unfolding and refolding of fold, which in its discontinuity has transformed image of what means to think.2 But also means that is through that two differentiated, or as Nancy argues, this shared impetus not imply that there not diverse ways of taking this fold, of folding it.3 Moreover, Nancy's way of approaching Deleuze, through in which difference made is higher repetition, becomes an opening to demonstrate his way of effectuating in manner of singular that is plural. In other words, Nancy does not critique Deleuze in short piece in question, but rather deploys that which is shared by his contemporary so as to show plural sense in which can be expressed. It is in this way that Nancy attempts to lend weight to his philosophical endeavour, to bring to forefront his of genesis without reducing to concept of genesis, even while Deleuze's appears center stage. For Nancy, as for me in this paper, it is not a matter of reconciling sides of fold once distinction has been made between two thinkers. Instead, I agree with Nancy when he notes that must work with fold, and work with that which in forms a simple but incontestable incompatibility. That is to say, one must trace how two philosophies are estranged through (and not through negativity, hostility, conflict), since this estrangement through is precisely what means to think and defines exigency of thought in contemporary philosophy.4This paper involves an extensive consideration of how two thinkers estranged through fold. In main body of paper, entitled, Step Back, I put forth a focused study of what is at center of of genesis event, formulated in an incompatible manner by Nancy and Deleuze because of their distinct treatments of Hegel. My consideration is thus informed by Nancy's argument that the incision of fold, folding itself in so far as divides between two veins of philosophy, is related to negativity.5 While Nancy opens up space, a gap, in fold, by moving through Hegel, thereby proposing an alternative genesis to dialectical logic, Deleuze, as Nancy rightly notes, does not in any sense attempt to read Hegel otherwise. Deleuze's step back has already left Hegel behind. By this I mean that for Deleuze what returns is difference, not in form of a contradiction, but as event of un-grounding in which forms of recognition dissolve. It is apparent that both Nancy and Deleuze want to voice singularity of event which is missed or skipped over in Hegel; that they seek to formulate different ontological propositions to Hegel's by making task of philosophy be articulation of event, without which thinking as such would not arise. But Nancy does not see how genesis could unfold without hollowing out of being's lack of itself, which leads him to, as he notes, mishear genesis in Deleuze's philosophy as concept of genesis. …