INTRODUCTION: SYNCHRONIC VS DIACHRONIC ONTOLOGIES

I will be commenting on a very interesting excerpt from Belhak Kacem's forthcoming book L'effet
Meillassoux (The Meillassoux Effect) published on the blog Les apports de Mehdi Belhaj Kacem.
Kacem situates Quentin Meillassoux (QM) in the context of the post-Badiousian generation, that is
trying to inherit not only from Badiou but also from Deleuze. In my language, they are trying to
combine elements of a synchronic ontology with those of a diachronic ontology.
Belhaj Kacem: " C’est une mode des philosophes de ma génération, qui m’a agacé chez beaucoup:
comment «compossibiliser» Deleuze et Badiou? Parce que son talent est incommensurable à la
concurrence, QM est allé bien plus loin, et à sa lecture on se dit souvent qu’il est bien près d’y
parvenir. Et pourtant à la fin non. Le présent livre voudrait contribuer, au-delà des critiques, à ce
qu’il réussisse quand même".
"It's a fashion amongst philosophers of my generation which has annoyed me a lot: how to
"compossibilise" Deleuze and Badiou? Because his talent is incommensurable to the competition,
QM has gone further than most, and reading him one tends to think that he is very close to
succeeding. And yet finally he doesn't. The present book would like to contribute, beyond its
critiques, to him succeeding after all" (my translation).
For Belhaj Kacem this opposition of incompossibles and the attempt to overcome it can be seen in
QM's implicit loyalty to Deleuze in his concept of "super-Chaos" and his vacillating loyalty to
Badiou in the notion that "mathematics=ontology":
"Je vais plus loin dans «l’hypothèse de travail»: QM nous cache et se cache son deleuzisme foncier
par un badiousisme schizophrénique"
"I go further in my "working hypothesis": QM hides, from us and from himself, his basic
Deleuzism under a schizophrenic Badiouism".
In Belhaj Kacem's analysis there is a contradiction at the heart of Meillassoux's system: QM's super-
Chaos is the negation of the factial eternity of logic and mathematics, and logic and mathematics
are the "factial negation" of any form of super-Chaos. Thus Meillassoux is torn between two
absolutes, each of which is the negation of the other.
(2): MEILLASSOUX'S BLUFF AND THE PHANTOM PROBLEM
Belhaj Kacem describes Meillassoux as committed not only to theorising ontologically the real as a
game of chance but also to participating in the game of ontological poker as a super-player, as a
“magnificent player of philosophical poker, bluff included”. Meillassoux’s “bluff” is to presuppose
a demonstration that in fact he never gives:
“la stabilité universelle des Lois est corrélée à la supposition, nouménalement mise en réserve, du
super-Chaos. Mais comme nulle part il n’a réellement fourni une telle démonstration, dont nous
verrons en son lieu qu’elle ne peut tenir qu’à un approfondissement de la question du lien entre
ontologie et théorie de l’événement, il éprouve la nécessité in extremis de nouménaliser son super-
Chaos”
“the universal stability of the Laws [of Nature] is correlated to the supposition, noumenally held in
reserve, of super-Chaos. But nowhere has he really provided such a demonstration, which we will
see in its proper place that it can only come from a deeper consideration of the question of the link
between ontology and theory of the event, he feels it necessary in extremis to noumenalise his
super-Chaos” (my translation).
Belhaj Kacem calls the inference from the ontological diachronic storm of super-Chaos to the
empirical synchronic stability of the Laws, as we observe them in our experience, the “phantom
problem”. This problem is not formulated as such by Meillassoux, much less resolved. What
prevents the problem from being considered is Meillassoux’s master-stroke, which Belhaj Kacem
calls his “Pyrrhic stroke”, which consists in the bluff that the demonstration has already been given.
This bluff allows him to maintain, while denying it, Deleuze’s Chaos, and even to radicalise it by
subtracting the One-All that englobed it. The bluff allows QM to remain Deleuzian while
pretending to be faithful to Badiou.
(3): DEMONSTRATION VS DESCRIPTION IN THE GENESIS OF STABILITY
In Belhaj Kacem's analysis Meillassoux is forced into a Kantian position due to the fact that his
Deleuzian absolute, super-Chaos, is attested neither by common sense nor by the sciences. All the
known worlds, Belhaj Kacem underlines that they are known by science, "attest massively,
interminably, to the remarquable monotony of Laws, and even to a sort of ontological boredom, a
non-diversity". This super-Chaos is nowhere to be seen or to be observed, and is unknown by
science. So despite his anti-Kantianism Meillassoux is obliged to noumenalise his super-Chaos:
"Il faut recourir, puisqu’il ne se manifeste presque jamais, -sinon au grand jamais-, au bon vieux
noumène pour rendre fort commodément ce super-Chaos hors d’accès immédiat".
"He has to resort to, because it almost never, not to say absolutely never, manifests itself, to the
good old noumenon to remove this super-Chaos very conveniently from all immediate access" (my
translation).
Belhaj Kacem emphasises that Deleuze, thanks to his Bergsonian influence, has no need of a
noumenon, and so doesn't noumenalise his virtual Chaos. Nor does Deleuze have a problem with
the stability of Laws (the "stupid stability of natural Laws", as Kacem calls it), because his
procedure is descriptive:
"la «supériorité», pour l’instant, de Deleuze, sur QM, est ce que ce dernier considérera comme une
infériorité: le descriptif du processus par lequel le virtuel, hanté par l’inconsistance absolue de la
vitesse infinie du Chaos, consiste pourtant".
"the "superiority", for the moment, of Deleuze over QM lies in what Meillassoux considers to be an
inferiority: the description of the process by which the virtuel, haunted by the absolute
inconsistence of the infinite speed of Chaos, nevertheless consists".
Deleuze's procedure is descriptive, and so has no problem passing from virtual chaos to actualised
Laws. Meillassoux however pretends to adopt a purely demonstrative approach, but can give no
derivation of stupidly stable empirical Laws from inobservable super-Chaos, so he is obliged not
only to treat the super-Chaos as a noumenal absolute, but also to regard the link super-Chaos/Laws
as miraculous.
(4) CONCLUSION: THE NOUMENAL ABSOLUTE AND THE WITHDRAWAL
PROBLEM
Belhaj Kacem argues that Meillassoux noumenalises the diachronic (super-Chaotic flux) whereas
Harman noumenalises the synchronic (timeless real objects). Just as QM has trouble explaining how
a withdrawn super-Chaotic flux can give rise to stable natural Laws, Harman cannot explain how
withdrawn timeless real objects can give rise to sensual fluxes. In both cases there is an inability to
account for the unique anthropological and cognitive nature of science, its synthesis of historicity
and realism. Both philosophers posit a noumenal absolute behind the veil of strong withdrawal
(unobservable, unknowable, and inaccessible). This withdrawal is structural and transcendental
rather than physical and empirical, but the contradiction in Meillassoux's case between the two
absolutes of super-Chaos and mathematics leads to a becoming "entitative" of the structural super-
Chaos in the guise of the coming of the God who may be.