Nancy - The Experience of Freedom
Nancy - The Experience of Freedom
Nancy - The Experience of Freedom
OF FREEDOM
Jean-Lue Nancy
Assistance for this translation
was provided by the French Miniscry
of'Culture
fl9n2064
l
"For the issue depends on frccJom; anJ it
is in the power of frccdnm to pass bcrond
any and every s~ificd limit."
- Cririqllt ofPllrt' RMJOn.
T r.J !1s<:endcmal Dialectic.
book I. 5cc[ion 1
Translator's Note
Bridget McDonald
Contents
§ 14 Fragments
Notes 17S
Index of Names 20')
Foreword: From Empiricism
to the Experience of Freedom
Peter FenVt'S
xiii
XIV ForrworJ
thought. nor do they merely give dircctions for its various theoret-
ical and practical pursuits; thC5c two endeavors arc linked in a lih-
erating imperative: accept no authority other than that of experi-
ence. Since experience alone is said to give words their meaning.
this imperative also implies: free yourself from nonsense. from
bunk and humbug. The appeal to cxperience is at bottom a call for
liberation. so much 50 that empiricism can claim to clear away
long-held opinions, dogma, doctrines, and, at its inception. the
very idea of a priori justifications. In place of innate ideas and pure
concepts there are works of experience-essays, inquiries, experi-
menrs, and laboratories. each of which constitute a labor of libera-
tion wherein the given is made to relea'ie itself. If the five centurics
of Anglo-American thought arc succes.'iive elaborations on experi-
ence as liberation, the counterpart to these labors would be libeT1l-
lion as l'Xp"imc-~liberation without labor or elaboration. libera-
tion without empirical suppan, libemrion that docs not respect the
boundaries of civility established by the protocols for civillibcnies.
liberation of experience from its service to the work ofliberation.
Such liberation docs not easily harmonize with Anglo-American
thought. and yet it is no more in harmony with the motifs of la-
bor and the themarics of the Will that have dominated much of its
Occidental, "continental" other. It is possible that the thought of
liberation Jean-Luc Nancy pursues in The Experienu ofF"edom
has as great a potential to break open and expose Anglo-American
tnlditions as the ones explicitly addressed in the text. The distinc-
tive trait of Nancy's thought, like that of certain versions of em-
piricism. is the relentless quesrioning of necessity. From the outset
Nancy removes freedom from its subjection to necessity, determi-
nacy. and incvitability-a removal that does not. however, make
freedom into mere indeterminacy, indifference. or arbitrariness,
each of which is merely a negative mode of determinacy or neces-
sity. The analysis of "existence" Heidegger 6rst undertook in Being
mlt/ 1imt leaves room for such freedom. and NaRl:y makes the di-
mensions of this room more precise, on the one hand by turning
his attention to thc legacy of freedom in Hddegger's subsequent
writings, and on the other by returning to the phrase with which
Foreword xv
the soul originally, from unknown causes. "II Liberality expends it-
~If, rather. in the "gentle forl,;e" cillied ".he imagination." and the
imagination. true to i.~ wonl. makes it possible fOr the soul to per-
ceive anything. It is a name for making-possible. being-able: "The
uniting principle among ideas is not to be cOllsider'd as an insepa-
rable connexion; for that has be:en already excluded from the imag-
ination: nor yet are we to conclude. that without it the: mind can-
not join two ideas; for nothing is more free than that faculty."ll
freedom accrues [0 the imagination: a force whose very "gentle-
ness," if not its gentility and urbanity. excuses it from forcing any-
thing to occur; it is thus a force without enforcement, a force with-
um necessitation, a J"t force. "for nothing is more free than that
faculty. "
Imagination is as important for Hume's exposition of "human
nature" as gravitation is for Newton's elucidation of nature in gen-
era\; but gravitation, which is perhaps gentle at times, could hard-
ly be called "free." The word is therefore surprising, and the sur-
prise is that we can speak of the normal, the everyday, and the nal-
ural; the surprise is that we can speak of something. some Dnt
thing, at all. The imagination even lets us speak beyond the con-
fines of our nativity: "We arc only 10 regard it [the imagination] as
a gentle: force, which commonly prevails. and is the causc why.
among other thing.'l. languages so nearly correspond to C'.teh oth-
er. "II Imagination "gently," generously,ji-rt/y lets a world com~ into
heing: it gives us-but we "arc" nothing Olitside our imagina-
tion-the constancy nf objects and it give~ us the idca of causal
connections. [Wo ideas that Ilume shows to be mutually incom-
patible. Only a free force can le[ incompatibilities persist, and their
persistence cunstitutes our exist~nce"i An independent and inler-
connecled worM resides in a gentility, a generusity, a liberality, a
freedom-ness that i~ it~lf emancipated from the traditional philo-
sophical concept of freedom as mert' indt'terminacy, indifference.
or arl>itrarincss. Just as tht' Iiberalit)· of the imagination is more
than mere exemprion from determination or cunstraim ("negative
freedom"), 50 too is it less than self-determination or the overcom-
ing of inner compulsions {"positive freedom") .. , Liberality, which
xx Fo"word
cap'd ship-wreck in pa.o;sing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put
out to sea in the same leacky wetther-beaten vessel, and even car-
ries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under
these di5advantageous circumstances. "19 The experience of
thought--or. more prtcisdy, of "merhinks. which is nor the same
II
"':lkcn to its limit. moral ,on5Ciousne~ denics itself and realizes this
d"llial in acting for no other rcason than to deny the uncondi-
lionc:Jne5s and uncanniness ofits imperatives.
To deny the uncondirionedness and uncannincss of imperatives
••H honom, to disre(tard the moral law nell for the sake of plea-
~lIrc or happincss hut out of a profound contempt for the condi-
(inn of imt·, mity and groundlessness it announces. Insecurity and
grnundlt'Ssness manifest themselves in the unascertainabiliry of the
"voice" that implofl's unconditional action a~ well a.~ in the very
wndition of heing ullconditioned that this voice. each time
uniqudy. inaugurates. To act in order to spite-not in spite of-
the condition of being unconditioned reaches deeper than the
"radical evil" of which Kant wrote and in which he could see the
rums of a purel)' ('thical religion. Acting out of profound contempt
tor the unique "fact of rcason." acting in order to wipe away the
condition of being unconditioned. acting on the hasis of ground-
lessness--this is not irrationality. especially if "rea~on" means ren-
dering the grountfs and causes of things; it is not irrationality but
",il'Iuv/nl'JJ. and it can a~~("n itself in appeals to empirical knowl-
edge as readily as in ,alls to transcendence:. "Uncouthness" would
perhaps be another name for this action, if it Were no longer con-
lcived as isolilrion frnm everything hum.. n nature compels us to do
hili were, insread. seen as the furious denial of the uncouthness,
uncanniness. and ulK~l'tainty of freedom; for wickedness wants
nothing more than for freedom to disappt'ar inro nern necessity.
and for wmmonaliry ro mean nothing but partaking of a common
suhstance, a ~pecifk nature, one plale of nativit),. nne nation. a
p;utkular race. The experience of freedom cannot he dissociated
from an exposure to wickedness, to a non-Humcan-if neverthe-
less all-too-human-"uncouthness," which i~ nOI just ,he nans-
ti,rmation nf freedum inlll somethin~ subjective but. above all. rhe
('rct:lion of "fraternities" on the ever tirl11t"r foundations that this
uansformation, this d('Scenr into c\·il, promises.
The experience of freedom cannot therefore be dis..~ociated frolll
an exposure to what Kant had called-although he denied it could
ever lake place and. a.o; a result. made it into the limit of ethical
xxviii
This is why a divorce has taken place between, on the one hand.
a \cl of determinations [hat are relarivel)" Iltccisc in their pragmat-
Art' ~ Fr« to Speak ofFreedom?
9
10 N«nsity ofthe Theme ofFreedom
In still other words: once existence clearly offers itself (this c1ar-
iry dazzles us) no longer as an empiri!;ity that would need to be
related to its !;onditions of possibility, or sublated [re~ri in a tran-
s!;endence beyond itself, but instead offers itself as a factualiry that
contains in itself and as such. hk et ,,"nt", the reason for its presen!;C
and the presence: of its reason, we must-whatever (he modes of this
"presence" and of this "reason"-think its "'fact" as a "freedom."
This means that we must think what gives existence back to itself
and only to itself, or what makes it available as an txisttnC"e that is nei-
ther an essence: nor a sheer given. (The ques£ion is no longer exactly
"Why is there something?" nor is it any more exactly this other
question to which freedom seems to be linked in a more visible
manner, namely, "Why is there evil?," but it becomes "Why these
very questions by which existence affirms itself and abandons itsclf
in a single gesture?")
Indeed, if the factuality of being-exinence as such-or even if
its haeccity, the being-the-there, the being-that-is-this-there, the
da-srin in the local intensity and temporal extension of its singu1arity,
cannot in itself and as such be freed from (or be: the freeing 00
the steady, ahistorial, unlocalizable, self-positioning immobility
of Being signified as principle, substance, and subject of what is
(in shon: ifin fact being. or if the fact of being, cannot be the free-
ing of being itself. in all of the senses of this genitive). then thought
is condemned (Wt'are condemned) to the pressing thickness of [he
nigtu in which not only are all cows black. bur their very rumination.
down to their death. vanishes--and we with them-into a fold-
less immanence. which is not even unthinkable, sino: it is (l priDri Ollt
of reach of all thought. even a thought of the unthinkable.
If we do not think being itself. the being of abandoned exis-
tence. or even the being of being-in-me-world. as a "freedom" {or
perhaps as a liberality or generosity more original than any free-
dom}. we are condemned to think of freedom as a pure "Idea" or
"right," and being-in-the-world, in return. as a forever blind and ob-
twe necessity. Since Kant. philosophy and our world have heen re-
lentlessly placed before this tear. This is why jdeology today de-
mands freedom, but does not think it.
N~msity oftht T"t1n~ oIF~~", II
there is nothing else to think (to preserve, not foresee; to test. not
guide) besides the fact that being ha5 a hi~tory or that being is his-
tory (or hi.~tories in the plural), which means at least the coming and
the surprise of a renewed hatching of existence. This is the point we
have reached: being. in its history. has delivered the historicity or the
hislOriality of being. This means the end of a relacion of founda-
tion-whichever one--be[ween being and history. and the opening
of existence to its own essenliality as well as to this scansion. or
singular rhythm. according to which the existent precedes and suc-
ceeds itself in a time (0 which it is nor "prcsenr." bur in which its
freedom surprises it-like the spacing (which is also a rhythm. per-
haps at the he-cut of the former rhythm) in which the existenl is
singulari7.ed. that is to say. exists. according to the free and mmmon
space of its inessentiality.
What one could call. in some sense. the axiomatic of the spatia-
temporal effectivity of existence-that which requires existence to
exist hie n mine and at every moment to put at stake its very pos-
sibility of existing. at every moment delivering itself as its own
essence (which is by this very fact "in-"essential)-does nO( signify
the axiological equivalence of what is produced according to the
places and moments of history. Evil and good are correlative possi-
bilities here. not in the sense that one or the other would first be of-
fered to the choice of freedom-dlere is not first evil and good.
and thm freedom with its choice-bur in the sense that the possi-
bility of evil (which proves to be. in the last instance. the devastation
of freedom) is correlative (0 {he illlroduction of freedom. This
means that freedom cannot present itself without presenting the
possibility. inscribed in its essence. of a fWe rtmmcilltion offt«dom.
This very renunciation directly mak~ itsclfknown as wlckrdnru. in
a moment in some way precrhical in which ethics irself would nev-
ertheless already surprise itself. Inscrihing freedom in being does
not amount to conferring on being. as a singular existent, an in-
difference of will (resurreclaJ from classical thought) whose onto-
logical tenor would strike indifferently the moral tenor of dt..'Ci.~ions
(as some have occasionally gratified themselves to think. in a pmterity
N~utt;ty of,J)~ TIJ~m~ ofFrrrdom 17
[0 hold its ground, in the face of the evil that defies thought, from
the deepest point of its freedom), there must also be iu hope:: this is
not the hope that things "finally turn out well." and even less that
they "turn into good." but it is that which, in thinking and of
thinking. must, limply in orrin to think, tend in spite of everything
toward a liberation as well as toward the very reality of the exis-
tenu: that is to be thought of. WithoUl this, thinking would have no
meaning. All thought. even when skeptical, negative. dark. and
disabused. if it is thought, frees the o:isting of o:istencc-because in
fact thought proceeds from it. But hope, as the virtus of thought, ab-
solutely docs not deny that today more than ever, at the hean of a
world overwhelmed by harshness and violence, thought is con-
fronted with its own powerlessness. Thought cannot think ofitsclf
as an "acting" (as Heidegger asks it to be and as we cannot not re-
quire it to be. unless we give up thinking) unless it undcl'5tands
this "acting" as at the same time a "suffering." Free thought think-
ing freedom must know iuclf to be astray, lost, and. from the point
of view of "action." undone by the obstinacy of intolerable evil. It
must know irself to be pushed in this way onto its limit, which is that
of the unsparing material powerlessness of all discourse, but which
is also the limit at which thinking. in order [0 be itself. divorces it-
self from all disrou~ and exposes itself as passion. In this passion and
through it. already before all "actionn-but also ready for any en-
gagement-freedom acts.
whid. it exi!Ots: the opening of time. tbr first scbmlll, rhe first draw-
in~ wilhoUl figure of rhe: very rhyrhm of elCisting.~ tk tWl1l!('mrim-
I"I./i.·f,t'matism ;~If no longer as a "!Ourprise artack" [" (Ollp-de-ma;,(]
on rhe secret dissimulated in a "nature." bill tIS II}e freedom with
whid. the exisrent surprises the world and irself prior to every de-
tl'fluin:uion of cxistcm:e. And this means thar rime in tum is opene:d
unto a m.'w spariality. onto a foe Spit" ar the heart of whkh freedom
~Jn exist. at rhe heart of which freedom can be freed or renounced.
(he: free space of the dearing of meaning in general (bur rhere is no
"meaning in general." its generality is its singularity). as well as the
free space of communication. or that of the public place. or that in
which embracing bodies play. or thaI of war and peace.
'Illal whi\:h aim. insofar as it exists. in itself, cannot be except for
Ihis ~pace-time of freedom, and the freedom of its space-time. This
is why the question of freedom (the question we a.~k in regard to
frcedom-Whar is it?-and the qucstion thaI freedom asks-What
is (0 be dond) henceforth begins neither with man. nor with God.
at the hC<l11 of a torality of which Being would Ix: the substantive pre-
suppmition. and as such foreign to the freedom of existing. It begins
with Ihe being of a world whose existence is itself the thing-ill-itself
We must therefore think freedom, because it can no longer be a
qualilY or property rhar one would atuibute. promise. or refuse to
the existcnt, as a resulr of some consideralion of essence or reason.
Bur it must be the clement in which and according to which only cx-
ist("nce ttllin place (and lime). that is, cxists and "accounts" [" ""d Illi-
SOl'" 1 for itsel f.
11
2.2. Impossibility oftk Qtmrio" ofFrwdom
len{;C of fact: not only its positivity. but its active and/or pas.'iive
effectivity) from itself. and which consists in the experience of the
obligation of free will or free action (which. under the circum-
stances. and as [ will show. amount to the same thing). or even in the
obligation of will or action ttJ be free. Ir is the rational experience of
reason IIJ "practical reason."
Commentators have: often hexn 5urpriscd by the tcxt of §91 of the
Third Criliqur. which posits the Idea of freedom as "presentable
in experience." This surprise has been underlined and prohlematizcd
by Hddegger, whose analysis we will recall later. It would have
been less aC{;Cntuated if Kant's permanent insi5tence on this motif
had been remembered. "The Canon of Pure Reason" already states:
"Practical freedom can be demonstrated by experience," which also
has as a correlate that "pure reason, then. contains ... in rhat prac-
tical employment which is also moral. principles of the po!!ibillty ~
txpn'irna. namely. of such actions as mightbe met with in the
history of mankind."2 [n fact. the Second Critiqur opens ORlO this
alone: it is indeed, writes Kant, a critique "of practical reason" and
not "of pure pral:tical reason" because it is concemed solely with es-
rablishing .. that tlmr h II PU" p,"~ti~11 "tlSO"," and that. once es-
tablished, pure practical rcason has no need of any critique that
would come to limit its contingent/eventual presumption: practical
reason would not be able to ·surpass irself," as theoretical reason can
and irresistibly tends to do. If th", is a practical reason, "its reality"
is proven "by the fact itself." We are not dealing with the pre-
sumptions of a power but with the given fact of an actual exis-
tence. And this given fact is irs own legitimation. hecause it is not a
given object (in which case one would have to ask whether or not it
is correctly produced), but rather the given fact of the ellistence of
a Iegi.'ilation as the legislation of existence: reason aim as--or un-
der-this law offreedom. That which exists (for example. reason as
the given fact of existence. and not as the power ofknowk-dge) is this
self-legislation, and that which legislates is this existence. (One
could say that with Kant begins the sdf-legitimation of existence, and
existence as the abyss of this self-legitimation.)
Thus freedom is a "keystone" "to the extent that reality is proven
Imponibi!ity oft~ Question ofFtwdom lJ
(hIJ~'\! h)' the Second Critiqlle. This is. however. the only possible re-
"lll~tilUtion. in Kantian tenn.~. of the enigmatic logic of this passage
,.lIul we have been ahle to see how this reconstitution. in spite of
('\'l."r~1hing. is & ..crectly namoo in Kant's text by the words "in itsclf."
whidl ~m to indicate that if the Idea is not "in itself" susceptible
to allY pr~t'l1Iation, it would however be SIL'iceptible to presentation
where it is 1101 simply an "Idea in itself," where it overflows itself as
Ilk.l in an experience).
We have adhered to this analysis without conclusion in order to
~hllw that the Kantian /(IC'/of freedom cannot receive, in a rigorous
Kandan logic. it~ status as fact. (And. in a more general way, it
1,;21lllot receive thi< litatus in a meraph)'!iicallogic if the means of the
JCl1lol1Stration un never he supplied except through a union of
rhe intelligihle anti rhe sensible where these: are in principle posired
as irreconcilable.)
Strictly speaking. another analysis would be pos... ihle. one that
would no longer place on the side of intuition empirical action.
hili rather the sentiment of respect for the law-which. inddenrally,
prnpcrly constitutes the "intuitive," or at least receptive. clement of
r('a,~n in its bc:ing-praClial. Later on we will perhaps encounter the
~ignif1cance of [his respect. 8m here it is not helpful, because Kam
i~ H:fc.·rring to fredom's "particular type of c;msality," and respect does
nut rrlatc to freedom's causality but to il5 lawfulness. (Or rather, in-
\ufar a~ it i~ itself the sensible effect of the law. respect can only
~lImmon an aporia comparable lel the preceding one.) Thus the
r(,'~ours(' to causality, "particular" or not. hinders the elaboration
of the' ~pccif1c factuality of the faCl of the experience of freedom; or
rarlwr. and thi!> .IIIlOUIlt§ to rhe sa~ thing. the "particularity" offrcc
l3u\.llity conceals the' following: freedom is not a type of causality.
'1 his last proposition was the essential result of rhe course given
hI' Hcir.lcgger in 1930, "On the Essence of Human Freedom." The
'Ill·gorial subordination of frc('(lnm to causality in the Kantian
1'llIblcmatic appeared to him as the limit of his e\cmherological
~nr~·rl)risc. and he was able to say:
(Thus, the "will to will," in which Hcidcgger will later lin fact only
slightly later) recognize the essence of metaphysic:al subjectivity,
was first prfsented here in a very different manner: in accordance
with the formally subjective structure of a "willing [for] oneself," cer-
tainly, but brought at once to an extremity where the "sclf" of "will-
ing onN/f" is immediately and only a "duty of being-there," which
i~ to say immediately the abandonment of existcnce to an obligation.
Imp(JlJibility oftJ~ Q"estion ofPIWdom 27
II i~ the practical fact of ",von. bur Ihis docs not mean that it
""HIIlI he a "fact of reason" in the same sense that one says "a rational
h~'illg": thlL'i. it is nor a theoretical "fa~t." ideal or unreal, ineffective
anJ incxistent. b On the contrary. if one were to make explicit what
Hc:idcggcr's text contains a~ indices. thi .. fact is not only an existent
t:Kt-il is (35 we have already se<.'n) the fa~t of existence as such. It
is the facr by which the existent hill' Dt,gj,,) relatl'S (to) itself as that
which wants to he I obligate itself to he what it is. The existent is
thl' hcing that in its being obligates itself I wants to be. and that 00-
li~ate~ itself to I wants being. Or further: it is the ~ing that is d~
(id(((/ol' ,";ng. In this way it transcentls. that is, it ex-ists. The fact
offrccdom is the "right" of existence, or rather. the "fact" of existence
is [he rig'" of freedom. This freedom ili not ,he freedom ofthis or
that componment i" existence: it is the freedom of existence to
cl(ist, to be "decided for being." that is. to come to itself according
to in own transcendence (since. having no essence "to itsclf." it
(.m only b~ "esscnrially" Ihis transccndem:e "toward its being").
This freedom is. according 10 the formula employed in &i"g lind
7imf (§40) ... tI,~ b~ing-fi"e~ for the freedom of choosing-oneself-
an(i-gmping-onc!iCl( ..
The freedom of existence to exist is cxisrel1l.:e itselfin its "essence,"
insofar as existence is itself essence_ This "essence" consists in being
hmugln direcd)' to this limit where the existent is only what it is in
i!~ lr.lnsccndence. "Transcendence" itselfis nothing other than the
pot~~a~c LO the limit. not its attainmc:nt: it is the bcing~posed at. on,
and as the limit. Here. the limit does not signify the arrested cir-
ullmcription of a domain or figure. but signifies rather that th~
t'Srt'l/ff of f'Xillm("~ ('om;lls in l/;is b~illg-ttrke1l-to-th~-~dg~ rrmiJing
frO/II /I·lrat 1,.lS "0 "~sstm'~" Ihttl is ~ndo.!N' a"d "s~'r·rd ill lilly im-
""IIIt'''''~ prrsml 10 t"~ i"mi", oflltt' bOJrln Th;ll cxi~tenc;e is its
own l"iSCIKe mean~ that it ha, no "interiority," without, however. be-
"cl1lircly in exterioricy" (for example. in the way thai Hegel's in-
or~.lI1il" thing is). £"ist~"'? kl'~ps it1~1f. ·through;ts fSSt'll('~." on t'lt un-
rl.wl.,/JI(' lim;t ofil$ ou", tkrisio" to o:;sl. In this way. frmlom belongs
1" l')d~ICI\C:t' nor as a property. but as its filL·l. its fitrmm ration;s
\\ hidl l311 al~Cl be understoud as "the fan of its reamn for exist-
Impossibility oft," Qunlion ofFrrtJom
ing," which is similarly "the rcason for the fact of its existence.·
Freedom is the transcendence of the self toward the self, or from the
sdf to thc self-whi~h in no way cxcludcs, but on the contrary re-
quires, as we can henceforth dearly see, that the "self" not be un-
derstood as subjectivity, if subjectivity designates the relation oftI mb-
slanct to itself; and which requires at the same time, as we wiU
show later, that this "self" only takes place ac(."Ording [0 a being-in-
common of singularities.
The fa(t of the existent's freedom consists in that, as soon as the
existent exists. the very fact of this existence is indistinguishable
from irs transcendence, which means from the finite being's non-
presence to itself or from its exposure on its limit-this infinite
limit on which it must receivc itself as II lAw of existing, that is, of
willing its existence or resolving for it, a law it givn to itst/f aNl
whi(h it is not. In giving itself law, it gives itself over to the will to
obey the law, but since it is not this law-yet, if we like, it cx-ists in
it-it is to mc same cxtent what can disobey, as well as obey, the law.
(We could also say: "cxistcnce is law," but iflaw, in general, essen-
tially traces a limit, the law of existence does not impose a limit
on existcm:c: it traces existence as the limit that it is and on which
it resolves. Thus existence as "essence" withdraws into the law, but
the law itself withdraws into the fact of existing. It is no longer a law
that could be respected or transgressed: in a sense, it is impossible to
transgrcss; in another seme, it is nothing other than the inscrip-
tion of the transgressive/uanscendem possibility of existence.
Existence can only rransgress itself.)
The existent's ex-istence giws it 0"" (/imo] to the possibility of gi~
ing i~/fovtr lU' LivrtrJ to its law. precisely because the law has nei-
ther essence nor law. but it its own essence and own law. When
there is an existent. there is neither essence nor law. and it is in
this an-archy that cxisten~c resolves. It renders itself [St Ih'n) to it-
self, it de-livers lJl-liv"l itself for itself or delivers itself from it-
self. Th~ fan offrudom i1 thil tk-Liwrttn~~ of~is~nu from every IIlw
lind ftom itst/fliS lAw: freedom there delivers itself as will. which is
itself only thc existent's being-ddivered-and-decided.
Impossihility oftJJ~ Q"m;o" ofFrmlom 31
B
TIM SpllU ~fi F"~ by Heidegg"
Thl' uuly frC'e spirit will also think freely reg.1rding spirit itself, and
will 1101 dim:mble over cenain dreadful elements in its origin and ten-
til·1l9'·
rntu!;c an? No. Out go with the art in your own most narrowness.
And !OCt yuurself frC'c. ~
"dIe nrenn('~~ of the rnuh of history" by which man can feel the
.' 's~ity (II' "his own being" (p, 15~). However. having accompanied
1"IlC:;I(cd Schelling up to this very advanced if not ulrimate point
(a rerelition completed by the subsequent analysis of the conjoined
pll~'ihility of good and evil), and having at the same time brought
him (0 a "more originary" thought. J-Icid~er ahandons him. This
.I(,;tndUllll1ent is esscntially due to the f.'1ct that Schelling docs not
III,Huge 10 mdically think the originary t1l1ity from which proceed
1m..Jllm a~ n~ity a~ well a~ the correlative possibilities of ~ and
C'·il. lIe docs not think this origin as "nothing." and he thus fdils to
think fhat "the l'Ssence of all Being is finitude" (p. (62). Schelling thus
doc5 not ovcrcome Kant and the "incomprehensible" character of
frec\\olll (p. 161). It must be: understood that freedom remains in-
CCJIllprehemible as long a., it expoSCli its necessity to the core of a
thnu~llt (Iiat order.; it to an infinite neccssity of being. and not as a
finitude tor which being is not the fOundation. (It is not so much
that frccJom would become "comprehensible" in the "more origi-
rw)" thinking," but the questioll of freedom would cenainly no
lunger be posed in these rerms--unless it were necessary, in order to
gain distancc froll, a problematic of "comprehcnsibility," also to
gain distance from "freedom" itself.}
Ii" we interpret corrt~cdy the last pagl."S of this course, two things
;arc ~ignified at oncc:
Thc c:oiscntial character of freedom has becn attained in the
nl'CC~sity for man to assume his proper essence as that of a dedsion
rdative to "essence and deformation of es.'iencc" (p. 156). which
means [0 good and evil a.~ the realization of this couple of esscnces
a "hiMory" (ibid.) that involvcs "encountcring a destiny" (p. 161).
1I1\of:lr as ,IClitiny COll5islS precisely in man's CXllOSUI'C to his own ne-
ll'~~il ~'.
Bur this thought has not yet penetrared to the "nothin~" of the
'gin of this necC55ity; it has therefore nm thought the: c:sscntial fini-
llldl' of essence itself (of eKistence) in the essence of freedom-
'\'hkh t:unse'l"l'lltly. in irs decision and in iu pcrdurance, docs nor
In,"~h III' with the necenity of an essentiality (that of "'Itn, whence
rhl' di~r.ltlcc Hci\leggcr takes i" ji"r from Schelling's "anthropo-
The Space Lift me by H~itkgg"
The allsolute goal, or, ifyoulikc. the absolute imput.c, offrec Spirit is
In make its freedom its object. i.e. to make freedom ohjccti~ as much
in the ~cnsc that fredom shall be the rational s)'Stem of Spirit. as in the
54:n~e that this system shall be the world of immediate actuality. In
m~king freedum its object. Spirit's purpose is to be explicitly, as Idea,
what Ihe will is implicitly. The definition of the concept of'the will in
ab~lr;tcrion from Ihe Idea of the will is -the frc:c will which wills the free
will. -·1
~()'n ~hort lIf freedom itself. in its qualitieli of decision and opening.
III ord cr to gi\'e it back to truth. that is, to the I:ondition of being's
(non, -11l:lIlIJCMatlOn.
'r- •
T," Spll'~ ufo Frn by H~jJ~"
from itself as faCl."l This links lip in a nllmber of ways with a mode
that would no longer be that of the "necessity of nec~ity," but
which would be precisely the mode of its liberation. Here we rejoin
[he Kantian inconceivability of freedom and its commentary by
Heidegger:
hhi,." lite is the Idea of frt'edom in ,hiu on ,he one hand it is ,he
~""d h("cume al;'lt'-rhe good ",dot/wl in ~If-consciollsnt'~s with
so TIN Fr~~ ThinlringofFrmlom
The: state: is the actuality of the ethic:llldc:a. It is ethical spirit ljll4 the
substantial will manifest and revealed to itself, knowing and thinking
itself, accomplishing what it knows and in so far as it knows it. 7
TIll' thinking whose thollghr~ not only do nut l;alculatc but arc ab-
,.. I\IIdy determined by what i~ "other" than beings might be called
52 J"Iw Pm Thinking ofrn«iom
lh..-rdi.Jrc. a.~ abyss. only the unleashing that emerges "OUt of it.
of more exactly and because there is no substantiality or interiority
(0 lhl' ab)'ss. the "ab)'5S" itsclf-a term still too evocative of depths--
thin~s in general are given and happen. This is why thinking does
not have freedom as :50mething to be comprehended or to be re-
nounceo from comprehension: yet freedom ofTers itself in thinking
as what is more intimate and originary to it than every object of
rhought and every faculty of thinking.
li, be sure. here there is no longer even "freedom," as a deflned
subMance. There is, so to speak, only the "freely" or the "gener-
ously" with which thing.'! in general arc given and give themselves to
be thought ahout. No doubt "freedom itself" unleashes "itself"
both in the sense that it would be the subject of this act and in the
M'n~e that it wOldd expend its own substance. Ycr what unleashes -it-
5C1£" wa!> not previoudy attached to a substantial unity; 011 the con-
twy. the subject follows only from freeoom. or is born in her.
What is expended was not previously reserved in a pregnant en-
d()~urc. nor even contained in itself like an abyss. Generosity pre-
((xit"li the possibility of any kind of possession. The secret of this gen-
rru~ir~· i~ that it docs not have to do with giving what one has (one
h'h Ilothing. freedom has nothing of its own), but with giving one-
\clf-and that the 1~1fof this reflected form is nothing other than
gl·"crusity. or the generousnc.'iS of generosity. The generousness of
!:L·nl·rnsity is neither its subject nor its essence. Rather, it remains its
\llIgularil),. whidt is at the same time its evenlY gellermity hal'llC'm.
;6 Tk Fm UJinking 0/FrruJom
it gives and is given in giving. always singular and never held back
in the generality of its own quality-and its unKjue manner of not
"taking place" in the sense of a simple positing. but of always p~_
ceding itself by always succeeding itself. II unleashes itself. with-
out "being unleashed," before being. but also well after it-already
hurled, sent, expended, without having had the time to know that
it i.~ "generous," without having been subjected to the time of such
a qualification. What i:s generow abandons irself to generosity,
which is not its "own," without having or mastering what it does. It
is like hitting one's head (thinking as hining one's head. ), it is
having heen delivered or abandoned not only withom calculation
and without having been able to calculate. but even withour an
idea of generosity. This is not an unconscious. but on the con-
trary-if these terms can be used-the most pure and simple con-
sciousness: that of expended existence. Thought that is given in
this way is the most simple thought: the thought of the freedom of
being, the thought of the possibility of the "there is," that is. thought
i~1f, or the thought of thought. It does not have to "comprehend-
or "comprehend itsdf"-or uncomprchend.lt is expended to itself.
in existence and as the ex-istcnce of the existent. as its own inessen-
tial essence, well before the conditions and operalioll5 of all intel-
lection and (re)presentation: it is expended as the very freedom of
eventually being able to comprehend or not comprehend some-
thing. This freedom is not a question or problem for thinking: in
thinking. freedom remains its own opening.
. -.....
"Freedom" cannot avoid combining, in a unity that ha.'1 only its
own generosity as an index, the values of impulse, chance, luck.
the unfOreseen. the m,'\:ided, the: game, the discovery, conclusion. daz-
uemellt. syncope, courage. reRection, rupture. terror, suture. aban-
donment. hope. caprice, rigor. rhe arbirrary.L' Also: laughter. tears,
scream. word. rapture, chill. shock. energy. sweemess .•.. Freedom
is also wild freedom. the freedom of indifference. the freedom of
dloice, availability. the free game. freedom of comportment. of air,
of love. or of a free time where time begins again. It frcc:s each of
Th~ Fru n,;,tlting ofFmdom S7
60
Philosophy: Logic oj'Fl'udom 61
that the order of the concept itself pcnains, in origin and csscnce, to
the dement of freedom. The com;ept it5df all ea5ily appear as a rep-
resentational abstraction: bm the concept of the concept, if we can
say this. annot be anything other than the freedom through which
the access to representation occurs-and me access to the repre-
sentation of foundation, as well 35 to the foundation of repm;cn.
tation: that is, the mode of being according to exiJtmu, or even
thinking as the free pos.~ibiliry of having a world, or as the avail-
ability to a world (even if this is. as it comes into philosophy, only a
world of representation). The faclUaliry of freedom is also the fact of
thinking. It is thus also prescnt in the fact-which opens philoso-
phy, and hence also precedes it-m.ll we define "man" by thought:
we do not define him 35 a pat[ of a universal order. or as a creature
of God, or as the inheritor and transmitter of his own lineage, but
as zOo" logon elthon. Thought is specified as logtls, and logos. before
designating any arrangement of concepts and any foundalion of
represeRlalion. ~cnlially designates-within this order of the "mn-
cept of concept" and "foundation of foundation" to which its dia-
logic and dialectic are devoted-tht- jTreJom oflhe access 10 its OWII
essence. Logos is not first the production, reception. or assignation J
a -reason," but is before all the freedom in which is presented or by
which is offered the "reason" of every "reason": for this freedom
only depends on the logos. which irsdf depends not on any "order 01
reasons" but on an "order of matters" whose first maner is nothina
other than freedom, or the liberation of thought fur a world. The r.-
gOl would never, for lack of this freedom. pose any question of the
concept as concept, of the foundation as foundation, or of repre-
sentation 35 representation (or any question of the Iog01 as /o~.
Thus the Iogo/, before any "logic," but in the very inauguration of its
own logic. freely accedes to its own cssencc-cven if this is in the
mode of not properly acceding to any essence. This access, which
also produces its source, never stops being pur at stake. as much
when the logol attempts to master "freedom" in a "logic" as when it
renounces assigning any "reason" to this frc:alom. BUI whether it
masters (itsdO or renounces (itself), the logos is already seiud by free-
dom, which undoes on tk surfoce oflhe logol its ma5tcry or its a(,.
Philosophy: lAgir ofFrmJo",
ba\.k III Ihe cxpct'ic:nce of this fOundation, or rather, it is only the filr-
g'llil1~ or ubliteration of its 01L'1I constitution.
I'hiioltlJl'hy is not a[ all a founding discipline (there precisely lan
h~. flll 'urh thing), hut is the vcry folding. in discourse, of the frec-
\10111 11t.1I deflnesthc logos in its acces.~ to its own essence. Philosophy
Philosophy: Logic ofFrtteJom
:0 the: fact that thinking. in its eS5cncc. should be thc liberation of ex-
istence for a world, and that lht'.frudom ofthis li~ration cannot '"
appropriaud tV dn "objt'ct of thought. .. btlt that this jrudom marlt,
with an indJ'auablt' fold tIJt' t'xt'rciu of thi"king. This is the fold
along which thought touches itself, tests itself, or accedes to its
own essence following the experience of freedom. without which it
would not be "thought" and even les~ logos as free access to its own
CS5ence.
Thus philosophy does not produce or construct any "freedom:
it does nO[ guarantee any freedom, and it would not as such be
able to defend any freedom (regardless of the mediating role it can
play, like every other discipline, in actual struggles). But it ~'PS
opm tiN dems to fbi' mmCt' oftiN 10g01 through its history and all its
avatars. In this way it must henceforth keep the access open--frce..
dom-beyond the philosophical or metaphysical closure of free-
dom. Philo~ophy is inccssanrly beyond itself-it now has a the-
matic knowledge of this from the interrogarion of the very con-
cept of philosophy-not because it is the Phoenix of knowledgc:s, but
ha"ause "philosophi7jng" consists in keeping open the vertiginous at-
cess to the essence of the iJJgos, without which we would not have any
idea of even the slightC"St "logic" (discursive. narrative. mathemati-
cal, metaphysical, etc.). But this maintcnance is not an operation of
force or even one of preservation: it consists in testing in thought
(which means: inscribing in language) this fold of freedom that ar-
ticulates thought itself (which me-ans: inscribing in language the
freedom chat arriculates it and that never appropriates it).
Accordingly. when it is said that true philosophy is where -in
such knowledge the whole of existence is seized by the root after
which philosophy searches-in and by fimJq",." I or even that phi-
losophy is "rigorous conceptual knowledge of heing. It is this. hoW-
ever. only if this conceptual grasp (&g"iftll) is in itself the philo-
sophical apprehension (J:.rgrrifm) of iJast'in in freedom," it is not said
that the philosophical concept wOllld comprehend existence in irs
freedom. but rather that it is freedom which grasps the concept it-
selfin its "conceiving." This is not a "conception of existence" and
stillles.~. if that is possible, a '\;onception of freedom." but it is ex-
Plli/osop"y: Logic ofFl'udom 65
66
SIJllrillg F,.mlo",
ti'llll1 ,Iur mornent it is clear that it is not singuhu: if there is i'llt o"~
till1 l ', there is never "once"); or. t~ is ItO being "/N'rt ftom singu-
I.nil)": cadl time just this oncc. and thcre would be nothing gener-
,11 or ((}mnHln exccpl the "each limc just this once" [chaqrlr fois
tt'tu s{'tllt' foil). This is how we must undcrstand Heidegger's
J(II1I·III~t,ktjt. DIINi,,'s "each time as my own," which docs not define
the ~ubj~tivity of a substantial p~sc:nce of the t'go to ;tsr/f(and
",hkh is therefore nO[ comparable to the "empty form" of the
K.U11ian "I" that accompanies representations}, hut which on the
contrary defines "mineness" on the basis of the "each time." Each
timl" there is the singularity of a "time." in this German jr- which so
str.tIlgdy mimes the French jr, at t!Very srrike of existence. leap of
fll'CJmll. or leap into freedom. at every birth-into-the-world. there
is "minellcss," which does not imply the substantial permanence.
iderHily, or autonomy of the "ego." but rather implies the with-
drawal of all substance. in which is hollowed out the infinity of
the: rd;uion 3,coroing to which "mineness" ;tImt;,,"/" mell'lS tiN
nomdmtilJ' of "yourness" and "hislher/its-ness." The "each time" is
an intt'rval structure and defines a spacing of space and rime. There
is nothing ,"tw«" each timc: thcre being withdraws. Moreover.
being is 1I0t a continuum-being of beings. This is why. in all rigor.
it i; I/ot, and has no being except in the discreteness of singularities.
The continuum would be the absence of relation. or rather it
would he the relation dis....olved in the continuity of suhstance. The
~inglliarity. on the other hand, is immediately in rdation. that is. in
the dis,rc:tencss of the "each time just this once": each timc. it cuts
itself uff from everything. hur each ti",r [foilJ as a ti",r [fois] (the
strike and CUt [co"p tt "OIt~J of existencc) opens itsdf as a relation
10 nther limes, to the extent that continuous relation is withdrawn
from them. Thus Mitfri". heing-with. is rigorously contempora-
neou~ with D.ur;" and inscribed in it. because rhe esscncc of Dtun"
is til exi~t "each time just this oncc" as "minc." One could say: the
Sill~lIl.lr of "minc" is by itsc:lf a plural. Each limr is. as such. 111IOt"-
~,. time, lit mret' other than the other occurrences of "mincness"
(whidl l11ake~ the relation also a di~rete relation of"mc" to "me."
. time and "my" spacc). and other than the occurrences of
68 Sbaring Frmiom
!ions of being that are oriented toward their own re-union (this
w"uld not he relation. bur a sdf-presence mediated by desire or
",j\Il. but existence delivered to the incommensurability ofbeing-in-
(oI11I1WII. What measurcs itself against the incommensurable is
fn:edom . We could even say that to be in relation is to measure
tlnc:~c1f with being as sharing, that is. with the birth or de-liver-
am.c uf existence as such (as what lhroll~h essence de-livers itself),
and it is here that we have already recognized freedom.
d.lIl(C wilh her perspecrive. Thai the political space is rhe origi-
n,lry 'pace offrcedom docs not lhercfore mean that the political is
dcsrined primarily to guarantee "fr~dom" or "freedoms" (in lhis re-
g.UlI it is nor space rhar must be spoken of, bur only me apparatus)
bUI [har the political is the "spaciosity" (itsclf spatiotemporal) of
freedom. It gives place and time to what we have called "measuring
onesrlf wilh sharing." It gives space and rime ro rhe raking m~sure
of Ihi~ "mea~uring oneself' in its various fonns. an archi-politics from
whi~h it i~ possible to consider polilics as well as to distinguish po-
liti,al orders from other orders of existence.
The jllSt;ce necessarily in question here-becausc ir is a quesrion
of sharing and of measure-is not that of a just mean, which pre-
supposes a given measure, but concerns a just measure of the in-
commemurable. (:or this reason-regardless of the negotiadolls
that ott lhe same time must he conducted with the expecrations
and rea~onahle hopc§ for a just mean-jlls,;~t' can only reside in
lhe rt'ncwed decision to challenge the validity of an established or
prev:liling "just measure" i" tilt Illlmr oftilt i"commrnsllmbk. The po-
lilical ~pa,e. or ,he politkal as s(Yclcing. is given from the outset in the
form--always paradoxical and crucial for what is neither the polit-
kal nor the community, but the management of society--of the
1. 0 11111\011 (absence of) measure of an incommensurable. Such is.
I h(' nlntours of [he pditkal arc uau.d or rClraced emly on aile measure
..I till" withdrawal. in the poliliCll and from the politil;a1. uf iu eSKIKc."
Politics ... bears witness to the nothingness which opens lip wiili each
occurring phase and on the occasion of which the differcnd be~n
genres of discourse is born.
Or from Badiou:
,I<lI1 IC tlf thi~ right, we hlcnc.! in equal part5 the will and the despair
lit Ihc will -which thrC'atcns to define subjectivity's will. and free-
J(llll. as "sclf..dccel'tion," with 3n unavoidahle counterpart of dis-
illu~i(}l1mem
[lut iffrcedol1l i!! on the order oHact. not tight. or ifit is on lIle
Ilnkr in which fact and right art' indistinguishable, tim is. if it is tnt-
h' ,-,i·;(cl1l.:<: as its own essence. it must be understood differently. It
,;II,o;t be understood Ihat what is intt'rminahle is not the end. but the
be~inning. In mht'r wonk the political act offrcedol11 is fr«dom
(cljllalirr. fraternity. justice) in action. and not the aim of a regula-
dw ideal of frc:cdom. That such an aim could or should belong to
(hi~ or that pragmatic of political discourse (it remains less and less
.ertain that this would he a pr;'gmati,ally desirahle and efficient
mediation or ncgntiation with the ,iiscourses of Ideas) docs not
impl'lle the political act-a~ wdl as the act that would decide to have
a discourse of this ~rt-from being tllllw Oll"tt fn:edom's singular
ari~ing or re-arising. or its unleashing.
Perhaps the political should be mea.'Iuted against the fact that
freedom dlles not wair for it (if ever rrcnfom waits, anywhere . ).
It is initial and must be so in order to be freedom. Kant wrotc:
I ~ral1t that I cannot really recom;ile mysdf (0 ,he fullowing cxprrssions
m.lde U'it' ofhy de~r men: "A cerlain people (engaged in a muggl!! for
li"il freedom) i~ not yet ripe for frttdom": "The bondmen of a landed
pruprietor are nm yel ready for freedom." and hrnce. likewise:
··~f.lIlk.il\d in general is nOI yet riJX for freedom ofbdief," For ac-
cording 10 slKh a pr~upposilion. freedom will nl'ver arise. siner we can-
IIlI! Il/'mlO Ihi~ frC'c:dom if we art' not fir.;1 of all placed rhe~in (we must
I.\: fret' in order 10 be able 10 make purposive use of our powers in
frel"<1om).'1
In its highest form of explication nothingness would be: jiwJo",. But this
highest form is negativity insofar a~ it inwardly deepens itself to its
highc:~t intensity; and in this way it is itself afflrmarion-iruked absolute
aJlirmation. '
Thus, in Hegel himself, at least at the literal level of this text. free-
dom is not primilivel)' Ihe dialectical reversal of negativity and its
sublation into the positivity of a being. It is, rather. in a kind of pre-
dialcrtical hurst, the deepening and intensih..:ation of negativity up
to the point of affirmation. Freedom = [he self-deepening noth-
in~ncss.
In thi~ way. there may be a beginning. arising. and breaking open
of an opening. Not only i~ there nothing btfo1"r. hut there is noth-
in~ III tht tIIOl11mt of freedom. There is nothing on which it de-
pends, nothing Ihal conditions it or renders it possihlc-or neces-
~ry. nut neither is there "frmlom itself." Freedom is even frc:c:from
frct:{iorn: thu.~ it is free for freedom (through its wlU.litional---com-
p,lrr note I-Hegel's text in some sense presents the freedom that
ll)flln before freedom. or the very hirth of frcroom). With free-
JOIn, the dialectical linkages are interrupted or have not yet taken
pl,lq:~'en if their possibility has already been oflered in its emiret)'.
NlI I,kntity preserves itself in negadon in order [0 reappear affirmed
(IIndl'r~t;lI1dahly. since [h(' n()[hingnes~ is here none other than the
lIothilJgn~ ofheing as such in its initial abmaction). This is so be-
81
Ex/Nrimc~ ofFreuJom
cause freedom is not itself negated during the course of its own
trial (as would be the case on the funher register of a dialectic of
slavery): freedom is itself nothingness. which docs not "'Kat~ ilJ~1f
properly speaking, but which. in a pre- or paradialectical figure of
the negation of negation, affirms itself by making iL'ielf int~nJ~.
The inrensification of the nothingness docs not negate its notb-
ing-,mi' ["Iantitl]: it concentrates it, accumulates the tension of
the nothingness as nothingness (hollowing out the abyss, we could
say. if we were to keep the image of the abyss). and carries it to the
point of incandescence where it rakes on the burst of an affirmation.
With the burst-lightning and bursting. the burst of Iightning-it
is the strike of one lim~, the existing irnJption of existence. In this
black fulguration. freedom ;s not and does not Imow ;Is~lfto be
fr« ftom anything; nor is it or docs it know itself to be free for
anything determined. It is only free from all freedom (determined
in this or that relation. for example. the relation with a necessiry),
and it is only free for t:Vt:ry freedom. In this way, freedom is neither
in independence nor in necessity. neither spontaneous nor com-
manded. It does not apprehend itself [silpprend], but takes itself [.
prmdJ. and this means that it always surprises itself [Sl!' surpmrJJ.
Freedom = the nothingness surprised by its fulguration. Despite
its having been foreseen. the free act surprises itself. beyond fore-
seeability. Foreseeability could only concern its ronrents. not ita
modality. This is also why the will foresees-in fact it does only
rhis-but it docs not fon:sce itself (it is by confusing the two that we
make the will into its own subject). Freedom defies intention. as wei
as representation. It does not answer to any concept of itself IlI1
more than it presents itself in an intuition (and it doubtless thm-
fore bdongs neither under the term "freedom" nor in any image or
semiment that could be associated with freedom). because it is the
beginning of itself at the same time that it is itself the heginning-
which is to say. the maximum intensity of the nothingness and no
origin. "No "otion ()!btgi"nings." writes a poct. l
Heidegger imerpreted freedom's nothingness (even ifhe was not
formally interpreting Hegel's text) in the following way:
E-.:p"itnct ofFruJom
nCll iIIegilimate (but up to what point and in what sense must we It-
gitillllUt' here? Up to what point, without insolence or arrogance, arc
We nO! ~i\'en O\'er to the freedom of recommencing the thinking of
freedom. of rtptaling. which means aliking again. a certain fimda-
m"I/f,,, ii-legitimacy which is norhing other than the ohject of these
Jl~l!!t·~?) In think of in irs tum as the Hegelian "intcnsificatiun" of the
hlllhil1gn~~. The word "ahyss" says too much or too little for this in-
Exp~rimc~ ofFrudam
iI'" in~(lfar a'i subjectivity is itlidf what hollows out negation oIl11dwhat
'~Ill~'rs on it. mIl an intensity of the 1l00hingncss. but a f'Otential for
C:(lIl\c.:r~inn: the suhje\.'1 hilS always already slIpponrd the ah!IiCnce of
prl'~cnCl". it has alwa)'s already founded its freedom in this necessi-
1\' at this point tIlt' ,IJill!r;,'g of ,bt ",il"tI"""oII/ of btillg rtquirts
ti'i"~';II.f!, ,hllll"t" ;1 not lin opt,II,ioll, bll'" /ibtmt;on.
Thi~ means that before every process of a spirit appearing to itself
as the becoming of being in irs phenomenon and in the (self-)
knowledge of the phenomenon, being as being makes itself available
liJr e\'ery subsequent proces.'i, of this kind or of another, and being
is til is "01 ;lk ing itself availahle." But "making itself available" dots 1101
,1PPI'I'" to i'~1f. it docs not represent. objectify. engender. or present
itself It) itself. lO (And if we can somdlOw think and say Ihis, it is not
ix-c311S(, we make usc of rhe concepr of such an "a-presentation"; on
the C(llmar~'. it is because thinking and saying are themselves given
ami madc available by this setting into availability: they are and
ha\'c experience of it.) Similarly. "making itself available" does not
imply an)' conversion of cs.~nce that would mooiate itself. That
which n1akcs itself a\'"ilable remains unchanged in what it is, But
what it is. it frees for. . I;or example. for a subjectivity-not.
hO\\'('Vcr. in the sense that a liberation would be onlered tc)r this sub-
jc~ti\'i[)' as it would he for irs foundation (in consciousness. inten-
tionaliry, will. in the freedom conceivC'd of as thC' freedom of aim or
lI~e ofhdng). but in the sense that the ad\'C'1Il of su\;h a subj«tivi-
ty remains itself free. existing. and able to take place or not to take
place (;md. as WC' will say later. exposed to good as well as to evil),
Iking frees it~cM for existence and in existence in such a way that
Iht' (')(i~tel1cc ollhe existent tim'S not cnlllprehend i~lfin its origin
alld finally never comprehends itu/f, but is I1t tl1f o"tSfl grlUptd 11M
P"""~I'~rd hy this fredng which "founc.is" it {or "pirates" it},
Mlllt'O\'l'r, elli~tcn\;e is to being not as a predicate i~ ttl a subj«t
Il\.uII wa~ till,' first to know this) hUlas the improbable is to neces-
. gi \"l'n rh:u there is hd ng. whal is the chance of ils withdrawal
Ircl'illf: an ('Xi~tencc? The existence of being is improbable for the
I:'Jo;i\tl:'lII_.1I1d is what fret'S thought in it: .. W1JY ;1 ,"r,r JOmrllJillg
I;ul,,., tll'lII lIol"i"f.?~ In [his way there is a wming-imo-pre5Cnce: in
94 Exp'rjmc-~ ofFrreriom
b{'il1~-thcre of lJa~in does 110( belong to it as its own before this sur-
One will ask whether we are still free when we are free to the
point that Being is what is free in us, before w. and ultimately for
lL~. This vcry question could not hdp posing itsdf to Hcidc:gger. who
finally answerc:d-during the period in whi<:h he still themarized 6.
dam. although this was a decisive step toward the abandonment of
the theme-that frro:iom con~idcred a.~ the "root" ofbcing in no way
agreed with freedom represented as the property of man:
But if ek-5istent Da-;rlll. which lets beings be. sets man free for ilk
"frcedom by first olTering to hi~ choice something possible (a bciog)
M
which the "Idea" is immooiately given as foct and this fact is given
as txptrimu. 6
Yet what is given in this way as fact and experience is Ihe~by
also given. without changing ontological registers, as force and as ac-
tion. Being free is not given as a "property" that it would be POSSi.
ble ro make use of on condition of disposing elsewhere of the forca
necessary for this wage. which also supposes that when all fo~ art
lacking for action (and usually almost all are lacking in this re-
gard . ) freedom withdraws into the interiority from which it
never ceases to shine. superb and powerless, until a last fatal forte
comes to extinguish iLti mocking Harne.
On the contrary, even though it is effectively powerless, freedom
is given as force and as action. The reality of the freedom of him who
finds himself deprived of the power to act is not a "pUfC interior dis-
position," it is not a simple protestation of the spirit against the
chaining up of the body. It is. it should be said. the wry rxistnuu/
this body. The existence of a body is a free force which does not
disappear even when the body is destroyed and which does nor
disappear a.~ such except when the relation of this existence ro an 0ch-
er and destructive existence is itself dcstroyed as a relation of cD-
tences, becoming a relation of CisencCi in a causality: such is the ~
f"ercna: of relation between the murderer and his victim. and the elf-
rerence of non relation between the exterminator and his mass grave.
This force is neither of the "spirit" nor of the "body"; it is exit-
tenee itself. impossible to confuse with a subjectivity (since it QIl be
deprived of consciou.~ncss and will) or with an objectivity (since it
can be deprived of power).
Freedom as the flrr, oftb, tIling as 5u,h. or as the force of the act
of existing, does not designate a force opposed ro or combined
with other forces of namre.] Rather, it designates that from which
[here can rise relations of force as such. between human beings and
nature and between human being5 among themselves. It is the force
of force in general, or Ihe very resistance of rhe thing's existence--
iLti resistance to being absorbed into immanent being or into the SUC'
cession of changes. Accordingly, it is a tran5cendental force, bur
one that is a material actuality. Because ~xjstm" as such has its be-
Frutfom ttl Thillg. FOIU, mId Gt,u
ing (Ilr its thing) in the acc. or if we like, in the praxu uf exi&ring, it
is imrossihle not to grant it the actual chara,,,:r uf a force. the
thought of which implies tile thought of a transcendenral materiality.
"r if we prefer. an ontolugical materiality: thc withdrawal of being
as .1 ImHcrial Srtzlmgof singularity, and the difference of singulari-
til:S as a diHerence of forces. Prior to every dc:tcmlination of maner.
thi~ Ill.ltc:riality of c:xistcnce, which sets down the fact of freedom, i~
no I('...~ endowed wilh the material properries of exteriority and re-
si~ t.1II re. 8
Udng free as being "possessed" by freedom is being free with the
actuality of a materiality irreducible to any "pure spirituality" of
frc('llorn (and yct, "spirit" il this material dilference in which the ex-
iSlent comes to expose itself as such). Though we cannUl represent
this materiality without making it drift into the order of forces
burh reprl'Sented and linked in causality, and though, because of this
fact, we cannot avoid falling back into an (optimistic or pessimistic)
arprcci;l!ion of the possibilities of action available to freedom.
whil.h. hc,ause of this fact. is reduced to a causal property ofuspir-
it" (hUl who would dare simply to appreciate in this way the free
~orce of the cadaver before its murderer?), this docs not testify
against the ontological status of the force of freedom. This indicates.
i" ,J,t 1'1"1 m;sllmu IIJ II" conetpl. t," impt'nen7lbility Il.ilhoulrvhich
ji-tf·do", Il'oliid "01 k frttdom. (One should not forget that what
resists in this way is found constantly lodged at the heart of causal-
ity itsdt: as the efficacity of its successivity. It is not in the "spirit"
a1l1ne that the fora of fl'CCdom resides and resists, blll it is in the ex-
isrl'n~c of every lhingas such. One could say: "wi' are the freedom
of _wry thing.)
IJerr thinking appears to be rno!;t dearly removec.l from both
comprdu,'nsion and incomprehension:" thinking docs not com-
prdlcnd freec.lom's torce, hut also does not regard it as incomprc-
hl',H,hlt:'-actually. it is colliding. as thinking. wilh the han! matter
of ficcdtlOl itsclf, lhis foreign body whit-h is its ou'n and by virtuc of
wlll l h al'lIIe it can he what it is: thinking. It;s first in ilsrlj." alld IV its
o~.·'llttllt'l/ mtutrilll illlt>mity. mat thillkillg IoIlC/'t1 tIN impmrtrablr Yr-
fm",,1"l' ofiTt'ttfnm (and it touches it. more precisely, as the resis-
10 4 FruJom us Thillg. Force. IIlld Gau
t06
10 7
fact, as initial and revolutionary. 10e law here is law itself, in its pu~
essence (what it prescrihes is suhordinated ro nothing prior. "01
nJm to jom, ntm-frmlom from which it would IJt1vt to fr« ibdf: frtc..
dom cannot but precede it.'ic1f in its own command). and is. by
the same fact. the law that never ceao;es bm~hing the limit of law, ~
law that docs not cease freeing i[~e1f from law. Freedom: singulari.
ty of the law and law of singularity. It prescribes a single law, but this
single law prescribes that there be only cases, that there be only
singular instances, singularly impenetrable and unapproachable by
this prescription. At the same time, freedom is prceminendy ap-
proachable and penetrable: it is the law without which there would
be neither hint nor expectation of the slightest law.
"Be frcc!" {perhaps, by way of an improbable verbal use of the sub-
stantive or adjective. one would have to be able simply (0 write
"flu!" l/ibrd}-unless this sounds, yet why not, like a training
command ). "Be free!" therefore commands the impossible:
there is no freedom that is available or designatable bifo" this in-
junction or outsitit of it-and the same command commands im-
possibly. since there is no subject of authority here. Once again we
touch the limit of comprehension. But we do so in order to find our-
selves once again before the necessary anteriority offrcedom,2 w~
is no longer iUuminated here only in regard to thinking but also in
regard to freedom itself (if we are still permitted to make this dis-
tinction). Freedom must p"",dt ity/f in its auro-nomy in order to
be freedom. It cannot be ordered. its advent can be prescribed only
ifit has alrea4yfreed rhe space in which this prescription can take
place without being an absurdity, or rather without being anterior
to the slightest possibility of mttming in general (and yet. is it nO( -
a qUC!ition of this? ). We cannot say Nbc free!~ except to some-
one who knows whar this phrase means, and we can nor know whar
it means without having already been free. without having al~dy
been set free. In the imperative in which freedom differs in irsdf. it
must also haw prr(,t'd,d it,ft'!f. "Be free!" must occur unexpectedly as
one of freedom's orders. Freedom must have already freed irself,
not only so rhat rhe imperative can be pronounced. but so that i~
pronouncemcm can be an act endowed with [he force offrc:cdom·
Absoll,lt Frwlom 109
(In Ihi~ sense, if it ill lOrrect to claim that the imperative, in gener-
I~ 11Owerles.~ IWl'r the execmion uf what it orders-it is nor the
;11.
,;1u~c-i[ would 11111 he correct to claim that it is without force.
lhi~ tim:c is what mak~ intondtion (a form of intensity) a remark-
able: dcment in linguistic descriptions of the imperative mode.·
Thi~ fim:c forces nothing amI no one. In a cerlain wa)'. it is a force
widlOllt hmction. or is only the intensity of a singularity of existcnce,
insot:u as it ~xist1.)
In Ihis way, autonomy as Ihe auto-nomy offrccdmn is absolute.
This docs not rnl"'dll. as it could he understood on IIle most obvious
rc.'!!istcr of Hegdian logic, that the Ab~lllte i~ free. This means-the
t'lCaCI reverse ufHegd-that freedom is a~lute, which is to say that
frccllom is the absolmiZiltion oflIN absolute itself. To be absolule is to
be: detached from everything. Thc absolute of the absolute, the ab-
soluu: essence of the absolute, is to be detached from every rela-
tinn ,md e"cry presence, including from itself. The absolute is being
that is no Innger located sumewhere, away from or beyond beings,
with whum it would again have this rdation of "beyond" (which
H('gd knew well" and it is not an entity-being, but is being with-
drawn into itself short of itsdf. in the ab-solution ofits own essence
and taking place only as this ah-solution. The absolute is the being
ofht-in~~, which is in no way their cssrnce but only the withdraw-
al of ('~sence, its ab-solurion, its dis-solution. anti CVC'n, absolutely,
Ji"-'
irs Wllliioll. in the of existence. in its sinfllk,rity. in the mll/~ri
til imcnsity of its coming and in the tone of the autonomous Law
whose autonomy, autofoundation. and aurhorit)' depend only on the
experience of being the law extended to the edge of the law like
the throw of an c"istcnce.
If &uch i~ indeed heing's absolute exrremiry. to which we must ab-
soll1tl'I)· grant existence. the very thing of thinking, then "jWMom-
h r"r p/,iloJop!Jical ndme oftiJis absollllmess. or is nothing. Freedom
I~ the detachment-and unleashing-of being insofar as being is
IlIl! retaincc.i in being and is absolved of its being in the sharing of
·xj'lrllce.
§ II Freedom and Destiny:
Surprise, Tragedy, Generosity
110
Frudom find DNtjllY III
,\nd 111C: ~slure was made before she even realized it, so much had
~hc: thought about it.
Or:
~h('
Ihmws herxlfheneath th(' train without h:l\'ing made the decision
111,10 ~Il.
Rather, it was the deci~ion that took Anna. Which surpri5ed
and over-took (a sm'-prist] her.\
il~ f"('llOdation to the chance of the will. to the risk of destiny. It will
(1111 he the event of a choice or of a transport. it will he what comes-
ur in sIKh an event: an expmed existence.
In this way freedom is absolute: detached even from its own
('\'cn!. unassignahle in any allvent, it is the CUI within time and the
k.lp inrn the rime of an e'xistcoce. It enters time and in this sense we
(Ilulu say it "chooses" time, but it docs not enter time except by way
01 the excess and withdrawal where time as :;uch-which could be
Ihc pr('q'nt3ti()n and the present of a freedom. of an aa, and of a free
suhie(l-i~ surprised, since freedom there surprises itself. opening
time 11\1 the :;urface of time. through the course of time. on time or
at the wrong time. In this !i('me, we could not even say that freedom
"dwmcs it~('If" or that it "chooses" time. s It is a question neither of
choil-c 110r ()f constraint. The is.~ue is that existence as sllch is pure-
Iv oOered [0 time' -which means [0 its finitude-and that this of-
f('rin~. this prescnration that comes hefore any presence, this com-
ing.t~mh that only comes up uncxpccte(t1y. is existence in with-
drawal from essl'I1ce or from heing. Its surprise does not let it
"dlOose," Nevertheless. surprise does not (ietermine existence: it
exposc~ existence a~ an infinite genermity to time's finitude (as an in-
finirc" unexpected coming-up in finite presence).
()I1I\ lllUs call time !le~ot:ne "filled" or "fulfilled," according to
Benjamin's model:
fills time, withdraws it from infinity as well as from its empty form.
and finisks it because it {'ompkt~j it: a finished finirude, infinitely fin-
ished. we could say. and exposed as such in tragedy. This OCCUrs
in an instant (as Benjamin notes eLiewhere. (he unity of tragedy's
time is a figure of the instant). which means not within an instant,
in (he present time of an instant. but by a cut in the middle of the
instant: the cut of freedom that unexpectedly com~ up in (his tUne
and fills it. Yet. "in tragedy, the hero dies because nobody is capable
ofliving in filled time. He dies of immorrality." We will transcribe
this: his freedom withdraws his presence and essence in the very
gesture by which it completes the existing finimde of time. It is
also surprising. Death comes to surprise the tragic hero:
Finally. one does not die from cat;h au of freedom. but one dies.
Si(l1ibrly. each lime freedom exposes us to the possibiliry of death •
•ic.llh in turn expOsc."S us to the surprise of freooom-as birth docs
abo. l\irth and death actually have the same structure. which does
11(11 simply join the two extremities of a lifetime::. but whidt happens
III the emire course of this life's events and whkh is none other
Ih.1I1 the unexpectedly occurring structure of tx;SIl'na as such: the
nile through which it is never present except in being freely offered
10 presence-to its own presence as wdl as to the presence of a
wClrld. Binh ami death: what we can think of only as the appro-
priatioll of a pK'Sencx (El'rit',;s) unexp«tcdly coming-up without ori-
gin llJ presem:e and to time's present. Birth and death arc caught in
time br a f.1tality-itself without origin or end-but are at the
same time withdrawn from time. in a finite eternity that is itself only
a free existing exposure. For fiwdom, which is initial. is to thr Stllnt' ve-
trlll};lItll. not. howcver. in the scnsc of a goal or rcsult but in thc
scnse Ihat it. always fulfilled. does not cease exposing existent.-c to the
fulfillment that is its own: being its own essence. that is. with-
Jrawing from every essence. presence. substance. causalit),. pro-
lllllliull. and work. or being nothing othcr than (to use Blanchot's
term) the worklcs.~ inoperation ldtsoruvrt11lt'1ll] of existing. "'10 be
burn free" and "to die freely" are not merely ~ormulas coined for the
determinations of right or for ethical exigencies. They say something
"holll being as such. about the being of time and about the:: singu-
lar being of existence. to They say that we are not "free" to be born
and tn dic--in the sense of a free choice we could make a~ sub-
jl'Ct-but that we are born and we: die 10 "otbillg otlltr ,ha" jT«dom.
where "dying to freedum" shuuld be understood as "being born to
fr('cliom": we do not lose it. we accede to it infinitely. in an "im-
lIJun:llity" of freedom which is not a supernatural lite, hut which
fr('(·~ in death itself the unprecedentcd offering of exi)tC!llI;c.
('nhal)!; Heidcgger tried to think somcthing similar by the term
df'.l/illfTt;{m. 1I Destination would be the very mO'Jemem of E,.riK"i5,
Or Ilf the appropriating coming-up: not destiny-the dnminariun of
till' JlH."!>cnt-but the "donation of p,.t5e11fl'." This presence ili given.
hcld Ollt. offered from irs withdrawal and in its widldr:lwal. and
110 "',,"dam Imd Dt'$tiny
this means the liberation of presence and for presence in the with_
drawal of present rime: a presence which proves to br not prrsmt, but
destination. sending, liberation of itself as the infinite sharing 0(
existence. Yet "destination" and "liberation" still risk saying too lit-
tle, as long as these words continue to mark conscious and willed ac-
tion. In order to try to fTec in words another designation of freedom.
let us say: a mrprisi1Ig gmerosity ofbeing.
§ 12 Evil: Decision
111
122
In" 'J 'homas Mann from 19J9: "Yes. we know once again what gou<.!
~~lJ c\·il arc,"· Yet the first requirement is not to understand by
(hi~ thc return to a "well-known" good and evil. It is on the contrary
til lake the measure of a new "knowledge of good and evil" and of
a knowledge that cannot avoid the inscription of C\.jJ. in one way or
another, ill freedom.
Cuncerning evil. the lesson we must heed con..~ists of three puints:
I. Ihe dosure of all thcodicy or logodky, and the affirmation thar
cvil i~ strictly unjustifiable;
Ihe closure of every thought of evil as the defecl or perver-
sion of a particular being. and its inscriprion in the being of exis-
lence: evil is positive wickedness;
~. the actual incarnalion of evil in the exterminating horror of the
111m grave: evil is unbearable and unpardonable.~
Under this triple determination is constituted what we could
call-not without a somber irony-the modern knowledge of evil.
different in nature and intensity from every prior knowledge.
though it still harbors cerrain of its trair.~ (essentially. in sum. the evil
(hal was "nothing" has become "something" that thought cannot re-
JUl:c).
(In addition, this knowledge also indudes the history of the
modern /ascilldlioll with evil. for whidl il will suffice to rc:call. all dif-
tercnces aside. the names of Sade. Baudelaire, Nietzsche.
l..auUCamont, Bloy. Proust, Bataille. Bernanos. Katka, aline. with-
OUt lorgl'uing the ITm14l1l noir. in the V".uiow senses that two ccnrurics
have given this term. or the "horror" film. including private pro-
dunions of films showing actual murders of prostitutes.)('
This knowledge is above alllhe knowledge that there is a proper
~p()sirivity" of evil. not in the sense [hat it would come to con-
tnhule in one way or anorher [0 some rOnlJersio in bollum (whidl aJ-
wa\'S n:sts on its negativity and on the negation of this negativi-
IJUt in the sense dIal evil, ill its r'ery Ilegfrtil!iry. witbollt di"/~cti
(',I! JIIM,IIiol1, fonm it positiw possibility of existence. This is the
I'lls,ihiliry of what has lately been called the diabolical or satanic and
fll r whidl we no lunger have e,'en these designations. whidl arc
'\Iill mlled from the sublimity of "an appalling black slln from
12 4 Er,il· Dtdsio"
which the night radiates."? For us the night can no longer radiate;
on the contrary. it plunges into the dissolution of a fog mat thkk-
ens it all the more: Nacht und Ntbtl
This positivity of evil-as a kind of hard block that philosophy re-
jected or threw out before iudf in the fulfillment of subjectivity, ig_
nored or denied by a subject (God. Man. or History) who by rights
could only rediscover and recover his "good"-represcnts preQ,dy
what Kant would not and could not think with regard to what he
brought to light as the "radical evil" in human beings. 8
Jocs not wait for the victory of a freedom: it wails only for its own
UIII~,.lshing (drclJainrmrm]. to which it was previously and fredy
hound. to If this binding (nlrIJainnntmJ is the tact offrcooom, this
i~ 11C.:~;llIse freedom. insofar as it essentially fiusor unleasha itself, is
through itself the being-wicked as much as the being-good, or even,
r~lht'r, lx.'Cause being-wicked is the first discernible posirivity of
ti~"C:Jom.
The thought of identity infinitely identical with and dissociated
fmm "e\'il" and -good" (from thi.5 point on oaasionally nmed with
quotation marks, as in Hegel) in freedom was imposed on philos-
ophy after Kant by way of Schelling, I Iegcl. Nietzsche, and
Hcid~-ggcr. Heidegger writes:
Tht" essence of evil does not consist in the mere baseness of human ac-
lion but rather in the malice of fur)·,
AnJ:
Tn ht'Olling (king fil"!il grants ascent into grace; to fury its compubion
to ruin,ll
For evil is uuly in man's essence as the most extreme: opposirion and re-
wit of the: spirit against the Absolute: hearing oneself 3Woly from the uai-
versal will. being against it, the: will replacing it in this "against', EYiI
.. is" as frmJom. the most extreme freedom "Kains' the Absolute within
the whole of I>einp. For ~om "is" the capacity for good and evil. The
good "is" the evil and the evil "is" the good.
But why is evil spoken of :n all? Because it produces the inncrmOlt
and broadest discord in beings. But why discord? Evil is thought . . . .
in this most extreme and real discord as dis-jointure (Un-fog) the --
'Jof the jointure ofbcings as a whole must appear moSl decidcdly. tbc
same time.
"unity appear"? At what point docs the identity of good and evil
cease once "fury" and "the criminal" have equally been disposed
of in the "nihilarion" of being? At what point does this identity,
specifically presented as noc being Mone," cease dialecticizing itself and
producing a superior identity. the result of which seems to be noEb-
ing other than a deaf return to a theadicy or logodicy, this time in
the form of an ontodicy? And yet, why does being need a justifica-
tion if it is not and docs not cause-unless we must ask ounclva
whether it isn't the unjustifiable that, in spite of everything, we
want [0 justify? (This clearly means: to what extent, in spite of
everything and everyone, did Heidegger silenrly justify Auscbwil71
Yct this also means, above all for us: to whdt ~nt is this si/mtJIG-
tiJication not a ultaJmns ofth~ wry thinking ofb~i'~g, understood, u
we are trying to do here, as the thinking of "freedom" or of the
generosity of being?) 17
(We amid pose a similar question to Batailk. considering that "Ibc
unleashing of passions is the good, which has always been able to an-
imate hLUtWI beings"'! and that this unleashing occurs, by definition.
by way of the violation of the prohibition, which defines cvU-
here again there is a sort of fUry. A "life without prohibitions" is im-
possible, and we cannot, once God is dead, "humanly lift prohibi-
tions without venerating them in fear." Thus. "we rob freedom ~iIs
salt, if we do not acknowledge its price. Freedom demands a fear. a
vertigo of freedom. "19 To what exten t doesn't unleashing here di-
alecticize itself? To what extent isn't there here an Matheological"
thcodiey of sacred evil which is unleashed passion? '10 what extent
didn'r Baraille want, following a certain theological tradition ofthc
economy of redemption. to justify sin [~tUlm peccatIJ • •• J, whereas
sin, according [0 another less Meconomic" and more "spirirualw tra-
dition. ili never justifiable, though it can be pardoned? Finally, to
what extent-in order to relate Bataillc: and Heidegger in a more 0b-
vious way-do we not yield to a fascination for the "vertigo" or
"abyss" of freedom. which leads in rum to a f.!.scination with me evil
that engulfs and repulli~ [and at bottom, to a way of being tempt-
ed or of attempting to bear the unbearable. which does nOI mean (oJ..
er.uing or defending it. but whkh despite everything implies emc:ring
Evil' Ikrision 1)3
into ;\ mange and somber relation with irs posiriviry]. while the
,.../r,lJil1K of heing-free. and indeed its IJ"(O~, arc so grOlmtilm that
,h,' horror and attraction of the abyss form only one of their possi-
bk fi~ures-1111 dOllh, the one jigllrillg them predsely with the
l11ust pre!;cnce and IhickllC5S, ("onferring on them a profound and
,!t,ldl)\\')" ~lIbsran("e. Yer the posirive presence of evil rightly an-
nllllllU:S II1;u it l'Ilmes from an ahyss of the will to presence. from the
~fl'srlel>SnCss of the absolute concept's infinity." What is grolllldins is
also to rhe same cKtenr. perhaps more "profoundly," what comes-up
fllllll nothing, on nothing, what, instead of climbing alit of the
;lhr~. fn.'d,. riscs up. suspended in free air. the simple pulsating of
a rdc<lsed existeJ1(:e. let this be dearly understood: it is not a ques-
(illll of playing ,he idyll against the drama: rhe existence released
from existence is delivered to every weightiness, on rhe edge of
('\o'cry :lhyss: evil has not only been confirmed :IS a positiviry, it is per-
haps ronfirmed as Ib~ positiviry of freedom: ret it is a question of
knowing whether freedom is mnnructed and reconstructed there.
lli;llc:ctically, subjectivc:ly, economically. or if it is torn apart there-
purd)' and simply.l
In nthl'r words, we could ask, ali we face the empirico-lr'omscen-
dental unleashing offrcoooin trndfury. of a furiOlL~ freedom: has the
til iliking of being avoided moving backward. if imperceptibly, toward
,\11 ol1[odky in which is preserved the possibility of a "safeguard" or
\hdtcr" of being (an nhos ali an ahode) in the midst of fury ilself,
anJ in proximity to "peril" and "safety"? Is this how we should
think a Ihought that "Icts Being be" and which is necessarily the
thinking uf heing's being-free-as free ill "fury" as it is in "grace"?
[)lI~S being's hdng-frce threaten to fall into the inditlerence of the
,lh~()llItc (which is nOlhing other than thc freedom of its subjec-
tiVity, th~ basis fmm which il can and must appear to itsclf as the act
c)f iI., Ilwn potential, as potenrial ~or good "nd l>... iI) , !II or can .tnd
In\.\r the ahsolute of freedom engage it in a nonilutillerence?
l'nJ.uuhtcdly. the answer sccms 10 be interw()\'en in the ques-
. ;lI1d eSJ'l"ci:tll), in the enrire enum:i.uil)11 of the: Ihinking of be-
What properly is, thaI is, what properly dwc:lls in and deploys il1
essence in the Is, i~ uniquely Being. Being alone" is"; only in Being and
a.~ Being dOl'S what is called flY "is" appear; what is, is Being on ~ ba-
sis of its essence. ll
That the answer is given only by the decision means thar there is
Evil: Drrisio1l 139
cided. at the surfacc of the text. (Now it is in the same context that
Heideggcr write;: "It is the authentic Being-onc's-Self of resolutenc:ss
that makes leap forth for the first time autheR[ic Being-with.
Others"; there is no sharing exccpt of freedom. bur there is abo no
freedom except in sharing; the freedom of deciding to be-one's-sc:lf
outside of sharing is the freedom, lodged at the heart of freedom. to
ruin freedom. We can only come back to this decidability.)
Thinking hcre decides for decision. or it decides. if we like. for the
in-dccision in which alone decision can occur as such. Decision is
singuJar. it is "at every moment that of a factual Das~;n." It is not a
decision ofsingularity (since singularity is not a preexisting sub-
ject. but is singular "in" the very subject and decides in deciding.
g/f), but it is a decision for singularity. which means for freedom it-
self. if freedom is in the relation of singularities and of decisions.
Singularity. as decided and deciding itself. is no longer in the non-
innocence of the freedom to decide. Yet neither has it become in-
noceR[ and "good." It has entered into the decided decidabiliry, so
to speak, of existence at each momnrt of its existence. Now decision,
as singularly existing and as engaging relation and sharing, engap
the withdrawal of being. If decision keeps itself as decision. it also
keeps being in its withdrawal, as withdrawn. It "saves· if. as
Heideggcr says elsewhere. in the sense that "this means releasing. de-
livering, liberating. sparing. sheltering. taking into one's protec-
tion. guarding."l'} What is thus saved is the finitude ofbcing. It is
"the essen rial limitation. the finitude [that) is perhaps the condition
of authentic existence. "30 finiTUde is what. in singularity and as
singularity. withdraws from the innnite grasp, from the molar ex-
pansion and furious devastation. of an ego-icy of being. Being with-
draws into finitude; it withdraws from "concentration in itself": it is
its very being. yet insofar as the very heing of being is being-free, be--
ing cannot be this withdrawal {'Xupt by d~cision. Only decided ex-
istence withdraws being from the essential "self" and properly holds
back its possibility for devastating fury. Only existence. as the exi~
tence and singular factuality of freedom, offers. if not exactly an
ethics. in any case this "shelter" of being which is ill own most tthos
tiS fhl' nhos or abodl' of fIJi' human b~i"g UIIIO dwells in Ih~ possibility
ofhi! ftl'e d~cijioll.
/:-,,;/: D«ision
ing. for equality. fi,r community. fOr fraternity. and for their justice-
sinttllJ.uly. singularly shawtfdivided. singularly withdrawn from
the hat~d of existence.
§ 13 Decision, Desert,
Offering
-and places thar have been set free undoubtedly answer to whaI
Bonnefoy calls "the true place":
space and gives space to itself a.'i the incalculable spacing of sinsu_
larities. In other words, freedom itself is not the essence of ~ f_
but the "free" is the existing opening by which freedom takrs plac:r:
It is not PU" spacing. it is al50 "habitation"-habitation in the:
open-if the nomad does nO[ represent errancy without at the
same time repre;enting a dwelling, and thus an tlhoJ.
This is not exactly what one would understand as an Kethics of
freedom." It is the tthos it.self as the opening of space, the spacious
shelter of being in existence, deciding to remain what it is in the _
lancing from self, in this distancing that delivers it (0 its retreat,
to its existence. generously. It is a generosity of ethos more than an
ethic of generosity. "Freedom" itself. in the spaciosity of being when:
freedom is opened rather than engulfed, proves to be: generosity
even btfO"be:ing freedom. It gives rise, in the exposure ofbeing,1D
its own singularity always newly decidable, always newly surprised
by its decision. This generosity does not dominate fury. which is
born with it. Yet it gives. without counting-without counriDB
anything but fury-it is the in6nite gift of finite freedom. while
fury is the finite appropriation of infinite freedom.
It gives freedom. or offm it. For the gift is never purely and sim·
ply given. It does not vanish in the receipt of the gift-or of cbc
Kp~t." The gift is precisely that whose "present" and presentation
are not lost in a realiz.ed presence. The gift is what comes-up to
the presence of its "presem." It also keeps itself, in this comins-up
and surprise of the gift, as gift, as the giving of the gift. In this it is
an offering. or withdroiwal, of the gift in the gift itselF. the withdrawal
of its being-present and the keeping of irs surprise. It is not a ques-
tion here of the economy of the gift. where the gift comes back to
itself as the benefit and mastery of the giver. On the contrary. it is a
question of what makes the gift as such: an offering that may not be
returned to anyone, since it remains in itself the frtt offering that it
is (this is why. for example, one never gives what one: has received to
a third party. lest one annul the gift as gift). One must keep the sin-
gular present in which the gift as such is kept. that is, offered! it is
presenred. made freely available. but is freely held back at the edge
of the receiver's free acceptance. The offering is the inestimable
147
I"in' of the gift. The generosity ofhcing offers nothing other than
l'xisrcnce. and the offering. 3S such. is kept in freedom. All of this
n1l.',IIH: a !ipace i!i offered whose spacing. C"olch time. only happens by
',1\' uf a c.iecision. But there is nor "a" ,tecision. There is. each time.
111~: own (IT singular minc)-yours, theirs, ours." This is the gen-
erosit)' of being.
l11rl't U, then. that which should become more and more ur-
~t'nt tor our thinking, as its theme ,md 3S its decision: this gen-
cro~ity ofbcin~, its !ibmllity, whid, dispenses that t'"" IN mmm,;llg
and that we exist. This taking place of something offers itsdf in
1111: opening that frees places and the tiee space of time. TIle open-
in~ dcK.'S not open unless ~ let it open, and we only let it open if we
Il'l cmrsclve5 be exposed in exutence. We arc: exposed to our ~om.
There is theretore finally rhe ~cnerosity of being dispensed in the
~ll ural singularity of "us": the freedom of the decision, which is al-
ways "mine" in the sense that all property of my essence vanishes and
[har the entire community of existence is involved. Yet this gift is
kept in the oftrring. It is kept there as what is unfOunded in ficedom.
as (he in~scnce of existence, as the dcsertlike and nomadic: charac-
(t'r uf its dwelling. as the risk of its experience or the pirating of its
tuundations--and consequently also as lhe threat of a free hatred of
freednm.
If there is a hope of thinking. without which we would not even
think. it docs not consist in the hope of a torallibernrion of freedom
that wa~ to occur as the total mastery of freedom. The hisrory of a
~il1lilar wait is over. "(ollay rhe (hreal of a devastation of existence
alllnt' has an)' positivity. Yct the hope of thinking signifies that we
wuuld not even think if existence were not the surprise of being.
§ 14 Fragments
KWt' must not give ourselves illusions: freedom and reason, these
two ethical as well as ethico-aesthetic concepts that me d:usical
age of German cosmopolitanism bequeathed to us as distinctive
~i~ns nfhumaniry, have not done very well since the middle of the
nineteenth century. t~radually they became 'off-beat,' we no longer
knew 'what to du with them: and if we let them get corrupted,
Ihi~ i~ less a success of their enemies than of their friends. We muSl
Iherefore not give ourselves illusions concerning the: fact that we, or
OUr ~u\:«~ssors, will t:ertainly not return to these unt:hanged repre-
ICl)t;]tions. Our task, and the sense of what will put our spirit lO the
11.'\1. will be much morc-and this is the task of pain and hope, so
r"rt'l}" understood. that weighs on each generation-lO effect the aJ-
,ly~ l1t.'Ce~"'i:lry anc.llongl.'d-for transitiun to the new, with as few dis-
·l\tn~ as possible!" (Rohert Mwil. On Stupidity. '937: must we spec-
if~· that this h1ure, a~ its ririe ought to shuw. un.lmhiguOlL~ly targCl\.-d
b . . ('i~Il\?)
·54 Fragmmts
Freedom can experiment with itself up to the limits of its own ex-
perience-where nothing separates it any longer from "necessity:
Such an: the stakes of the limit that freedom iJ. or rather that it al-
ways surpasses: in touching the outside o/Iht ins;J~. one does not
therefore pass the limit. for the exhaustion of thUi touching is un-
limited. And this exhaustion is equally what effaces itself before,
and in the coming to presence of, the thing itself-a coming to
pr<.'!Icnce lhat no pn:selll will ever ClpIUn:. that no pn:sentation will
e\·cr secure or saturate. The coming [0 presence of the other of
thought exhausts all thought of the other.
. --...
( )ne could say thai in freedom there is the ontological imperative.
or hdng as intimation-hut under lhe condition of adding thai
thi~ is without commandment (no commandment/freedom di-
alectic) or thai lhe commandment is lost in freedom's abandon-
IlII.'I1l lO ilSdf. alllhc way to caprice and chance.
I would have liked. and it would have been necessary, for mis
work
to have been able to go furthcr-I do not mean only in analysis or
problematization. but ac;;tually to the poim of withdrawing and
puuing under erasure all its discourse into material freedom. I
could have been tempted to make you hear music now, or laughter.
or cannon shots taken here and there in the world. or moans of
famine. shrieks of revoll-or even to present you with a painting. as
we find in Hegel when the young girl prescnts the outstanding
products of' ancicnt art and the divine places that the gods have
lcft.~ Quite dearly, this would be temptation itself. the cunning
abdication of thought into the immediate. into rhe "lived." inlo
the ineffable.", or inm the praxis and art de~ignated as the others of
FmgmmlJ 157
In this scnse, the Slone is free. Which means that there is in the
\llIne-or rather. liS it-this freedom of heing that being is. in
160 Fragmmts
This essay propo~s a thesi!i on being. in direct line from the one
that Heidcgger deciphers in Kant and from this other thesis, posit-
ed and withdrawn by Heidegger. on being "founded" in freedom.
And what is more, it involves a thesis on theses. a posiling and
affirmation on the positing and affirmation of being. as posited
and affirmed by freedom. as freedom.
To this extent, I run the ril;k of simply and naively reconstituting
a metaphysics. in the sense in which this word designates "the for-
getting of being" and the forgetting of this forgetting. Which means:
the forgetting of the difference between being and beings is from the:
Fmgmtllls
-.
There is no "experience offreedmn": freedom itself is experience .
.
Fighting "Iilr" frl'Cdol1l. equality, fraternity. and justice does not
~llI1sist merely of making other conditions of exim'nce occur, since
" i~ nOI simply lIll the ortler of a project. but also consisr~ of im-
11l,-di.He!y 'ltfirl1ling. hi,' tt ",me. free. (,qual. fraternal. and just ex-
Fragmmts
However. this docs not mean that freedom would be. in Hegelian
fashion. the infinite ;u the absolute in its negativity. Ba:ause freedom
is the infinitenes..c; ofthe finite mfinite. and is thus itself finite. which
means at the same time singular and without es.~ence in itself, it
consists in neither having nor being an essence. Freedom consi5ts in
not consisting. without any contradiction. This "without COntra-
diction" makes the foct and secures the prrsnrt'e of freedom-thi5
presence which is the presence of a coming into presence. N~
infinite. ne'Yl!r dialectical negativity. more buried than affirmation and
negation. freedom is never this "freedom of the void" which Hegel
designates as belonging to "fanaticism" and to "the fury of destruc-
tion."I~ Neither "full" nor "empty." freedom comes. it is what of pres-
ence comes (0 pre5ence. In this way it is. or is the bnng ofbnng. '6
Forrwo,J
I. Set p. 96 of thi5 book.
1. John Stuart Mill, 0" Li""ty. Elizabeth Rapapon. ed. and imro.
(Indianapolis: Hacken, 1978). p. I .
.1. Sec John Locke, An EJs4y Co"rm,ing H""",,, V_nM"'i,,g, Peter
II. Niddirch. ed. and intra. (Oxford: Clarendun Press, r97S). p. 244:
"The pmprr question is nOI, whether Ihe Will be fret. bUI whether a
Man he free .... We call 'Circe: Idl how to imagine any /king freer,
than to be able to do what he wins. So Ihat in respect of Actions, with
,he: ce:;Kh of such a power in him. a Man seems as free, as 'tis possible
for Fretdom to make him."
4· Set Thomas Hobbes. L~vitlllJn". C. 8. Macpherson. ed. (Har-
mond5worrh. Eng.: Penguin. 1968). p. 117.
~. Sec Immanuel Kant. Criliqllt of Pu,., R~(lso". Norman Ke:mp
Smilh. (rans. (New York: SI. Martin's. 1965), pp. 4°9-11.
6. Sec Renl! Descanes. Mn/it(ltions on Firrt Philosophy. Donald A.
Crl"!>~. trans. (lndiallapolis: Hackett, 1979). p. 17. On this momentous
.ltCIllCIlI, sec lhe: meticulous prescntarion of Jean-lue Nancy. Ego
""lIll'aris: Flammarion. 1979).
- See David Hume. A T,~tlt;s~ of /f1ll1ll11l M,tllrr, l.. A. Sdh)·-8i~.
l'll.. I'. H. Nidditeh. rev. cd. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). PI"
IH-72: Rook I, §14.
R. This abo capturC5 ,he: analysis of modalif}' th.\[ KaRl UlldenakC's in
rhe 5cuiun of the: Criliql" 0/ Purr Rmson emide:J "The Principles of
F mpiri(al Thought: but insof.1r a!i the C,iliqllr iudf sers out to expose
175
the "conditions of possibility" of rhe unity of experience. it also alloWs
for-if it does not already pre!icnt-an experience of possibility. and it
is this allowance that, according to Nancy. marks the decisive dJaracter
of Kant's "revolution in the mode of thinking": "The becoming-world
of world means that 'world' is no longer an ohject. nor an idea. but the
place existence is given to and exposed to. This ficsr happened in phi-
losophy. and to philosophy. with the Kantian revolution and the 'con-
dition of possible experiencc': world as possibly of (or for) an existent
being. possibili,y as world for ~uch a being, Or: Being no longer to be:
thought of as an eS!iCnce. but to be given. offered to a world as its own
possibility" (Nancy. Introduction. WIlo Comts Afur lilt Sub}",.
Eduardo Cadava, Peter Conner, Jean-Luc Nancy. eds. [Routledge:
london, 1991). p. I).
9. David Hume, All E"'!,,iry COllctrt/ing !lummI Untkrstanding, Eric
Steinberg, cd. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977). p. 64; cf. A Trutiu of
Human Nail'", pp. '99-418. Hume's attempr to show the comparabili-
ty of liberry-or. more precisely. the "lihcrty of sponraneity~-with
thoroughgoing determinacy has sct the terms in which numerous
analyses of freedom havc been em; see the excellent discussion of dUa
is!oue in Barry Stroud, Humt (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1977),
PP·14 1-54·
10. Civilliherties were nor. for Hume, an overriding concem, and he
certainly did nor conceive of their defense on the basis of "reason- as a
legitimate philosophical exercise; in fact. his historical studies set out to
demonstrate the need for me continuity of authority and to extol the
power of precedent. On ,he sense of Hume's uconservativism," whkh.
unlike modern conser".ativism, does 1101 result from rejection of the
Frcnch Revolution (although perhaps it took impetus from a revulsion
for Rousscau), see the remarks of Donald W Livingston. HMmc~
Philosophy ofCOlli mOil Lift (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). pp.
306-42..
II. Hume. A Trmtilt ofHum"" Natrtrr, p. 7.
12..lhid., p. 10.
IJ. Ibid.
14. See. in particular. llume's renunciation of his earlier usolution-
to the problem of perwnal identity in the appendix to A TrttltiJ~ 4
Hum,,,, N,II"rr. "'n short rhere arc two principles. which I cannot ren-
der con~isrC'nr; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, va.
Ihat 1111 ol/r diJtinct p..,.(tptiO/IS art distinct exist(ll(N, and that tIN mi,,4
NOln to PdgrS xi»-.'Ct 177
II'" '1''' "f"ff;'~S ttI~)' 1-r,,1 (ORllt'Xion "mong ,Iislina txistflJI-rL Did Oll r per-
(rpliuns C'ilhcr inhere in sornelhing ~implc and individual. or did the
Olin.1 perceive some real !;onnaion among them. there wou'd be no
tiillit'ulry in Ihe case. I:or my f',m. J mu~t plead the privilege of a ~ep
II~ ••1Od confns. Ihal this difficulty i~ too hard tor my understanding"
lA rrfl1tisf of Hl/III.III NfI,,"·r. p. 6J6). On this inconsistency and in
rchlliun III rhe pmhlem of personal identity. ~ee the well-known discus-
,ill II h,. Norman Kemp Smith. 77/, Pbi/osopl" of D""irllIulllr (I.on-
0011: I\.facmillan. 1941). pp. 556-58.
I~. The most celebrated account of the alternative between "nega-
rivc" anti "llOsitive" freedom can be found in haiah Berlin's "Two
Cnnccpts of Liheny." Fo",. Essa.ys 0" l.iiJr,." (Oxford: Oxford Universi-
ty Press. 1969). PI" 118-71. A more nuanced vt'~ion of this alternative
is PUrlilied with surprisingly similar r~1I1r5 by Richard E. Flathman.
71" Ph,l"sopby dlUl Ptllit;n of F"m"'m « :hicago: University of Chicago
Prcss. 1987).
16. Ilume. A Trral;st ofH"mlln Nlmm. p. 164.
17. Ihill .• p. 165. In an earlier chaptcr. Humt' had tried to distinguish
imagination from mt'nlo[), and had further di5ringuis~d two sensa of
imagination (5ee pp. 117-18,,). h... t"ach of Ihese rurn out to be "found-
ed" on an originary if nevertheless heterogeneous imagination from
whidl Ihe othe~ derive. The most exten\ive survey of Hume on the
im ...~inalinn is thai of Jan Wilbanks. H,,,,,es 1"'ttlI] ojl",Agi""titm (The
H~gue: Nijh()fT. 1968): the n:lation of Hume's faculty of imagination to
DC5cartcs's corpon:al imagination and the medical theories it spawned is
Ji"uSo\cd by John 1'. Wright. TIl( S"rptiral R,trlism of D""iJ Hume
(klilllll:aJlUlis; University of Minnrsma Press. 1933), pp. t87-146. The
dio;colIl'K of lh." imagination in rightccnth-cmtury Brilain wa.~ extraord..
naril)· widespr(";'I,1. Along with Hume, Ihe discussion was pu~ued by
,\it-x:lnlirr Gerard. Ahraham Tucker. Adam Smith. F.dmund Burke.
Adam h~r~tI~n. and Dugald SleW'Jrt. to name only a few (and to leave
(lUI the docto~ mtirdy). It has been a Irdditional topos-or perhaps ide:-
ClI(J~y-of scholarship [0 see in Ihe di~couJ5e of the imagination the
"';,rcshat!owins" of English Romanticism. especially 5ince Coleridge's
prL'~clllation of Ihe imagination has hccn 50 often viewed as irs credo.
IR. Sec p. 10. Cf. the explication of [he word "experience" in
I'l,ilippc l.acoue-Iabanhe. L" I'ols;t fOmlllt f."(plritllt'f (Paris: Bourgois.
I')~(,l. lIP. 30-JI. The German word Elfah"" ("to experience") derivcs.
ot" lourse. from FlIlJrtn (WIO travel") and is relaled 111 C,"fjaIJr ("dangcr").
NOln 10 PlIgtJ xxi-xxii
,h.m: in. or to partake of. is lhe key qurslion for any inquiry into his
1'"litical philosophy. his conception of historical continuity. amI his
Iwillies. To lhe extent that he thought it was nature and not reason. he
opposed atrempts to establish communiry on radically new, "rational"
f"undations. No doubt his hizarre encnunler with Rousseau. who
;iccuse'd him ofleadin~ a worldwide conspiracy, also contributed to his
conr.;eption of the political community. FOI an interpretation of this
em;ounrc:r, see Jerome Christensen. Prlleticill: Ellli:l,tmmmt (Madison:
Universiry of Wisconsin Press. 1987), pp. 14l-7J.
See p. 87. Nancy doa not in this context refer to Walter Ben-
j.lmin·s philosophical writings, but they often impose themsdves on his
anaIYSC'5. In an carly text that shows the confluence of Hermann Cohen
and Edmund Husserl, entitled "On the Program for the Coming
Philosophy." Benjamin. like Nancy. frees experience from everything
"lived." from every subjectivism as well as every objectivism. The expe-
rience in whose: presence philosophy will come is purely transcenden-
tal; it is "an experience of experience." and this experience could very
well turn out to be that of pure languagc:. Sec Walter Benjamin, "O~r
da~ Programm der kommenden Philosophic: Gn(l"''''tll~ Seh,ijitll.
Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schwcppc:nhauser. eds. (Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp. 1980). 11.1. pp. 157-71; "Program for the Coming
l'hilosophy," Mark Ritter. nans •• Th~ Philosop/,ieal R",;~w IS (Fall-
Winter. 198)-8-4): pp. 41-SI. Benjamin lurns from this program for
philosophy to come. which is anything but a proposal for the n:newal
of philosophy, rowud an exposition of the characteristically modern
ushock·experience" in which experience (Erfohrun~ breaks up into
"lived experience~" (ErMmiss~; sec. in ra"icular. rhe third and fourth
~~tioIlS of "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire" in IIIIImillatitJPIl. cd. and
intro. Hannah Arendt, Harry lohn. rrans. (New York: Schocken.
1968), pp. 160-6S. 8audelaire's itf f1n1TS till mal registers "an emanci-
p.ltiun from experience (Erfohn",tY' (p. 161). and this emancipation
~ives rise to a poetr)· of E,/~b"isu, which. precisely because it has
d~lmycd whar pa5.~es for the unity of Erfollrun,. may COIUlitute rhe
"(")(perience of experience" of which "The Program for the Coming
I'hilo~phy" speaks.
24. Ma"in Heidcsger, &i" u"J ait (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 1979). p.
,p, Iftill: Illld Timt, John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. nans.
(Nc-w York: Harper & Row. 1962.). p. 67. Sc:c: p. 9 of this book.
2S. A spectacular example of the explication of essence as po,,,,,i_
180 NO/~s 10 Pag~s xxiv-xxv
Chapttrl
1. Encyclopedia. §48z. in Htgel's Philosop"y of Milltl. A. V. Miller.
trans. (Oxford: Clarendon l'ren. (971). p. 139. From Hcgel to us, me
vanity. ambiguity, and inconsistcncy of an idea of frc:cdom incapabk of 0b-
taining foundation and rigor for itself. have: been, in discoWSC5 that a~ just
as moralizing as emanciparory. as reactionary as progressive. topoi as
abundant as thc IOPfJS of irrepressible freedom itsdf. Balaille has expressed
this in another way: "The term fr«dom, which supposes a puerile or or-
atorical enthusiasm. is from rht' ourset fallacious. and there would be:
cvt'n less of a misunderstanding in speaking of all that provokes fear."
Georges Bataille. Onlvres rompJltts. vol. l (Paris: Le Seuil, 1970). p. 13 1•
z. Karl Marx. 011 the J~wish Q,lrSt;on. in Enrly Writings, T B.
Bouomore. tram. (New York: McGraw-Hili, 1964).
3. Thcodor Adorno, Nrgntiv~ DiakctiCl, E. B. Ashton. trans. (NeW
York: Continuum. 1987), pp. 114-15.
Not~s to Pag~ $-IJ 18)
0111p",rz
maincains and practices ju§tice and equality. and which all the while as-
sumes the climate of peace. and is not like the em pry anticipation of a cat-
aclysm? What is a radicalism which is at the same time an infinite task?-
Alain Badiou. Ptul-rm pmsn-ltl polieique? (Paris: Le Scuil. 1985). p. 106. To
which we would add: what ~ a common freedom which presents itself ..
such without absorbing into its presence the frcc event? cr. Jcan-Luc
Nancy... Lll Juridiction du monarqut hlgllitn." in Rtjoutr It politiflw
(Paris: Galilee. 1981).
2. "The concept of freedom. insofar as irs reality is proved by an apo-
dictic law of practical reason. is the IttyslOnt of the whole architecture of
the system of pure reason." Immanuel Kant. Critique ofPradical ReIlStl1l,
Lc:w~ White Beck. trans. (New York: Macmillan. 1985). p. J. Wasn't this
proposition an axiom for all of philosophy up until Man: and includins
NietzsdJe? Ifit lost tlW position, ,his Wali not due to a loss of a taSte for
freedom. but rather to the dosure of an epoch of history and of tho.!,
a closure for which the i<mtian "kc:ysrone" provides a model (even though
the Kantian thought of the foetof freedom also constitutes the opening of
what we have ro think concerning this topic) .
.J. In Traditumis "aditio (Paris: Gallimard. 1972.), p. 17S.
4. "In the concentration camps. it was no longer the individual who
died. but a specimen." Theodor Adorno. Negaliw Diakctics. E. B. Ashton.
trans. (New York: Continuum. 1987), p. 361 !trans. modified). That is. the
specimen of a typt (in this context. "raclan. of an Idea. of a figure of:an
essence (in this context, the Jew or the gypsy as the essence of a non-
essence or of a human 5uh-es.o;cnce). Cf. on this subject the analyses of
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe in the "Heidegger" section of his L 1mitation Ms
modtrnt! (Paris: Galilee. 1986). On [he quc:stion of evil. cf. Chap. n.
5. "I generate time iudf in the apprehension of the intuition" (CriIUfw
ofPllrt Rtttsoll, N. K. Smith. trans. (New York: St. Martin', Press, 196sl.
Transcendental Schemat~m. p. 184). and this apprehension is the -syn-
thesis of the manifold -i.e.. the constitution of phenomena-"which sen-
K
II~df of 1/" wilMrarm/fmm every figure (cf. ibid .• §'4). lbis would be rhe
Ill-jl,,"! IIf another work.
t1. Martin HridC'gger. (;tStlmlll'lSgnb, (Frankfurr-am-Main: KJoster-
nl;llll1, 198 2). \'01. jl. p. 134.
Ch,tpt~r J
trying to say should be studied, to the extent that for him freedom is
identified with the effectivity of beatitude; but Spinoza does not think ex-
isten(;e as such)-'Il least up [0 Hegel and to the (;onvcl"liion of freedom
into cffcaivity (yet not simply into necc:ssity. for Fit:htC'an "possibilityn is
itsclf a nc:(;cssity of thc "independence of the absolute with rC!ipcct to im
own intimate being"). Frttdom has been thought as the neces.o;ary cxUtcna
of the subject's infinite possibility of relating to itself. but not as the ex-
istentialiry of existco(;e.
7. §76. Third (Tili'l'" (New York: Hafner Press. 19~1). p. 150. We
choose "seuing into position" for S,lZlwg. in contradistinction to me
simple POS;,;qn (in the German text) of rcpmcmation. Our use of this mo-
tif liberally distan(;es itself-bC:QUSC of this distinction of conccpm in
Kant- from He~r's usc of it in IGml S Thnis 0" &ing, where precisely
this distin(;tion is ignored.
8. Stwmg therefore fesponds point fOf point ro the dynamic of dif-
foranit' by which Derrida dC!iignates the infinite motion of finire being u
such. DifPranlt' thus implies freedom. or is implied by it. Freedom £rea
dijJlranit'. while diffirATKt dc:fers freedom. whim docs not mean that dif-
flranet keeps freedom waiting: it is always already there. but by surprise.
as we will sce.
9. Aristotle, Book I. Nietlmtle~an Ethics. W. D. Ross. rrans. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press. 1975).
10. Translator's not~Nancy plays on the homonymic coupling in
French of"iifoilY." ~ro be done." and "Ilffairt." "affair. mailer. conam.
transaction, business. lawsuit." and their relation ro "foirr." Mdoing. mak-
ing. produ(;ing." and "foil,· "faa."
II. Ktlnl antI the Prtlbkm of Mttttph.,s;CJ, Richard Taft. trans.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1990), p. 178.
Chllpter 4
I. Same will have merely displaced and misinterpreted (on this point.
as on others) Heidegger's thinking. as we will show latcr. Adorno. for
his part. left behind in Nrgalivt Dial«tics a thinking in which freedom is
(;onfined to its own movemenrs rather than interrogated in irs C!ist'ncr. It
should also be recalled that Bergson roo reprcsents. in an entirely difttr-
ent way. a kind of Slopping point of the rhinking of freedom. Theodor
Adomo. Nrgativt Diakc,us. E. R. Ashcon. trans. (New York: Continuum.
1987).
2. GtsamtAUJgabt. vol. 31. p. 300.
}. Reuben Guilcad's book. Etrt t'l libtrti-unt hudt sur It d"nitr
NOIt.'S 10 Pag~s .J4-}6
oJ. '111e call of care in !killg anti Timt' provokes and convokes lJngillto
in freedom; cf. §§S7 and 58. Martin l-Icid~er. Bri"K alld Tim,. John
Mat:quiurie and F.tlward Robinson, tran5. (New York: Harper 8c Row,
1962). We will speak again of the call.
s. c,. W. F. Hegel. Pbmolnt'll%gy 0IS,,;,;,. A. V. Miller, nans.
(Oxford: Oxford Univenity PrC5s. 1977). p. 492,; friedrich Nict7_~che.
IIl1l1ulII A" l"cIo limn"". R. 1. Hollingdale, trans. (Cambridge. Eng.:
Cambridge Univeuity Prns. 1987), I. §II. p. 117; Paul Celan, Dtr
;\faith.III, ill Gt'J""""t'lu \Vt',kt'. vol. 3. Bcda Alleman and Stephan
Reiche«. ed~. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. 1'18}). p. 100.
6. Manin Heidcggcr. 1111' Esst'1lct' (I/RrtlJom. Terren,e Mali~:k. uan~.
(E,·anston. III.: Nonhwcstern Uni\lersity Prrss, 1969). pp. 117-18.
7. "cwrding 10 the ~esture who~e model is gi"en b)' /<'~mt ""d ,Ill'
Problnll of MrlflP"ysi.·J. Richard Tali. trails. (Bloomington: Indiana
188 Nott! to Pagn 38-48
University Press. 1990). Let us add here. as one document among others,
thac scmenccs from the JIUTOd,tCIion to Mtttlphysics (1935; New Ha~n: Yale
University Press, 1987). p. 170: "Being-human. as the ned INol} of ap-
prehension and t:ollection. is a being-driven INOligungi imo ,he fredom
of undertaking l«I",t. the sapient embodiment. This is the character of his-
tory'- In the paga of ollr tC'Xt immediatdy following, citations re~r to the
English translation of Heidegger's &Iull;ng's Tmuist on tht ESltnct'i
HU11IIIn Frmiom. Joan Stambaugh, trans. (Athens: Ohio Uni~"ity Prc:a,
1985).
8. Martin Heidegger, Scht/ling's Tmuist on tht Essrnu of Hu"",,,
Frudom. p. 192.. Let us be dear about this: 1936-43, these dares speak
volumes on their own, and one will oot have failed to note. in the tone of
the "rc:solvc~ to "dcstiny." an echo of the &kloralSmUof 1933. The ques-
tion of politics in Heidegger is obviously inrerrwillc:d with the question of
his debate on the subject of frcedom and with the ida of freedom. One
would have to consider this question with Philippe Lacoue-Labanhe,
"Transcendence: Ends in Politics," in T.~pography (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univc"ity Pres.~. 1989). pp. 167-300; and with Gerard GraMl,
"Pourquoi nous avon~ publie cela," in Dr L 'UnivmiJi(Mauzrvin: T.E.R,
1985).
9. G. W. F. Hegel. Htgtl's Philosoph) of Right. T. M. Knox. traIlS.
(London: Oxford University Press. 1967), p. 32..
10. Martin He:idcgge:r, "On the: Essence of Truth," in Bmic Writi.,
David Farrell Krell, ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 118.
II. Ibid .• p. U7.
12.. This siruating of the theme was prepared by a passage from 1M
Qlltstion Conumillg Ttrhllology (1953). of which we will speak further.
Martin Heidegger. Tht Prillciplt of Rtaso", Reginald tilly. trans.
(Bloomington: Indiana Unh'ersity Press. 1991).
13. Martin Heidegger. "leiter 011 Humanism." in Basic Writings. p. 113·
Chtlpttr 5
I. This al~o date~ to before ROllsseau and Kant (although the
Spinolistic rdation to civil law divergc:s. for irs part. from this model;
cf. in particular Etienne Balibar, "Jus-PaclUm-l.ex." in Studitt spinOUlltl,
vol. I, 1985).
2. G. W. F. Ilegel. SC;tllft of Logic. A. V. Miller. lrans. (Atlantic
Ilighiands. N. J.; Humanities Press International. 1989). p. 843.
3. Jcan-I.uc Nancy. T. "mphllliferrfrgoriqllt (Paris; Flammarion, 1981).
pro 5R. 134· The: text I refer [0 here is bound up with a network of
Nota to P"~J 48-$2
ahov~ all singular. which means that its existenc~ is not pr«isdy its "uwn"
and Ihal its "exi~(il1g" happens an in41ctinitc number uf limes "in" its
"ery indi"idualir,' (which is for its pan a singulariIY). Singularity is what
Jistinguishes the ~xisrent from the SIIbj«1, for the suhject i, e!IlIcntially what
appropri;uC5 itself. au:ordins to its own proximity and law. Yet dx advcnt
()f a subjectivity is itself a singularity.
13. Even free will would have to be ren·aluated. especially ifit is to be
undcmvod in its original form. as Vuillemin proposes: "It is ui(1 that
l>e:mocritus' systcm suffered from having been transmitted throu~h
EpicllfllS' ~tcm. which subordinated throry to practice and introduced
the m~taphysical conc'"1't of frc:cdont irno philosophy. Actually, it is this
concept of the freedom of indifference:. of balantt. or of will. which in-
spired the admiration of a Marcus Aurc:lius and which is the kC)'5tone
ofEpicurus' philoso~)hr. And this fr«dom is primarily that of refusing the
solicirations Ill' opiniun. for example the r~pr~ntation of future evils.
in ord~r 10 at.ccpt only the present. i.e. sensadon lUI offfront the active
1I\0Veml'n( of error." Vuillemin. NutsSill 011 r:"nI;"g~"r:~/itpor;t tI~
Di"tlolT tlln IJlttln~S pIJiloSIJphiqrm (Paris: Minuit. 1984). p. 105. An ac-
ceptance of Ihe prC5~nt which would be precisely a resignation to destiny
(this is what Epicurus wanted) will later charact~rize freNom for us
(Chap. II). It is not a question of proposing a new Epicureanism. or an
F.pirurc:an ~ivative. II is only a question of smting that at the heart of the
philosophical tradition surrounding frftdom Ihere is what could be called
a Mmaterialism of the present" -und~rstood as the singularity of ~i5-
tence and not as appropriated prC5encc---<ngagcd in an intimate debate:
with the idealism of temporality understood as the perpaual presence
of calL~allinking (cf. Chap. 9).
C'II",," 6
I. Martin Hd(iCf,ger. 71J~ Mnapl1JSi(1l1 FOllndAtion. olLog;c, Michael
Ile:im. trans. (Bloomingron: Indiana Unive:nil)' Press. 19R4). p. 18.
Chllpltr 7
This analysis has been underraken ill Je-an-Luc Nancy. Tht
t"optrll,iw Comm,mity. Perer Connor. cd. (Minneapolis: University of
MinnC'SOta l'rcss. 199t). The law of th~ relouion of singular existenc~ is lor-
mul~llcd in the: following way by rrancis WolfTCwho condudes all anal)'-
sis of Epicurus and 1.1Icretius in Hcider.gerian terms. cf. nOle: I) 10 Chap
s): A being which one !;ould not rdare to any OIher IIKII does not ek-5iu.
U
Not~s to Pagn 69-72
!
caught lip in a circuit that connects him to the world. as we ourselves are,
and cons~u~nrly also in a circuit that conn«t~ him to us-And this
world is ~mmon to us. is inrermundan~ spact'--And ther~ is transiriviun
, by way of generaliry-And even freedom has its g~n~raIiry. is understood
as generality: activiry is no longer the ~ontrary of passiviry ... the or~r is
a rdief as I am. not absolut~ venical existence." Maurice Merkau-Ponry,
Tk Visiblr 1l1ui th~ Invisiblr. Claude Lefort. ed.• Alphonso Ungis. trans.
(Evanston. III.: NonhweslC:rn Universiry Press. 1968). p. 269. Perhaps
we should attempt to grasp not only th~ oth~1'-the other wstent-bur
every other being-thing. animal. or instrument-from the itarting poiru
of freedom. The fn:edom that makn existence exist in the open also and )
at the same time produces the openness of the world and its frtt spaci"&
There would be the freedom of DtWin and the freedom of beings in gen-
eral. one in the other and one through the other. Bur always. and in the
final analysis. it is ~xiJtmu as such that purs at stake freedom and rhe
openness in whil;h beings present themselves. However. in this coming into
presence, beings themsc:lvcs in general also neist in a cenain way. and
singularly. We rould say: because existence iJ ill tIx world, th~ world as such
iuelf also exis[~it exists because of the proper exist~nce of existence,
which is outside of it5df. this tr~e exists in its singularity and in the free
space wh~re it singularly grows and branches OUI. It is not a question of
subjectivism. the tree does nO! appc.ll' to me thu.~. i( is a question of the ma-
C..hapt~r8
Chnp trr 9
I. "On the Essence: of Truth," in Martin Heidegger, &sic Writ;,ItS,
David Farrell Krell. edt (New York: Harper & Row. 1977), p. 12.9.
2.. The anal}'5is that follows applies primarily to Sartre's efTans ro e1u-
cidare and define the meaning of his ronnularion in the posthl1motL~1y pub-
lisl,,:d Cnhim ptmr un~ mtlmk (Paris: Gallimard. 198J). beginning at p. 447.
3. cr. the fir~r and second" Analogies of Experience" in the first
Critiqut. The rest of our anal}'5is addresses and expands certain clc:me:nts
of Hddcgger's anal}'5is in vol. SI of the G~J4mltl'ug4N. Our cunclusions
seem 10 be Ihose Ihal Heidcgger rcachtd but did not ,Jt:vclop.
<I. Immanuel Kant, Critiqut of Pllrt RraJ9n, Norman Kemp Smith.
trans. (Ncw York: St. Marrin's Press. 196d. p. 118.
S. Immanuel Kant, Criti'lw ()/Judgmrllt. J. H. lkrnaM. Irans. (New
York: Hafner Press, 1951). §81. p. 171.
6. The immtdiacy rcfe:rred to here i5 not Ihat of sensuous immediacy.
Nor is it an ahsence of mediation in the intrlligihle. h is neither a sentimcnl
nor an intellectual given of frctdom. This mi~1 resembk whal we could
call tl1l' ~pecific pregnancy of the ufeeling of reason," which is for Kanl rhe
/'fSptct for the law of frea!om. and a~ "what respect respects. .• reason
gives this to itself insofar as if is free." Manin licideggtr. !Gmt 4nd Iht
Pr9bJrm tlf Mttap"J1irs. Richard Taft. trans. (8Ioominglon: Indiana
Unive:l'5iry Press, 1990). In some scnsc, the analysis made in lhis renowned
paragraph JO of M1l14,IIi tilt ProM"" ~rM~t4p1'Pit'S SClS us in rhc direction
we arc anempcing 10 follow here. 10 tht extent chal He:iJcgger, relarin~ re·
spect f() lral15cendemal imaginarion. makes il appear as "a rranKCndemal
and fundamemal mucturc of the rranscenden,e of the ethical self." whcre
sudl a transl.:cndcncc i.~ norhing othcr than the stnlClure of what wc are des-
Not~ to Pag~ 102
CI,"pur to
I. Cf. Jean-I.uc Nancy. L 'Implratif (atllt',';q'" (Paris: Flammarion,
1983), and cf. Chap, ~.
1. Cf. Chap. s.
3. The general and oonjoincti stnlctllre of order and ~nt: "Come:: how
could rhis provoke lhe coming of what comes, Ihe coming of the evw:nt, fOr
example, if Ihe '""", itself docs not arrive, docs not arrive at i~If?·
Jacques l>crrida, PaMg's (Paris: Galilee, 1986), p. 61.
4. Cf. Emile Benveniste: " ... the bare semanteme employed in its
jussivc form, with a sprcific intonation." which docs not ~n constitule
"an unerance." P'YJ6Imrs in (,'m,ml Li11fl,;stit"s, Mary Elizabeth Meek,
trans. (Miami: University of Miami Press, 1971).
Chapurl1
I. We mu.~t ignore here the anicularion with space, which nevertheless
belongs to this pmblt'matic. For rhis another work would be rrquiml.
Further on we will find some indications in tht' direction of what would
have to he thought not onl)' a~ an originality pmper to ipace (as cion
Didier Franck, d. nOle 8 to Chap. 9, above), but as a "spaciosity- of
rime around rhe ""Will; which we will discu!oS here. Generally speaking,
freedom OfT"B itself as spacious and spacing: I WilllOllch on this in the
conclusion (Chap. 13).
2. Cf. Martin Heitiqr,gt'r, On n"" anti &illg, JO;In Stambaugh, trans.
(New York: Harper & Row, 1971); and also Oerrida's analysis of the
"thoroughly mt'taphy~ical" character of the ·ccmct'p' of time" in ·Ousia
and G,.a",mt': Note on a Note: from "r;lIg alld 1i",," in Margins of
PMIDJopl1} (Chicago: University or Chicago Press, 1981).
). Translator's note--" Srt",",,,,," "the u~xpcctc:d occurrence," when
empha.'ii7.ed by Nancy a" su,-rlt'I/"" has bttn rranslatcd ali ·coming-up" in
order to prt'5erve it~ sense of "coming" [''f'IIHto).
4. Cr. Chap. 6. 1"11t' entire thematic of the prC5t'nt para~ph should he
c()m~'<Jred to I.yotard's reading of HrgrbmJ"it in Kantian hislOry, of the
cvent'$ "f"ct of gi\'ing itself' as lhe "tract' of freedom in rc:a1it)·." Although
I.rotard, who does nOI propose an t'Xaminatioll uf freedom for itself. re-
Not~ to P4g~ 11$
wns the term Mcausality by freedom." the: implicit concept of freedom that
his text seems to suppose would perhaps fInd mOle analogies here.
However, we would have some reservations with regard to the expres-
sion -trace offreedom," which implies both visibility (or sensibility; these
arc the stakes of Lyorarc1's Msentim('nt," which should I('ad us back to
what is evoked in not(' 6 to Chap. 9) and intermittency; what is undeni.
abl(' on (h(' level of the "historical cvent.~" of which Lyorard speaks seems
to me to refer. on the level of ontology. to what could be called the non·
sensible constitution of the sensible and the non-imerminem wnstitution
of ev('nemential intermittence. In a sense. there is constantly an event of
freedom that opens existence as such. There is wnstandy a ~coming-up"
in time, and it is only from this point that one can accede to the possibility
of thinking a "history" and its "signs." Cf. J('an.FuJl4jois Lyotard.
L ,£"thous;mm, (Paris: Galilee. 1986), ('specially pp. 54-56, 100, "~.
S. Juli('n Grc:tn, Minu;t, cited in G('Or~s Paub, Mnu" d, ''instAnt
(Paris: Pion, 1968), p. 376; and Milan Kund('fa, CArt dtl Roman (Paris:
Gallimard. 1986), p. 80 (th(' author speaks of Anna Karenina-srruc-
turally speaking. would literature have to do with this surprise. many
other literary examples of which could cmainly be produced?). There is
something of a syncopt' here-suspt'nsc and rhythm-of a beating at the
h('arr o("r('ason," of a h(',utbeat. "A h('arr is alrt'ady an ev('nt, an evt'nr is
already a ht'art: wrote Dottn. Freedom, in its event, is pt'rhaps always of
the order of the h('arr. But how does one think a ht'arr of being? (We
addressed the question in "Shattered Love," Lisa Garbus and Simona
Sawhncy, trans., in Tht Imp,rllli", Commum'ty, Petcr Connor, ed.
(Minneapolis: Univcrsity of Minnesota Press, 1991].) What occurs in
Frtignis is pt'rhaps that occurring OCClll'!i to itsdf aM appropriates itsdf as
pres('nce. Bur this can only occur in th(' modt' of an unexpt'Ctt'd coming-
up. Occurring occurs to irsdfby coming up in the beating of the coming-
up. It would be this-the heart of being-or its freedom (wouldn't the
htart be for us a synonym or metl1phor of freedom in all its states?). Thc
opening of a world, as such and absolutdy, is unthinkable outside of m('
freedom of the coming-up. Otherwise. it is not a worIJ. but a IIII;wm. In
a somewhat comparable way, Wiug('nsrein links wonder before the "mir-
acle" of existenc(' (which reft'rences H('idqr,gcr. in th(' G('rman edition
of th(' text, as Christoph('r Fynsk has shown liS) with "hi(j as the proper
order of expressions "whose very es.~nce is to have no meaning," which we
would interpret as: to have the "meaning of the freedom of being (d.
D
Noln 10 raUl 1/6-19 199
II. Cf. the entire motif of Sd,;clnAL ~hirlml. and bntimtnnl, which
clearly communicatcs. as is wcll-known. with that of EIYigni! (cf. 0"
TiI1ll anti B';"g, Joan Stambaugh. trans. [New York: Harper &. Row.
1971]).
Chllpttr 12
I. Theodor Adorno. NtKativt Dill/min, E. B. Ashton. trans_ (New
York: Cominuum. 1987), p. 366.
1. H. W. Pcact citcs this expression in his preface to Martin
Heidcgger/Erharch Kastner, BriifwtC'hid (FrankfurHlm-Main: KloSlcr-
mann. 1986).
J. Cf. Philippe Lacoue-Labanhc. La Pllisi, romm, 'xpimnC'r (Paris:
Bourgois. 1986), p. 167: "This is strictly ,mparJonabV-the word re-
lates simuitaneolL~ly to Auschwitz and to HeKk~r's silence. (In addition.
and as a prefacc to later remarks. we: should recall that pardon. in irs
Judeo-Christian tradition. needs no justification. What remains unjusti-
fiable can, on another register. be pardoned-nccpt when it precisely
involves an altitudc that 1c:an5. in one way or another, toward justifying the
unjustifiable:. as we: mipt suspect the case would be at a certain level in
Heid~r. Yc:r in the same: u:adirion of pardon there rc:mains an enigmatic
"sin against the: spirit" which cannot be: pardoned.. . (Let us add that
Heidegger's silence was not ahsolutely total; somc sentences were spo-
ken and we: wiJIlarer allude to one of tMsc on the U"hril, the disaster. of
Nazism. But apart from this word, nothing broke Heickgger's profound
silence:. All the mate:rial on this poim is presented and carefully analyzed
by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe in La FiC'tion au politiqu, (Paris: Bourgoil.
1988), rranslat~d as HtiJtlX"' Art ana PtllitirJ. Chris Turn~r, trans.
(I.ondon: Basil Blackwell. 1990).
4. Thomas Mann, Dtu Probltm dtr Frtihtit (Stockholm. 1939).
5. As indicated earlier (Chaps. I, J), we are thinking of a secret eom-
plicity. in spite of fundamental differences, between the camps and every-
thing that, by exploitation. abandonment. or tonure. presenls in our
time: what could be gadtc:rc:d under dtc: names (both malerial and symbolic)
of tenacity (amamrml'm). emaciation (ald.NImtmmt), and ,he mass grave:
(rharni",. The analysis of these would have to be: give:n c:Ise:where. It
would be: necessary to retrace what circulates between the: exposing of
the brutality of the primitive accumulation of capital-the exposing of the
"sickne:ss of civiIi7.ation--and the eXp05ing of civilized and technicized
barbarism.
NOln 10 P"KN 123-27 101
Farrell Krdl. trans. (New York: Harper 6l Row. 1977). pp. 2}7-}8 [trans.
modified). The date of this text (1946) and the use of the word" fury. in M
the sense whose origin we believe we can It)cate. lead us to believe that
Heideggcr at least implKidy also targeted Nazism here. Yet at the same
time. and for fundamentally obvious motives. "fury" must also refer [0 an
aspect of the analysis of "technology" and of Gnull (where the theme
of fury can often be detected and sometimes explicitly read: cf.• for ex-
ample. 'The Question Concerning Technology." in &nic Writingy. David
Farrell Krell. cd. [New York: Harper & Row. 1967». To comprehend. not
evil through technology. but the properly technological determination
of technology. the one that according to Heideggcr hides its ~nce of "dis-
dosing" ([0 recall quiclcly one of the daims of his text). ro comprehend
therefore this determination by way of evil and by its fury is one of
Heidegger's comtant directiom. even if it is rardy made explicit. The
Unhtil the distress without safeguard. the disaster (a term employed
once to designate the worlc of the Nazis--cf. lacoue-Labarthe. whOJC
entire analysis should ~ run through here). cha~rir.cs the world of rMt-
nology. And the motif of freedom. as if in counterpoint. also run., through
the entire text on technology. We simply wam [0 poim out these indi-
cadom. without otherwise problematizing them.
11. G. W. F. Hegel. 11~ Systmr of Ethical Lift and First PhilDsop!J.yof
Frmlom, H. S. Harris and T. M. Knox. trans. (Albany; State University
of New York Press, 1979). p. IH.
I}. All figures of fury fiD this abyss wirh the idea of a "pure race" or wirh
every other "pure" idea. including that of freedom. even that of a violent
God. We could relate them 10 what Lyomrd calls the "absolute wrong" in
lk Diffrrtlld, Georges Van Den Abbede. trans. (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press. 1988). We could also relate the characlerization of the
evil thus attained to what lacan designated as "the jealousy that is born in
a subject in its reLation to anomer. inasmuch as this other is thought to par-
ticipate in a certain form of jouiJSllnct'. of vital superabundance. perceived
by the subject as that which he can nor apprehend by way of any affective
movement. even the most elementary. [s it noc truly singular. and strange.
that a being should admit to envying in another. [0 the point of hatn:d.
to the point of needing to destroy. what he is incapable of apprehending
in any way. and by no intuitive means? The almost conceptwlloclting of
this other may in itsdf suffice to produce this movement of unease .... "
Jacques !.acan, Lt'Slmi"",", Book VII. "L'Ethique de la psychanalyse"
(Paris: lc Scuil. 1986). p. 178. And ruSIn,,,t'. as such, il -JuprrttbuntLmu."
14. Translator's note-For the remainder of this chapter. the word
No~s to Pages 129-J7 2.03
1961 1.
22. Translator's nntc--Errt-proprr rranslates Heidcggcr's "St/~in,"
rendered in English as "Being·its-Self" or a5 "Bc:ing-one's-Sclf" in
Macquarrie and Robinson's tramlation of Bei"g and Timf.
2). "Mood-heing arnmed-to hear the attunement. To be able 10
hear: ((till of the stillneSli of being." Srhtlli"g s Tmllist on '''~ Eum"~ of
HItIHt1" Prttdom. p. 189. (This callundoubtcdly communicates with the
one we will next dis,uss). [Translator's note-Nancy's di~cussion of
tonality follows from the translation of Hcideggc:r's Stimmung-
"molld"-~ fOIl"Iill.l
2.,. u: §S7 and following.
25. This call and this voice have been specifically analYlcd by
Clu"lOphcr Fynsk in IItidtrgtr- Thought al/d Hiltoridty (\thal:a: Cornell
University Press. 1986). chap. I. This 'lnal~is has also given risc 10 an
essay by Mikkcl Borch-Jal:ob!;en. "termtr," in PoIs;t .15. Paris. 1<}86. 011 the
({(lIill thc con5titution of Vasti" beyond the subjCi:t, cf. Jean-Luc Marion.
-1:lnterloqt.e" in TO/,oi, ill W1~ CO",N Aft" tht Subfrrt? Eduardo Cadava,
Peter Connor. Jean-l.uc Nancy, cds. (New York: Routledge, 1991). pp.
2}6-45. And on the ",,11 in general in Hcid~cr, con~dcrcd tOr its (d~-phl)"
ny and rdated to Hcidcr,gcr's politiu and his thinking on tcchnology. sec
204 Notts to Pagn IJ7-4}
Chapt" IJ
I. Cf. Chap. J. Yet decision doubdess always insmbn itself. which
means it not only says or writes something. but gives itself as dtcisio"
(through speech or writing. or through the body. gesture. or tone). This
inscription of decision is cerrainly not unrelated to what Jcan-Claude
Milner analyzes as d,d"rlltio". which for him is p~cisely the material
inscription of freedom (cf. Libtrtis. Imm. ,,,,,1;;". I..cs con~~ncn du
PerroquCl. 3. Paris. June 1985)·
1. Cf. similarly Uvinas: "Violence can only aim at the faer." cired by
Derrida. who condnues: "Furrher. wirhour Ihe thought of Being which
opens rhe face. rhe~ would be only pure violence or pure nonviolence."
Jacques Derrida. "Violence and Metaphysics· in Wriling ."d DiJfortllct.
Alan Bass. lrans. (Chicago: University of Chicago rress. 1978). p. 147.
We may add: "iolencc also originates from a face. on which wickedness
can. occasionally. be read II! rh, d,wtstAl;ol/ ofthis s<lm, fo"·
3. Cf. Chap. 8.
4. Blanchot:" 'Thou shalt not kill' evidendy means 'do not kill him
who will die anyway' and means: 'because of this. do not commit an of-
fensc a~i"'1 dying. do nor decidc the undecided. do not say: "here is
what is donC':' prcsumptuously claillling a right over rhe "not yet." do not
act as if .he last word has been spoken. time is fini~hcd. and the Messiah
has finally arrived.'" Maurice Blanchot. u Pas ",,-/kIll (Paris: Gallimard.
1973). p. 149·
~. Manin Heilll'l~er. Bring lind lImt. John Macquarrie and Edward
Rohin~on. trans. (New York: Harper & Row. (961), $60, p. 346.
(Translator's nore-Where Nancy appears explicitly to be referring to
Hddc~er's text. ·oll,'trt",i· ("EncIJ/omnhtil') hu been transJated as
"disclosedm:ss"; otherwise it has heen rendered as "opening" or "open-
nc:ss. "J
6. Cf. primarily On Timt tlnd &ir'g, and Art lind Spa"t.
7. YVC'S Bonnefoy. L 'Improbttbk (Paris: 1951), p. lSI,
S. Gilles Dd(,lI1.e and Felix Guarrari, A fhtmsn",1 PIaUllfll, Brian
Massumi, tran.~. (Minneapolis: UnimsityofMillnc:soca Press, 1987). p. )81.
This will also rd'er to.he description of "free action" which "ahsolurdy oc-
cupies an unpunctuated space."
9. 15 it therdure inimitahlc:? Ilere we will hold in rescrve .he mime-
tologkal quelilion offn:C'dom (in a general sen~c and with panicular ref-
erence 10 Lacuue-Labanhc). Frcrdom is produced in and as the being-sin-
gular of being. The bdng-singular of being is for itself. in existena, nd-
thcr a general essence. nor a generic substance. nor a formative force.
nor an exemplary ideality. There is no reproducible contour. no mood. no
scI'm1tt of pmerical reason in its fo("', No non-scnsible image of .he smsi-
hle-bm the finite: tran~endcnce of naked ~nsibiliry. existC'llce materially
d~iding it~lf in the world. Freedom doe~ nOi resemble anything and it
is not (l' lnC'mble an~'thing. Imitadon has always been considered as un-
free. it has even undouhtedly furnished ~rvility's rxt"'pl"m. and free-
,",om. on the conrrary. would he the tx,mpl,llll of non-imitation--the
negative rxnnpl,m, of a negation of mi""S;I. The limit of imitation, nev-
er rhe imitation of the limit: always 01/ the limit of existence (would this
he .he hi,ldcn "rtof the schemalism?). But this still estahli~hC'5 a mimer-
ic rdation. and freedom has also always bern considered ;l~ t'xempl:uy: C'X-
emplary of C'Xcmplality we ,"uuld say. Exemplary of what under ,he name
of prll:o$ (excellence. virtue. n:volution) can he thought of a.\ non-poitsil.
or as po;tS;S of the 501(' agelH of l'0inis. We know, moreover. that this
can also be interpreted as pot", ;n,lf. We could investi~te how free-
dom has been identified with poetry itsclf and reciprocally. Is it not at bot-
tom for us the txtmp'um, without example, of "creation." it5c1f exem-
106 NOkS to Pagt'S 148-51
Chaptn14
I. Cf. Maurice Blanchot, Th~ Writing of th~ Disasttr, Ann Smock,
trans. (Lincoln: Unive~jty of Nebraska Press, 1986), p. 46.
1. These fragments were added several momh~ after this essay was
drafted, and were originally given to be read for a thesis defense, and to
some friends. 'fhry therdOrc bear traces of questions po.~, of readings and
of reRections made afterward. Above all. I do not wan[ them to appeat as
wanting to uconclude." Th~ classical rhetorical precaution is here more
than justifiw. There is not "a thinking" of freedom. there are only pro-
legomena to a freeing of thinking.
3. Jacques Derrida, Pllragt1 (Paris: Galilee, 1986), p. 67. ITranslator'~
Not" to Pltg" If6-72 207
adverbial U5C a~ a panide of n~ation signifying "no. not. nOI any. "]
4. cr. IA J~'/I" fillt qlli 110111 prism" lit,." forthcoming.
5. §}8. I will 'OOle back to this in an essay on "opening" in the analytic
of D/'I~;n. Moutin Ileidegger. B~i"g ""d T;m~. John Macquarrie and
Edward Rohinson. nans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 119.
6. Translator's not~"7«1m;q"t." in French. is open to many English
translations, among which are the following: "technique." Ihe specific
style or manner in which an activity is conducted; "technics," the tech-
nological tooL~. methods. theories. and so fonh used to carry OUI an action:
anti "technology." rhe terminological body relating as a whole 10 the:
technological.
7. Since these notes, Derrida has explicirly come bad to the: 5tatus
of questioning in Heidewr: Jacques Derrida. OfSpirit. HtUkggtr.nd tht
QlltSlioll. Geoffrey Bennington and Radlcl Bowlby. trans. (Chicago:
Univeniry of Chicago PI'CS5. 1989).
B. Blanchot. TIw Writing oflJw Disasltr.
9. §S7. Martin Heideggc:r. Btillt ana T;mt. p. J13.
10. Cf. "Lc: Peuple juif nc rM pas." by Philippe: Lacoue:-Labanhc: and
Jean-Luc Nam:y, in La Psyc""nttlys~ m-~/k IIn~ histoi" jlli",? (Paris: Lc:
Scuil. 1981); and on Ihe Hrgdian "mother." Jean-Luc Nancy, "Idenrirr et
tremblement" in Hyp"(Jw (with M. Barch-Jacobsen and E. Michaud)
(Pari.~: Galilee. 198}).
n. Maurice: B1anchot. u Pas Ilu-drld (Paris: Gallimard. 1975), p. 7J.
12. Robert Amdme.lette:r of June 21, 1945, citrd in Dionys Mascolo.
Amour dim 1]Or, tit ml",o;" (Paris: M. Nadeau. 1987).
I). E. M. Cioran. Prlris tit dIromptlrititJIl (Paris: Gallimard. 1965). p. n.
140 Cf. (;mnJ Grand. Ala Guerre de Seccssion." u Dlb.t, no. 48. Jan.-
Feb.1988.
IS. G. W. F. Hegel, Phi/ostJp", ofRigJII (New York: Oxford Universiry
r.
Press. 1967), §S. 2.2.
16. Amtlor rhe event of being. I insist h"re on returning to L '£Ir~ tt
l'lr,mrmtllt by Alain Dadiou (Pari5: I.e Seuil. 1987). Having appc:arat too
late for me: (0 gram it its due cr"dir. rhis imponam book 5C:C:1II5 (0 me (0
comain. in cenain respect" a rhesl~ close to (he rhais on the fttedom of
being.
Index of Nalnes
In ,his index an af' aftrr a num~r indicates a scpararc rt~nce on the nellt
page. and an ~fl~ indicates separate referenca on the next two pagCll. A con-
tinuous discuuion OV~ nvo or mort pag~ i, indicated by a span of page
numbers. e.g.. U - S9• P;willl i~ used for a cluster of rcfcrenas in dose but
M
109
2.]0 lndn:
Nancy, J~an.Lw:;
[Expc:ritncc de Ia Jibe"c. English!
The experience of freedom I
Jean-Luc Nancy ;
[ranslalcd by Bridge! McDonald
with a foreword b)· Peter femes.
p. cm. - (Meridian)
I"dudes bibliographical rc:fc~nces.
ISIIN o-So47-117S-o (a1k. paper)
- ISIIN 0-8047-2190-4 (pbk.
aile. paper) I.Liberty. I. Title.
II. Series Meridian (Stanford, Calif.)
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