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stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

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passive self is to be immersed means that we cannot make any kind <strong>of</strong> distinction between it and<br />

its immersion. In other words, we cannot even talk about ‘immersion’ because immersion<br />

supposes a passive self that then immerses. What then are we to say? Rather than talk about the<br />

passive self and its immersion, the only thing that we can talk about is the univocal being. This is<br />

Deleuze’s first point. However, one need not stop at this level <strong>of</strong> analysis. While being is<br />

univocal, Deleuze argues, that does not mean that all beings are the same. “The univocity <strong>of</strong><br />

Being does not mean that there is one and the same Being; on the contrary beings are multiple<br />

and different, they are always produced by a disjunctive syn<strong>thesis</strong>, and they themselves are<br />

disjointed and divergent, membra disjuncta” (LS 179). Even though being is univocal, beings are<br />

different. And it is these differences among beings in the univocal being that suggest that being<br />

is not just univocal, but rather that this univocal being is itself difference. “With univocity,<br />

however, it is not the differences which are and must be: it is being which is Difference, in the<br />

sense that it is said <strong>of</strong> difference” (DR 39). Difference names the productive power <strong>of</strong> the<br />

univocal being to differentiate and multiply beings. One <strong>of</strong> these beings is the passive self.<br />

The self is not just immersed. If it was, it would not be possible to talk about it as passive.<br />

To say that the self is passive is to say that it does not arrive to being with a concept in hand. Still<br />

that the self does not arrive with the concept in hand does not mean that it does not do anything.<br />

It is only the kind <strong>of</strong> philosophy that thinks that the self is a self only to the extent that it is in<br />

possession <strong>of</strong> the concept that deems such a passive self a non-self. But Deleuze argues against<br />

this spontaneous notion <strong>of</strong> the self, the Cogito. For this reason, he also discredits its alternative<br />

whatever it may be. The self is still a self even though it is not in possession <strong>of</strong> the concept. Its<br />

passive nature is precisely what distinguishes it from the Cogito. Deleuze calls this passive<br />

nature <strong>of</strong> the self ‘repetition.’ Even though the self does not impose the concept onto being thus<br />

176

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