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

which the different pretenders can be judged. What needs a foundation, in fact, is always a
pretention or a claim. It is the pretender who appeals to a foundation, whose claim may be
judged well-founded, ill-founded or unfounded” (LS 255). To the extent that reminiscing the
Platonic Idea is the activity of the passive self we can say that myth is the standard whereby the
passive self acts. Deleuze’s argument is that this activity constitutes time as passage. In other
words, it is only because the passive self acts in terms of the mythical standard that time passes.
This mythical standard is the Good. But what does this mean other than that the passive self
becomes the free individual by reminiscing the Platonic Idea? In other words, that the passive
self acts in terms of the Good means that it becomes the free individual. The Good of the
individual is freedom. It is in this sense that we can say that in the second passive synthesis of
time the passive self constitutes time as passage and at the same time becomes the Cogito. The
moment that the passive self experiences its own living present as passing to another living
present is the very moment it experiences its own self as free. It can become something. It can
become its own Idea. However, Deleuze argues, the second synthesis of time is actually
insufficient. That the passive self constitutes time as passage in terms of the activity of
reminiscing the Platonic Idea means that it does not really become. Deleuze puts this point in
terms of possibility and actuality. “What difference can there be between the existent and the
non-existent if the non-existent is already possible, already included in the concept and having
all the characteristics that the concept confers upon it as a possibility? Existence is the same as
but outside the concept” (DR 211). The passive self does not actually become. It merely assumes
actually its own possible individual. We can put this point in other words. When we act in
accordance with a standard the only individual we become is the standard individual. This is why
such a standard individual cannot actually make the time pass. Such an individual always returns
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