Careful, there's a famous, I think, section in the Phenomenology, in the Force and Understanding chapter, where he talks about the absolute essence, the universal bloodstream of everything, which is this coincidence of fission and fusion, this division, which is not a division, or it's not a difference between anything, nor can it be thought of as the identity. It's beyond identity and difference, and it's also beyond negation. There's no non. There's no negation. For Hegel, all negation is conceptually inscribed, and conceptualization, in a way, is negativity. But Hegel thinks that this, and I guess this is kind of the...
I think there are two surpluses in Hegel. There's a surplus of formalization which is the in itself of the for itself, which he charts in the phenomenology. But then there's this other kind of, in a way, non-dialecticizable residue, which Mladen identifies, and which is, even to call it kind of a... It's not a non-relation, it's not a non-anything. And this is why it's very difficult to talk about it, but Hegel is very careful not to, he doesn't ontologize it. He says, but in a way, it's what you have to, in order not to ontologize, you need this kind of operator.
I don't know what to call it, but it's something you need in order not to reify. It's like if you want... You say that you can reify and then you can try to de-reify... Reification. But Hegel's point is that de-reification is another kind of reification. There's a kind of like... So this is why it's not enough simply to... And you need to understand, you need to have some kind of... this index of this distinction beyond identity and difference. Something which is, when you talk about the identity of identity and difference,
for which he's chastised by 20th century philosophers, it can also be translated, it can also be understood as the relation of relation and not. But Cable's point is that this relation can also be called, you could also call it a non-relation because it's neither nor. It's neither a relation nor a non-relation. But this is precisely what all ontologization and desubstantialization unfolds within this kind of, this matrix of this non-conceptual element. This non-conceptual element which is always secreted by conceptualization. And I think this is the ultimate, this is the residue of the residue in Hegel. And he calls it the absolute essence.
It's the absolute essence. And I think he succeeds in not ontologizing it. I think he shows how to kind of, how not to kind of preemptively ontologize it. and I guess the question if you talk about non-relation what does non mean? When you say I guess this is the issue about how do you understand the suspension or the cancellation of relation without already kind of presupposing constituted kind of
individuals. That's the that's the difficulty. But I agree completely with the point about not, the importance of not ontologizing non-relation. Yeah. I'm on? Yeah, you're on. First, thank you very much for this. I really enjoyed and appreciated the paper a lot. Actually, I have, I think, one remark more than question, concerns precisely this notion of the relation, you also said non-relation. You also said that actually capital is not about the relation, so that there would be some kind of contradiction between capital as being inherently about relation and this axiom of non-relation.
So my first point would be to say that, and this is actually a quote from Lacan, when he says the non-relation, when he speaks about sexual non-relation, it is not the opposite of the relation, it is that what dictates the very logic of relations as we know them. So it's not at all like there are two, I don't know, men and women and there is no relation between them. Obviously, we are all in all kinds of social and sexual relationships, but the way their logic is inherently twisted or curved, to use the other one by precisely this non-relation, the fact that there is something that does not add up, to put it very simply, or to constitute some kind of mentality or whatever way you
want to form as the relation. There is the non-relation which actually exists as an inherent contradiction of precisely all the empirically existing relationships. And here I think this is the discussion with Lorenzo, actually that you could say that non-relationship is the very real of every relationship, because precisely for Lacan this real is not being, it's not simply to ontologize it, but to say that all being is actually part of all being is precisely something that is not qu'a being, which is the real. I mean, I know this is also something that I worked on a lot, so it's kind of an abstract argument,
but anyway, we should not, this non-logic at stake, also the social non-relationship, should not be understood as simply the inexistence of any relationship, but precisely what twists the very logic and dictates the very logic of contradiction and so on. So it could be read also in Marxist terms, I think, in this sense. And then the other remark, it's a kind of what would be my response to one of your questions, which was the drive and the capital, what is the symptom of what and how. So I think perhaps one problem comes from the fact that sometimes, or at least to some point, I think we Lakanians, I was also guilty of this, were presenting the drive as a kind of way out,
or kind of the right solution as opposed to desire, there is the logic of the drive, and so it will save us, we just need to find this logic and we are safe. And more and more, and I think I'm not the only one to think this, the problem with the drive is that it is not in itself a monolithic notion, but it's actually a kind of, for Lacan, a twofold concept. And he has this, to put it very simply, there are all these objects A, which is the surplus dimension of the drive, which he says are actually only a stand-ins for the void, for the negativity around which the drive circulates. So you have this kind of, I think, drive itself should be perhaps seen as something that exists on two different levels,
and the two levels correspond, I think, to what you described on the one hand as this axis and then the negativity. When you said that one should have to formulate the two together and I think for me the very definition of a psychoanalytic intervention is a signifier, let's say, that manages to articulate these two levels, the surplus and the negativity, and the effect of this intervention, symbolic intervention, is to dissociate them. Actually, to intervene is precisely to intervene into what about the negativity is it that fits the very mechanism of this Deleuzean
excessive flow of objects that we cannot, because once, if we just accept this incessant flow of surplus objects, then we are stuck with, we are stuck. And I think what is very significant for me is that if you look closely at how drive functions also in analysis, I think drive is completely indifferent also to repression. I mean, it is compatible with the repression can be sustained or maintained even if we are only just about the drive. because the drive precisely would not… it's indiscriminate, it would be satisfied with whatever object it finds. It wouldn't say… so there is something to be said for looking for a way to intervene precisely by articulating the two
in the sense that it is no longer possible actually for them to be fused together in the same way as they were before. And this would be… so I know this is very abstract, so I… but… Well, that's actually very helpful. It's actually very illuminating for me. It helps me get, yes, I mean as I said, my questions are fueled by my own lack of understanding, not by, they're not, you know, I want to understand more and that's, what you just said is very helpful actually. So thank you. I think it's also a pity that Slavoj is not here because I think lots of the questions that you asked at the end, he just wrote now part of the book which is partly response to Samutomšić at precisely this point.
Ah, okay, okay. So it would be a pity. I think he would have some direct answers, but I cannot know what it is. Yes. Do you hear me? Yes, do you hear me? First Ray, I don't know, thank you very much. I really appreciate it very much. that you engaged very seriously and thoroughly with the theory that Slavo and I have been presenting.
And of course, I'm with you on your account. Your account is very generous and to the point and also addressing some of the most difficult issues of that very complex trajectory. I may have some slightly different wordings of certain things or some comments or propositions, I'll just list a few. One would be on the level of the question of the distinction between matter and form, which you insisted quite a bit. And maybe the best cue for that is actually Hegel's own discussion
of the relationship between matter and form, what form is in precisely the logic of essence. And there he puts the question of form first into opposition to matter, then to opposition to essence, and finally to the opposition of content. His argument is that as long as you think form opposed to matter, this is a bad form. or also form opposed to essence. It's only on the third level when you think the difference between form and content as actually the inner opposition of both form and content that you cannot differ. You come to the true form, the pure form, the real form in Hegel only when you cannot make any longer a difference between
matter and form, between content and form. Matter is always external form. The content is not. So Hegel's system is in a way the most ambitious formalism ever imagined. I mean, the formalism is far more radical than the formalism of the formal logic. Because the formal logic always begins with a certain formal level and in relation to that formal level, the content is completely indifferent. You can feel this, you know, this is why formal logic works so well. it can produce so many correct proposals because it's valid for any kind of content. This for Hegel is the definition of a bad form. So if it works for any kind of content, then it's just bad form.
So this would be maybe a slightly different wording, just stemming from Hegel himself on the question of the relationship between met and form. And I think something similar goes for the conceptual and the non-conceptual. The non-conceptual is always somehow involved in the conceptual movement. This is what Hegel is interested about. This is what engages him. that anything non-conceptual opposed to concept is actually the way of the movement propelling of the concept itself. Non-conceptual kernel at the core of the concept is actually the very definition of the conceptuality.
So, this is the internal condition of conceptuality at all. It's not that there is something external that the concept can't quite swallow, it's an internal kernel, which is the inner difference of the concept which conditions the movement of the concept. Alright, if I come now to the question of the drive, and in capitalism, the question of substance stylization, And I think Alenka also already pointed out, I completely agree with what she said, but I would come back a bit to my paper this morning, where I didn't mention the drive at all, but I started from the question of desire. And I think the question of desire, Marx doesn't quite use this word,
but actually a certain structure of desires is very strongly implied by all his moves. This can be mapped precisely in that quote in Lacan where I tried to show that the average brings desire to a certain minimal level and that all other desires can be somehow translated to the average just as everything can be translated into money in the world of commodities. So I pinned everything on the notion of desire and I think there is a good reason for this. The notion of the drive cannot be substantialized also for the good reason that it's a drive notion. You always start with desire. In the process of analysis, you always start with desire.
You don't analyze drive. You start with the analysis of desire and try to intervene in today's. And also I think a good point to analyze this complex of avarice and capitalism and capitalism is universalized, avarice, I think a good starting point is precisely the notion of desire.