Compte rendu de Perspective. Leibniz, Whitehead, Deleuze

Compte rendu de Perspective. Leibniz, Deleuze, Whitehead , ouvrage coordonné et introduit par Benoît Timmermans, avec les contributions de Laurence Bouquiaux, Didier Debaise, Luca Gaeta, Jean-Clet Martin, Anne-Marie Roviello, Christian Ruby, Isabelle Stengers (Annales de l’Institut de Philosophie et de sciences morales de l’Université libre de Bruxelles, Paris, Vrin, 2006). Paru dans Process Studies 37, n° 1, Spring-Summer 2008 (pp. 202207). Jean-Pascal Alcantara (P.H.I.E.R., University of Clermont-Ferrand) With these quite short collected papers (168 pp., all written in French) prefaced by B. Timmermans and published at Joseph Vrin ed. (Paris, 2006) in the Annals of the Institute of Philosophy of Bruxelles Free University, the reader is invited to a meeting between three great thoughts where the concept of perspective similarly was dominating. The main topic of the introduction aims to prevent us that the so called “perspectivism” should not meant any kind of relativism (postmodern or not). According to its very geometric origin, a perspective could not be separated from the idea of something which in fact does not vary, the non-varying in a variation (“géométral”). This is exactly what Leibniz understood with his theory of expression, as a “well-ordered correspondence” relating what is expressed and its expression, this point being particularly focused by Michel Serres with his structuralist reading (Leibniz’s System and its Mathematical Models, 1968). The major interest of this introduction consists in noticing that a Leibnizian perspective entails a confused representation of the infinity in the individual substance, which disagrees with Whitehead’s theory of abstraction, from which a concrescence makes a selection and filters out some modes of being. Well-known as a Leibnizian scholar, Laurence Bouquiaux offers in her paper, The Notion of Point of View in the Development of Leibnizian Metaphysics (pp. 23-54), in spite (or because?) of any reference to Whitehead, a detailed exposition of the main occurrences of what first of all is a metaphor. Metaphor of the town seen from different outlooks, of course,

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at the beginning, then more and more epitomizing a philosophy of point becoming a philosophy of fold, as Deleuze took that into account (The Fold. Leibniz and Baroque, 1988). Indeed, what else a point of view if not the universe folded in a point? Because of its scrutiny, explicating all the tinges of the metaphor, discussing with relevance Belaval, Serres, Deleuze, and also the historian of pictorial perspective H. Damisch, this contribution deserves to be considered as a classical paper on this topic. Didier Debaise’s rich works, Function of Perspective Concept in Process and Reality (pp. 55-69) seems to be not so one-centred, even if he proceeds mainly from Whitehead to Leibniz. The initial purpose understands perspective inside a general theory of existence. Thus perspective comes nearer the notion of importance, in the meaning of Mode of Thoughts, the author then running the risk to weaken the specificity of our very concept. The benefit of this choice, further interrogating the sense of Whitehead’s speculative method, consists in putting inside brackets the visual aspects of perspective, obviously not coherent with the critic of vision intended in PR. The comparisons between Leibniz and Whitehead (Deleuze being in the background, but inspiring, like Simondon) become more accurate concerning actual entities and monads. We accord to D. B. that “actual entities are not animated by a nisus” (p. 61), e.i. that dynamics does not provide a sustaining model in PR, however, a subjective aim and a nisus alike imply a tenseness in view of future, which is not, according to Whitehead as for Leibniz, a “prae-involvere” (vs. adventure). We incline also to discuss more far the idea that becoming in the existence, for the monads, is such that “properly speaking there is nothing such more or less existence” (p. 63): Leibniz often saying that existence is quantity of perfection, then about Whitehead, that, contrary to monads, actual entities come into existence “gradually”, which does not care with the epochal theory of time. Evoking the sound explanation of Velasquez’s Las Meninas from Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things (1965) in which the triumphant side of perspective seems to be broken up, Jean-Clet Martin brings to an end his From Depth to Flatness : Towards an Universal Characteristic of World (pp. 71-86) through others pictorial reminiscences. The French sensualism is perceived as a dislocation of the so-called “classical episteme”, a decentred perspective situated among the things themselves exposing them to a human mind like a moving screen (Watteau). The chemist nomenclature provides another outcome of a deconstruction which renews with a characteristica

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universalis, as if Leibniz had passed over his own episteme. In the sequel Deleuze replaces Foucault to bring to Whitehead’s theory of prehension. The coexisting relationships inside the nomenclatures in the XVIIIth sets up a manner of togetherness corresponding to the Deleuzian supplanting of the “is” by the “and” (see Deleuze and Parnet, Dialogs, 1977, p. 43). J.-C. M. thus brings to light a collusion between metaphysics of being and classical perspective, but some analogies are not so obvious (Cézanne with Linné, p. 83). Bring closer the theory of eternal objects and esthetical analysis seems to open a more promising way, if a painter indeed precipitates an ingression of colours, like the redness in Matisse’s Red Workshop. The author suggests that there is a similar impossibility, according to Peirce and Whitehead, for a quality to exist only as inherent in a body. Finally another interesting remark leads to bring into question what we presume with the generality of an eternal object, if we consider that Matisse’s redness cannot be of the same species together with Rubens’s own redness. A comprehensive examination of the meaning of perspective from a physicist point of view would doubtlessly miss to this collection. Luca Gaeta makes up that (Geometry of Events. Relativity and Perception in Whitehead’s Epistemological Period, pp. 87-102). Obviously the emergence of Einstein’s special relativity provokes a crisis in the idea of a universal observer. L. G. previously believes that if Whitehead’s epistemology could so far incorporate a spatiotemporal relativity (whereas Russell was the “paladin of an indifferent logicism to nature”), this may be due to his views on abstraction. In addition Whitehead represents an instance of a “prehilbertian mathematician”, hostile to a bare use of mathematical writing devoid of natural relevance. In 1906 (MCMW) the order relationship bears the correspondence of the signs with things, whilst axioms and geometrical properties themselves similarly sustain. At the very beginning of extensive abstraction, it matters to pick up the “subtle” distinction of logical inclusion from the spatial one, the later only able passing off relationship before entities. Abstraction is then put inside the possibilities of concreteness (TRE, 1914), as before, one met concreteness from an abstract perspective. The leading principle of abstractness/concreteness is followed in the discussion about relativity. Congruence is required in order to ground symbolism on what is signified. It would be better to speak of relationnalism better than relativity, if the absolute feature of light speed collapses. Relationnism pushes the question of perspective further, to the reliance of

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the percipient body to the universe, dodging bifurcation in nature. Finally Whitehead matches a “perspectivist realism”. Even if Kant will not be quoted, Anne-Marie Roviello offers the most vibrant advocacy against reduction of Leibniz’s preestablished harmony to the freedom of a sheer roasting spit (The Communauty of Singulars. Between Preestablished Harmony and Free Institution, pp. 103124), mainly leaning on phenomenological references (Husserl, MerleauPonty, Ricoeur, Derrida). The monad is to be seen as a “continued selfinstitution” and monadology as a non-systemic conception. We can agree that monadology was construed against atomistic physics, from which the author criticizes not without relevance Deleuze’s metaphor of two floors of a baroque house in The Fold (p. 7) for dealing with the mind/body relationship. Now this post-modern outlook on Leibniz jettisons the ingrained hierarchic sides of Leibnizian thought. A.-M. R. would like Leibniz had not writing that God was not “monad of monad”, but unfortunately he did so, as she herself recognizes it. Because God is not a despot, it does not follow that a constitutional monarchy partakes of a “wellruled anarchy”. Here the perspectivism leads straight towards a postmodern relativism in the political sympathetic goal to overcome the clash of communalism against universalism. Reading Christian Ruby’s The Affirmation of the Contemporary. Under the Risk of Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy (pp. 125-147), we meet another contribution very close to his pet philosopher. Indeed he wishes to present himself as a Deleuzian, militating against all kind of deal with philosophies of subject, like phenomenology, or consensual policy. But this must not be ascribed to judgment, the author often referring to Deleuze’s criticism of thinking as judging (see Criticism and Clinic, 1993). He opportunely opposes G. D. to M. Foucault, with his last interest for stoicism. Then it is not amazing that perspective likewise is rejected, too much linked with the backward-looking frames of thinking swept out by the Deleuzian deconstruction of representation. Finally art appears to provide a political issue, obviously art freed from aesthetics, if we plague with the worry of an outright new mode of thought. Isabelle Stengers’ point of departure is elicited by the statement of a sound discrepancy, where Deleuze’s divergent series dashes into Leibnizian perspectivism of convergent series (Make Converging Points of View?, pp.

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151-168). For a mathematician, a divergent series is nothing else than a failure, then in mathematical physics, in the case of a non-integrable dynamic system (Poincaré trying to resolve the three-bodies-problem): any right perspective could restore a convergence. The demand of convergence would be the same in quantum field theory. However I. S. draws out the à la Nietzsche rejection of Leibniz’s perspectivism by a Deleuzian subversion. Referring to the category of problem according to Difference and Repetition, the convergence set by Adam into the best possible world turns down the virtuality arising from a very sense of what is a problem. Then, in what extent Whitehead would be a Leibniz’s heir? In PR, 47, the former does not recognize any perfection to the process. Probably SMW substitutes actual occasions to monads, but in the sense of superseding individual by individuation. And de facto, Whitehead quotes Leibniz about perspective (SMW, 70) just for putting forward that Spinoza’s modes would set a better analogy (see also the function of value), at least until PR. Indeed Whitehead then come close “the necessity to conceive the finished without starting from the infinite, but as a product of its own determination” (p. 166). Given that the actual occasion became the solution of its own problem, I. S. suggests that we might found in PR the problematic scheme of Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, that which allows the revival of a convergence. But for a nexus, there is as well a process of convergence as a process of divergence, concludes I. S. in a dialectic manner, for the reason that a nexus sets a solution which is not a priori ruled by some compossibility. After some quite monographic contributions to which we could reproach not to observe the initial promise of an effective comparison, the reader will enjoy to deal finally with a breakthrough in this sense. A Whitehedian outlook on perspective appears to be inseparable of an analysis of prehension, D. Debaise throwing into relief that perspective could be a catching which would express the dependence of the catcher towards what is caught. Thus we could add that prehension exhibits all the ambivalence of perspective: meaning as well dependence from a subject to an object as reciprocally. If it is so, why perspective could not put a bridge from presentational immediacy to causal efficacy?

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