BHRIGUPATI SINGHthought and of nonsense in sense, the constitutive ambiguities of morality, movement,
and inconstancy—are turned away from despair, as Deleuze uses these very paradoxes to
form the conditions of possibility for a new image of thought, outlined, for instance, in
Difference and Repetitionas a move away from the ‘‘dogmatic image of thought.’’^4
Moving between these lines of thought, Cavell and Deleuze, which is also to say
between a certain expression of America and of Europe, we might find ourselves at a loss
to account for the startling resonances that arise between them. It is remarkable that these
resonances exist, even though neither philosopher ever makes a single reference to the
other’s work and that seem, for all practical purposes, unaware of each other’s existence.
In what follows, we will explicitly map certain relations on the terrain of ethics. Implicit
in this kinship are certain key conceptual moves, made separately by both Cavell and
Deleuze, which provide the scaffolding for this argument, although in the space of this
essay we will be able to do no more than gesture toward them. Some of these conceptual
relations are:
- A mode of philosophical writing that is neither that of critique nor that of dialectics.^5
Alongside this is a conception of philosophy as a specific kind of activity, or way of
life, far in excess of individual writers or the specific positions from which they speak.
That is to say, philosophy is limited neither to a subject (being rather ‘‘a-subjective’’
or ‘‘pre-individual,’’ virtually, prior to its actualization, in Deleuze’s terms), nor to a
set of polemical positions (the ‘‘achievement of the un-polemical’’ is the way Cavell
describes a possibility, and a threat, inherent in the kind of writing that he holds up
as exemplary).^6 - A movement away from the framework of representation toward the problem of
expression (such that in our argument we will not ask if Cavell is adequately ‘‘repre-
sentative’’ of America or Deleuze of Europe, but rather what kinds and degrees of
changeable forces eachexpressesin relation to a dynamic milieu).^7 - A conceptualization of difference as internal to being.^8
- The conception of an internal, mobile relation between sense and non-sense.^9
- The centrality of immanence to their respective philosophical projects.^10
A crucial point to keep in mind is that this is not a comparison (since we are not looking
for equivalences, to show thatxis the ‘‘same’’ asy) but rather the co-habitation of a
certain conceptual plane, facilitated by these signals and affinities.^11
But still, one might ask, why these names, and genealogies, and lists? Why not just
say what I have to and be done with it? It is one of the preconditions of thought, both
disabling and enabling (more so for philosophy than for others?), that before anyone can
begin to say anything, a lot has already been said. In this regard, for both Cavell and
Deleuze, the continuation or task of philosophy is taken up, first as a mode of inheritance,
undertaking the construction of what we might call a counter-tradition in each case,
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