ON THE NAMES OF GODequivalence collapses into identity—that is, if all differential meaning is obliterated—there
will be no obstacle tofree lovebecoming part of the chain. But if the chain is a chain of
equivalences, the particular meanings will not be entirely eliminated and, in that sense,
chastitywould resist the incorporation offree loveinto the chain. The differential mean-
ings are a limitation but, at the same time, a condition of possibility for the equivalence.
The equivalence is, however, as we have seen, a condition of representation of the ‘‘be-
yond.’’ Because the equivalence requires partial retention of the differential meanings of
its terms (which involves putting limits on its expansion), the only possible conclusion is
that the very constitution of the ‘‘beyond’’ is not indifferent to the differential contents
whose equivalence is the condition of its representation. We could present the argument
in a syllogistic fashion:
Limitation and retention of particularity is the condition of equivalence;
Equivalence is the condition of any ‘‘beyond’’;
So, limitation and retention of particularity is the condition of any ‘‘beyond.’’The consequences of this sequence are momentous for the structuration of mystical experi-
ence (i.e., for the possibility of an absolutely empty signifier that would represent a beyond
for all particularism and difference). The only possible conclusion is that there is no possi-
bility of a beyond of differences that is not ancillary to an operation of reintroducing differ-
ence. That remainder of difference and particularism cannot be eliminated and, as a result,
necessarily contaminates the very content of the ‘‘beyond.’’ Here we have a process that can
be described in either way: either as a ‘‘materialization’’ of God, giving Him a differential
content that is His very condition of possibility, or as the deification of a particular set of
determinations that are invested with the function of incarnating the Absolute. But both
ways arrive at the same deadlock: a pure expression of the divine essence, which proved to
be impossible through straight naming, is no more possible when we use, in an indirect
way, a chain of equivalences. We see why a mystic like Eckhart has to rely on the contents
of a positive religion: because mystical experience, left to itself, is incapable of providing
the differential remainders that are, nonetheless, its condition of possibility.
In this way, mystical discourse reveals something belonging to the general structure
of experience: not only the separation between the two extremes of radical finitude and
absolute fullness but also the complex language games that it is possible to play on the
basis of the contamination of each by the other. It is to the strategies made possible by
this unavoidable contamination that I want to refer now. I will give two examples, one
from the field of politics, the other from ethics.
As I have argued,hegemonyis the key concept in thinking politics.^13 I understand by
hegemonya relationship through which a particular content assumes, in a certain context,
the function of incarnating an absent fullness. In a society suffering deep social disorgani-
zation, for instance, ‘‘order’’ can be seen as the positive reverse of a situation of general-
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