Kojin Karatani - Transcritique on Kant and Marx

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Transcritique


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Transcritique On Kant and Marx

Kojin Karatani

translated by Sabu Kohso

The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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© 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in New Baskerville by UG / GGS Information Services, Inc. and printed and bound in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Karatani, Kojin, 1941– Transcritique on Kant and Marx / Kojin Karatani; translated by Sabu Kohso. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-11274-4 (alk. paper) 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804—Contributions in political science. 2. Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804—Contributions in economics. 3. Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804. 4. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883—Contributions in political science. 5. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883—Contributions in economics. 6. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883. I. Title JC181.K3 K37 2003 320 .01—dc21 

2002038051


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Contents

Preface

vii

Acknowledgments Introduction: What Is Transcritique?

xv 1

I Kant

27

1 The Kantian Turn 1.1 The Copernican Turn

29 29

1.2 and the Transcendental Critique 1.3 Literary Parallax Criticism and the Thing-in-Itself

35 44

2 The Problematic of Synthetic Judgment 2.1 Mathematical Foundations 2.2 The Linguistic Turn 2.3 Transcendental Apperception

55 55 65 76

3 3.1Transcritique Subject and Its Topos 3.2 Transcendental and Transversal 3.3 Singularity and Sociality 3.4 Nature and Freedom

81 81 92 100 112

II Marx

131

4 Transposition and Critique 4.1 Transposition

133 133


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4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

The System of Representation: Darstellung and Vertretung The Economic Crisis as a Parallax The Micro Difference Marx and Anarchists

142 152 161 165

5 The Crisis of Synthesis 5.1 The Form of Value qua Synthetic Judgment: Ex Ante Facto and Ex Post Facto

185 185

5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

The Form of Value Capital’s Drive Money and Its Theology, Its Metaphysics Credit and Crisis

193 200 211 217

6 Value Form and Surplus Value 6.1 Value and Surplus Value 6.2 The Linguistic Approach 6.3 Merchant Capital and Industrial Capital 6.4 Surplus Value and Profit 6.5 The Global Nature of Capitalism

223 223 228 234 241 251

7 Toward Transcritical Counteractions 7.1 The State, Capital, and Nation 7.2 A Possible Communism

265 265 283

Notes

307

Index

349


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Preface

This book is in two parts: reflections on Kant and on Marx. Although the two names would appear to split the book, it is in fact thoroughly inseparable; the two parts are interactive through and through. The whole of the project—what I call Transcritique —forms a space of transcodings between the domains of ethics and political economy, between the Kantian critique and the Marxian critique. This is an attempt to read Kant via Marx and Marx via Kant, and to recover the significance of the critique common to both. This critique is something that begins from a scrutiny, a rather elaborate self-scrutiny. Now with respect to the pairing itself. Quite a few thinkers have sought to connect these two since the late nineteenth century. This was an effort to grasp a subjective/ethical moment missing in the materialism called Marxism. It speaks to the fact that Kant was not in the least a bourgeois philosopher. To him, being moral was less a question of good and evil than of being causa sui and hence free, and this compels us to treat other people as free agents. The ultimate message of Kantian moral law lies in the imperative: “Act so that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in any other person, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”1 This is not an abstract doctrine. Kant considered it a task to be realized progressively in the context of historical society. It might be that, in the concrete, his goal was to establish an association of independent small opposition to theconceived civil society by capimerchant producers capitalism.inThis was an ideal in dominated pre-industrial http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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talist Germany; later, however, in tandem with the rise of industrial capitalism, the unity of independent small producers was mostly disbanded. But Kant’s moral law survived. Abstract as it might have been, Kant’s position was a precursor to the views of the utopian socialists and anarchists (such as Proudhon). In this precise sense, Hermann Cohen identified Kant as the true primogenitor of German socialism. In the context of a capitalist economy where people treat each other merely as a means to an end, the Kantian “kingdom of freedom” or “kingdom of ends” clearly comes to entail another new meaning, that is, communism. If we think about it, from the beginning, communism could not have been conceptualized without the moral moment inherent in Kant’s thinking. Unfortunately and unfairly, however, Kantian Marxism has been eclipsed by history. I, too, came to connect Kant and Marx, yet in a different context from neo-Kantianism. From the beginning, the Kantian Marxists’ recognition of capitalism appeared to me to be feeble. I felt the same way about anarchists (or associationists). While their sense of freedom and ethical disposition are noteworthy, what was undeniably missing in them was a theoretical approach to the forces of the social relations that compel people. For this reason, their struggles were mostly helpless and miserably defeated. My political stance was once anarchistic, and I was never sympathetic to any Marxist party or state. Yet at the same time, I was deeply in awe of Marx. My admiration for Capital , the book with the subtitle “Kritik der politischen Ökonomie” (Critique of the Economics of Nations) has only intensified year by year. Being a student of political economics and reading Capital closely, sentence by sentence, I was always aware of and discontented with the fact that Marxist philosophers from Lukács to Althusser didwas notsuitable really read it full-heartedly, butconcerns. instead, Ionly from it what to their philosophical was took also discontented with the majority of political economists who deem Capital simply a book on economy. Meanwhile, I gradually recognized that the Marxian critique was not a mere criticism of capitalism and classical economics, but a project that elucidates the nature and the limit of capital’s drive [Trieb ], and furthermore reveals, on the basis of that drive, an essential entailed inCapital the human act of exchange (or more broadly,difficulty communication). does http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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ix Preface

not offer an easy exit from capitalism; rather only by its very exitlessness does it suggest a possibility of practical intervention. Along the way, I became increasingly aware of Kant as a thinker who also sought to suggest the possibility of practice—less by a criticism of metaphysics (as is usually thought) than by bravely shedding light on the limit of human reason. Capital is commonly read in relation with Hegelian philosophy. In my case, I came to hold that it is only the Critique of Pure Reason that should be read while cross-referencing Capital . Thus the Marx/Kant intersection. Marx spoke very little of communism, except for the rare occasions on which he criticized others’ discourses on the subject. He even said somewhere that speaking of the future was itself reactionary. Up until the climate change of 1989, I also despised all ideas of possible futures. I believed that the struggle against capitalism and the state would be possible without ideas of a future, and that we should only sustain the struggle endlessly in response to each contradiction arising from a real situation. The collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989 compelled me to change my stance. Until then, I, as many others, had been rebuking Marxist states and communist parties; that criticism had unwittingly taken for granted their solid existence and the appearance that they would endure forever. As long as they survived, we could feel we had done something just by negating them. When they collapsed, I realized that my critical stance had been paradoxically relying on their being. I came to feel that I had to state something positive. It was at this conjuncture that I began to confront Kant. Kant is commonly—and not wrongly—known as a critic of metaphysics. For the development of this line, the influence of Hume’s skeptical empiricism his wasdogmatic large; Kant confessed the idea 2 that first interrupted slumber. Butthat whatitiswas overlooked is that at the time he wrote Critique of Pure Reason , metaphysics was unpopular and even disdained. In the preface, he expressed his regrets: “There was a time when metaphysics was called the queen of all sciences, and if the will be taken for the deed, it deserved this title of honor, on account of the preeminent importance of its ob ject. Now, in accordance with 3 the fashion of the age, the queen proves despised on all sides.” It follows that for Kant, the primary http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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task of critique was to recover metaphysics’ proper function. This in turn charged Kant with the critique of Hume, who had once so radically stimulated him. I now want to reconsider the relationship between Kant and Hume in the context of the current debate. During the 1980s, a revival of Kant was a discernible phenomenon. In Hannah Arendt’s pioneering work, Lectures on Kant’s Politi- cal Philosophy , and in Jean-François Lyotard’s L’enthousiasme: La critique kantienne de l’histoire , the return to Kant meant a rereading of Critique of Judgment . The point taken was that ‘universality’—a sine qua non for the judgment of taste—cannot be achieved, in reality, among a multitude of conflicting subjects. At best what one gets is a ‘common sense’ that regulates conflicting tastes case by case. This work appeared to be drastically different from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason , which assumed a transcendental subjectivity that watches over universality (a reading that I examine in the following chapters.) The political implications of this new appreciation of Kant were clear, not excepting those of Habermas, who sought to reconsider reason as “communicative rationality”: It was a criticism of communism qua ‘metaphysics’. Marxism has been accused of being rationalist and teleological in its attempt to realize the grand narrative. Stalinism was indeed a consequence of this tendency: The party of intellectuals led the populace by reason embodying the law of history, and thus the infamous tragedy. In opposition to this, the power of reason has been questioned, the superiority of intellectuals has been denied, and the teleology of history negated. The reexamination of Marxism has in volved public consensus and negotiation among multiple language games as opposed to the central control of reason, and heterogeneity experience orview complexity of causality as opposed a rationalist of (metaphysical) of history; on the other hand, to the present, which has hitherto been sacrificed by telos, is reaffirmed in its qualitative heterogeneity (or in the sense of Bergsonian duration). I, too, was part of this vast tendency—called deconstruction, or the archaeology of knowledge, and so on—which I realized later could have critical impact only while Marxism actually ruled the people of many nation-states. the 1990s, thisthe tendency lost its impact, having become mostly aInmere agent of real deconstructive movement of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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capitalism. Skeptical relativism, multiple language games (or public consensus), aesthetic affirmation of the present, empirical historicism, appreciation of subcultures (or cultural studies), and so forth lost their most subversive potencies and hence became the dominant, ruling thought. Today, these have become official doctrine in the most conservative institutions in economically advanced nationstates. All in all, this tendency can be summarized as the appreciation of empiricism (including aestheticism) against rationalism. In this sense, it has become increasingly clear that the return to Kant in recent years has actually been a return to Hume. Meanwhile, it was in the effort of going beyond the empiricist tendency—as a critique of Hume—that I began to read Kant. This, to state it outright, is a project to reconstruct the metaphysics called communism. It was Kant who provided the most lucid insight into metaphysics’ proper role and the inseparable and inevitable tie between faith and reason. “Thus I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith; and the dogmatism of metaphysics, i.e., the prejudice that without criticism reason can make progress in metaphysics, is the true source of all unbelief conflicting with morality, which unbelief is always very dogmatic.”4 With this statement, it is not that Kant sought to recover religion per se; what he affirmed was the aspect of religion that tends toward morality, encouraging us to be moral. In contrast to mainstream Marxists, Marx persistently refused to consider communism as “constitutive idea (or constitutive use of reason)” in Kant’s sense, and he rarely spoke of the future. Thus in The German Ideology , Marx made an addition to the text written by Engels: “Communism for us is not a state of affairs which is to be esideal tablished, an the to which reality [will]abolishes have to adjust itself. We communism real movement which the present statecall of things. The conditions of this movement result from the now existing premise.”5 Therefore, the dogmatization of communism as a “scientific socialism” was much the kind of metaphysics Marx refuted. But this is not contradictory to the fact that he nurtured communism as “regulative idea (regulative use of reason).” So the young

Marx stressed categorical imperative: “The being criticism of religion ends with the the teaching that man is the highest for man , hence http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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xii Preface

with the categorical imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being.”6 For him, communism was a Kantian categorical imperative, that is, practical and moral par excellence. He maintained this stance his whole life, though later he concentrated his efforts on the theoretical search for the historico-material conditions that would enable the categorical imperative to be realized. Meanwhile, the mainstream Marxists, having derided morality and advocated “historical necessity” and “scientific socialism,” ended up constituting a new type of slave society. This was nothing short of what Kant called “all pretensions of reason in general [aller Anmaßungen der Vernunft überhaupt ].” Distrust of communism has spread, and the responsibility for “the true source of all unbelief” lies with dogmatic Marxism. One cannot and should not forget the miseries of the twentieth century caused by communism, nor should one take this mistake simply as misfortune. From that juncture onward we have not been allowed to advocate ‘Idea’ of any kind—not even of the New Left, which came into existence by negating Stalinism—with a naive positivity. That is why “in accordance with the fashion of the age, [communism] proves despised on all ideas.” Yet at the same time, other kinds of dogmatism are flourishing in various costumes. Furthermore, while intellectuals of advanced nations have been expressing their distrust of morality, various kinds of religious fundamentalism have begun to gain strength all over the world, and the intellectuals cannot simply scorn them. For these reasons, beginning in the 1990s, my stance, if not my thinking itself, changed fundamentally. I came to believe that theory should not remain in the critical scrutiny of the status quo but should propose something positive to change the reality. At the same I reconfirmed the promising difficulty ofprospect, doing so. Social racy totime, me would not offer any and it wasdemocfinally around the turn of the new century that I began to see a ray of hope that led me to organize the New Associationist Movement (NAM) in Japan. Certainly innumerable real movements that seek to abolish the status quo are occurring in all corners of the world, inevitably, under the procession of the globalization of world capitalism. But, in order torecognition avoid the repetition of bygone mistakes, I insist that a transcritical is necessary. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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xiii Preface

That is to say, a new practice cannot be initiated without a thorough scrutiny of existing theories; and the theories to which I refer are not limited to political ones. I became convinced that there is nothing that is unaffected by or outside of Kantian and Marxian critiques. In this project, henceforth, I did not hesitate to dive into all possible domains including the theory of mathematical foundations, linguistics, aesthetics, and ontological philosophy (i.e., existentialism). I dealt with problems with which only specialists are customarily concerned. Furthermore, part I (on Kant) and part II (on Marx) were written as independent reflections, so their rapport might be ostensible. For this reason, I had to write a rather long introduction in order to make the connection visible, if not to summarize the whole book. Notwithstanding the complexity and variety of the theoretical sub jects, however, I believe that the book is accessible to the general reader. The book is based upon a series of essays that were published in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo , beginning in 1992. They were published alongside novels, which is to say that I did not write them in the enclosure of the academy and scholarly discourse. I wrote them for people who are not grounded in special domains. Thus the nature of the book is not academic. There are many academic papers on Kant and Marx that carefully research historical data, point out their theoretical shortcomings, and propose minute and sophisticated doctrines. I am not interested in doing that. I would not dare to write a book to reveal shortcomings; I would rather write one to praise, and only for praiseworthy works. So it is that I do not quibble with Kant and Marx. I sought to read their texts, focusing on the center of their potencies. But I think that as a consequence no book is more themofthan this. The main target of the bookcritical is the of trinity Capital-Nation-State. I have to admit, however, that my analyses of state and nation are not fully developed; the considerations on the economy and revolution of the underdeveloped (agriculture-centered) and developing countries are not sufficient. These are my future projects. Finally, I include here only a small portion of my reflections on the historical context of Japan—the state, its modernity, and particular its Marxism—in which my thinking was fostered. I plan to deal http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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xiv Preface

with these in a sequel. In fact, I owe much of my thinking to the “tradition” of Japanese Marxism, and Transcritique was nurtured in the difference between Japanese and Western as well as other Asian contexts, and in my own singular experience of oscillating and tranversing between them. In this volume, however, I did not write about these experiences, but rather expressed them only in line with the texts of Kant and Marx.


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Acknowledgments

In writing this book, I was supported by many people. I would especially like to thank the translators, Sabu Kohso and Judy Geib. I also would like to thank Geoff Waite, who checked the English translation and gave us invaluable suggestions; Fredric Jameson and Masao Miyoshi have given me enduring moral support and constructive advice. I owe Akira Asada, Paul Anderer, Mitsuo Sekii, Indra Levy, the late Yuji Naito, and Lynne Karatani for providing practical and patient encouragement for the realization of the book.


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Introduction: What Is Transcritique?

Kantian philosophy is called transcendental, as distinct from transcendent. Simply stated, the transcendental approach seeks to cast light on the unconscious structure that precedes and shapes experience. And yet, can’t it be said that from its very inception, philosophy itself has always taken just such an introspective approach? If that is the case, then what distinguishes Kantian reflection? Kant’s unique way of reflection appeared in his early work, Dreams of a Visionary . Kant wrote, “Formerly, I viewed human common sense only from the standpoint of my own; now I put myself into the position of another’s reason outside of myself, and observe my judgments, together with their most secret causes, from the point of view of others. It is true that the comparison of both observations results in pronounced parallax, but it is the only means of preventing the optical delusion, and of putting the concept of the power of knowledge in human nature into its true place.” What Kant is saying here is notpoint the platitude thatalso one should things notofonly fromInone’s own of view, but from the see point of view others. fact, it is the reverse. If one’s subjective view is an optical delusion, then the objective perspective or the viewpoint of others cannot but be an optical delusion as well. And if the history of philosophy is nothing but the history of such reflections, then the history of philosophy is itself nothing but optical delusion. The reflection that Kant brought about is theThis kind Kantian that reveals that reflections in the past were optical delusions. reflection as a critique of reflection is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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2 Introduction

engendered by “pronounced parallax” between the subjective viewpoint and the objective viewpoint. To explain, take an example of a technology that did not exist in Kant’s time. Reflection is often spoken of by way of the metaphor of seeing one’s image in the mirror. In the mirror, one sees one’s own face from the perspective of the other. But in today’s context, photography must also be taken into consideration. Compare the two. Although the mirror image can be identified with the perspective of the other, there is still certain complicity with regard to one’s own viewpoint. After all, people can see their own image in the mirror as they like, while the photograph looks relentlessly “objective.” Of course, the photograph itself is an image (optical delusion) as well. What counts then is the “pronounced parallax” between the mirror image and photographic image. At the time photography was in vented, it is said that those who saw their own faces in pictures could not help but feel a kind of abhorrence—just like hearing a tape recording of one’s own voice for the first time. People gradually become accustomed to photographs. In other words, people eventually come to see the image in the photograph as themselves. The crux here is the pronounced parallax that people presumably experience when they “first” see their photographic image. Philosophy begins with introspection as mirror, and that is where it ends. No attempt to introduce the perspective of the other can change this essential fact. In the first place, philosophy began with Socrates’ “dialogue.” But the dialogue itself is trapped within the mirror, so to speak. People alternately criticize Kant for having remained in a subjectivist self-scrutiny, or search for a way out of that in the Critique of Judgment ’s introduction of plural subjects. But the truly revolutionary event inKant philosophy hadtoalready occurred in Cri- attempted obliterate the complictique of Pure Reason, where ity inherent in introspection precisely by confining himself to the introspective framework. Here one can observe the attempt to introduce an objectivity (qua otherness) that is totally alien to the con ventional space of introspection mirror. Kant has been criticized for his subjective method, lacking in the other. But in fact, his 

Critique thought is always the other. is nothaunted written by in the the perspective self-critical of manner of Dreams Pure Reason of of a http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Visionary . And yet, “the pronounced parallax” has not disappeared. This emerged in the form of antinomy, which exposes the fact that both thesis and antithesis are nothing more than “optical delusions.” In part I, I reread Kant from this perspective. The same is true of part II. For instance, in The German Ideology Marx criticized the young Hegelians—a group to which he himself had belonged just months before, when he was exiled to France. To Engels, this book presented a new view of history that replaced German idealism with an economic purview. German ideology was nothing more than the discourse of a backward nation, attempting to realize conceptually that which had already become a reality in the advanced nation of England. But for Marx, it was by stepping outside of Germany’s ideology for the first time that he was able to experience an awakening, accompanied by a certain shock. This was to see things neither from his own viewpoint, nor from the viewpoint of others, but to face the reality that is exposed through difference (parallax). When he moved to England, Marx devoted himself to the critique of classical economics, which was then dominant. In Germany, Marx had already carried out the critique of capitalism and classical economics. What was it that endowed Marx with the new critical perspective that came to fruition in Capital? It was an occurrence that, according to the discourse of classical economics, could only be an accident or mistake: the economic crisis, or more precisely, the pronounced parallax brought about by it. What is important is the fact that Marx’s critique was always born from migration and the pronounced parallax that results from it. Hegel criticized Kant’s subjectivism and emphasized objectivity. But in Hegel, the pronounced parallax discovered by Kant is extin-

guished. Likewise, the pronounced parallax discovered Marx extinguished by Engels and other Marxists. As a result,byone is was left with an image of Kant and Marx as thinkers who constructed solid, immovable systems. A closer reading, however, reveals that they were in fact practicing constant transposition, and that the move to different discursive systems was what brought about the pronounced parallax. This is obvious in the case of the exiled Marx, but the same thing can be observed in Kant as from well. his Kant was not an in spatial terms—he never moved away hometown of exile Königsberg. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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4 Introduction

Rather, it was his stance that made him a kind of exile, a man independent from the state: Kant rejected a promotion to a post in Berlin, the center of state academia, instead insisting on cosmopolitanism. Kant is generally understood to have executed the transcendental critique from a place that lies between rationalism and empiricism. However, upon reading his strangely self-deprecating Dreams of a Visionary Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics , one finds it impossible to say that he was simply thinking from a place between these two poles. Instead, it is the “parallax” between positions that acts. Kant, too, performed a critical oscillation: He continuously confronted the dominant rationalism with empiricism, and the dominant empiricism with rationalism. The Kantian critique exists within this movement itself. The transcendental critique is not some kind of stable third position. It cannot exist without a transversal and transpositional movement. It is for this reason that I have chosen to name the dynamic critiques of Kant and Marx—which are both transcendental and transversal—“transcritique.” According to Louis Althusser, Marx made an epistemological break in The German Ideology . But in my transcritical understanding, the break did not occur once, but many times, and this one in particular was not the most significant. It is generally thought that Marx’s break in The German Ideology was the establishment of historical materialism. But in fact that was pioneered by Engels, who wrote the main body of the book. One must therefore look at Marx as a latecomer to the idea; he came to it because of his obsession with a seemingly outmoded problem (to Engels)—the critique of religion. Thus Marx says: “For Germany the criticism of religion is in the main complete, and criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism.”1 He conducted a critique of state and he capital as an extension of the critique of religion. In other words, persistently continued the critique of religion under the names of state and capital. (And this was not merely an application of the Feuerbachian theory of self-alienation that he later abandoned.) The development of industrial capitalism made it possible to see previous history from the vantage point of production. So it is that Adam could already pose a stance akin to historical materialism by Smith the mid-eighteenth century. But historical materialism does http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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5 Introduction

not have the potency to elucidate the capitalist economy that created it. Capitalism, I believe, is nothing like the economic infrastructure. It is a certain force that regulates humanity beyond its intentionality, a force that divides and recombines human beings. It is a religio-generic entity. This is what Marx sought to decode for the whole of his life. “A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”2 Here Marx is no longer questioning and problematizing metaphysics or theology in the narrow sense. Instead, he grasps the knotty problematic as “an extremely obvious, trivial thing.” Thinking this way about Marx, one realizes that an equivalent of historical materialism—or even what is known as Marxism for that matter—could have existed without Marx, while the text Capital could not have existed if not for him. The ‘Marxian turn’—the kind that is truly significant and that one cannot overlook—occurred in his middle career, in the shift from Grundrisse or A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy to Capital : it was the introduction of the theory of “value form.” What provoked Marx’s radical turn, which came after he finished writing Grundrisse , was his initiation to skepticism: It was Bailey’s critique of Ricardo’s labor theory of value. According to David Ricardo, exchange value is inherent in a commodity, which is expressed by money. In other words, money is just an illusion (Schein in Kant). Based upon this recognition, both Ricardian Leftists and Proudhon insisted on abolishing currency and on replacing it with the labor money or the exchange bank. Criticizing them as he did, however, Marx was still relying on the labor theory of value (akin to Ricardo). On hand, criticized the Ricardian by claiming the thatother the value ofBailey a commodity exists only in its position relationship with other commodities, and therefore the labor value that Ricardo insists is inherent in a commodity is an illusion. Samuel Bailey’s skepticism is similar to Hume’s criticism that there is nothing like a Cartesian ego cogito; there are just many egos. To this position, Kant responded that yes, an ego is just an illusion, but one functioning is the transcendental apperception But what knows asthere metaphysics is that which considers the X X. as http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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something substantial. Nevertheless, one cannot really escape from the drive [Trieb ] to take it as an empirical substance in various contexts. If so, it is possible to say that an ego is not just an illusion, but a transcendental illusion. Kant achieved this position later in his life; but first his dogmatic slumber had to be interrupted by Hume’s skepticism. And in this precise manner, Marx must have been se verely stricken by Bailey’s skepticism. But, again, like Kant, Marx developed this thought into another dimension, which I would like to call the “transcendental reflection on value.” Classical economics held that each commodity internalizes a labor value. But, in reality, commodities can have values only after their relationship is synthesized by money, and each one of them is given its value. In reality only prices exist as the indicators of the mutual relations between commodities. Thus Bailey stressed that the value of a commodity exists only thanks to its relationship with other commodities. But Bailey did not question what expresses price: money. In other words, he did not question what relates commodities to each other and composes the system: that is, money as the general equivalent. Money in this sense is totally irrelevant to money as substance like gold or silver; rather, it is like a Kantian transcendental apperception X, as it were. The stance to see it in relation to its materiality is what Marx called fetishism. After all, money as substance is an illusion, but more correctly, it is a transcendental illusion in the sense that it is hardly possible to discard it. For mercantilists and bullionists—the predecessors of classical economics—money was an object to be revered. This was evidently the fetishism of money. Scorning this, classical economists posited the substance of value in labor in and of itself. But this so-called labor theoryand of value did notit.resolve enigma of money; rather, it reinforced sustained Both the Ricardo—the advocate of the labor theory of value—and Bailey—its radical critic (and the unacknowledged primogenitor of neoclassical economics)—managed to erase money only superficially . As Marx said, in times of crisis, people still want money suddenly, going back to bullionism. The Marx of Capital stands on the side of the mercantilist, rather than Ricardo or Bailey. criticizinga form that both Ricardo and Bailey such a premise, his critiqueBy elucidated constitutes theon commodity economy. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In other words, what Marx focused on was not the objects themselves but the relational system in which the objects are placed. According to Marx, if gold becomes money, that is not because of its immanent material characteristics, but because it is placed in the value form. The value form—consisting of relative value form and equivalent form—makes an object that is placed in it money. Anything—anything —that is exclusively placed in the general equivalent form becomes money; that is, it achieves the right to attain anything in exchange (i.e., its owner can attain anything in exchange). People consider a certain thing (i.e., gold) as sublime, only because it fills the spot of general equivalent. Crucially, Marx begins his reflections on capital with the miser, the one who hoards the right to exchange—in the strict sense, the right to stand in the position of equivalent form—at the expense of use. The desire for money or the right to exchange is different from the desire for commodities themselves. I would call this ‘drive [Trieb ]’ in the Freudian sense, to distinguish it from ‘desire’. To put it another way, the drive of a miser is not to own an object, but to stand in the position of equivalent form, even at the expense of the object. The drive is metaphysical in nature; the misers’ goal is to ‘accumulate riches in heaven’, as it were. One tends to scorn the drive of the miser. But capital’s drive to accumulate is essentially the same. Capitalists are nothing but “rational misers” to use Marx’s term. Buying a commodity from someone somewhere and selling it to anyone anywhere, capitalists seek to reproduce and expand their position to exchange, and the purpose is not to attain many ‘uses’. That is to say that the motive drive of capitalism is not in people’s desire. Rather, it is the reverse; for the purpose of attaining the right to exchange, capital has to create people’s This driveinherent of hoarding the rightamong to exchange in thedesire. precariousness in exchange others.originates Historical materialists aim to describe how the relationships between nature and humans as well as among humans themselves transformed/developed throughout history. What is lacking in this endeavor is any reflection upon the capitalist economy that organizes the transformation/development. And to this end, one must take intoinexorably consideration of exchange, andand whyclassical the exchange takesthe thedimension form of value. Physiocrats http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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economists had the conviction that they could see all aspects of social relations transparently from the vantage point of production. The social exchange, however, is consistently opaque and thus appears as an autonomous force which we can hardly abolish. Engels’s conviction that we should control the anarchic drive of capitalist production and transform it into a planned economy was little more than an extension of classical economists’ thought. And Engels’s stance was, of course, the source of centralist communism. One of the most crucial transpositions/breaks in Marx’s theory of value form lies in its attention to use value or the process of circulation. Say a certain thing becomes valuable only when it has use value to other people; a certain thing—no matter how much labor time is required to make it—has no value if not sold. Marx technically abolished the conventional division between exchange value and use value. No commodity contains exchange value as such. If it fails to relate to others, it will be a victim of “sickness unto death” in the sense of Kierkegaard. Classical economists believe that a commodity is a synthesis between use value and exchange value. But this is only an ex post facto recognition. Lurking behind this synthesis as event is a “fatal leap [salto mortale ].” Kierkegaard saw the human being as a synthesis between finity and infinity, reminding us that what is at stake in this synthesis is inevitably ‘faith’. In commodity exchange, the equivalent religious moment appears as ‘credit’. Credit, the treaty of presuming that a commodity can be sold in advance, is an institutionalization of postponing the critical moment of selling a commodity. And the commodity economy, constructed as it is upon credit, inevitably nurtures crisis. Classical economics saw all economic phenomena from the vantage point of production, and insisted that had managed tify everything (other than production) byitreasoning that to it demyswas all secondary and illusory. As a result, it is mastered by the circulation and credit that it believes itself to have demystified, and thus it can never elucidate why crisis occurs. Crisis is the appearance of the critical moment inherent in the commodity economy, and as such it functions as the most radical critique of the political economy. In this it may be said crisislight, led Marx to Capital . that pronounced parallax brought by http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In the preface to the second edition of Capital , Marx “openly avowed [himself] to be the pupil of that mighty thinker” Hegel.3 In fact, Marx sought to describe the capitalist economy as if it were a self-realization of capital qua the Hegelian Spirit. Notwithstanding the Hegelian descriptive style, however, Capital distinguishes itself from Hegel’s philosophy in its motivation. The end of Capital is never the “absolute Spirit.” Capital reveals the fact that capital, though organizing the world, can never go beyond its own limit. It is a Kantian critique of the illcontained drive of capital/reason to self-realize beyond its limit. And all the enigmas of capital’s drive are inscribed in the theory of value form. The theory of value form is not a historical reflection that follows exchange from barter to the formation of money. Value form is a kind of form that people are not aware of when they are placed within the monetary economy; this is the form that is discovered only transcendentally . In the reverse of his descriptive order— from form of value, money form to miser to merchant capital to industrial capital—one has to read Marx’s retrospective query from the latter to the former. Classical economists rebuked the businesses of bullionists, mercantilists, and merchant capitalists of the previous age and denounced their economic role. They argued that while they earn profit from the difference of unequal exchange, industrial capital makes money from fair, equal exchange: it derives profit from the division of labor and cooperative work. In contrast, Marx thought of capital by returning to the model of merchant capital. He saw capital in the general formula: Money-Commodity-Money . This is to see capital essentially as merchant capital. Capital under this light is a self-increasing, self-reproductive money. This is the movement M-C-M itself. The case of industrial capital—which is 

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usually considered to be totally different—differs only in that the role of C is a complex that consists of raw material, means of production, and labor-power commodity. And this last, labor-power commodity, is truly inherent in industrial capital. For industrial capital earns surplus value not only by making workers work, but also by making them buy back—in totality—what they produce. Classical economists’ claim that merchant capital (or mercantilism) conducts unequal missesfrom the point. The fact between is, when merchant capital attainsexchange surplus value the exchange http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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different value systems, each trade—either M-C or C-M—is strictly based upon equal exchange. Merchant capital attains surplus value from spatial difference. Meanwhile, industrial capital attains surplus value by incessantly producing new value systems temporally —that is, with technological innovation. This categorical division does not prevent industrial capital from attaining surplus value from the activity of merchant capital. Whatever the kind, capital is not choosy in how it attains surplus value; it always attains surplus value from the difference of value systems by equal exchange within each deal. But, one of the points I want to pose is that how surplus value is earned—in contrast to how profit is earned—is strictly invisible, and the whole mechanism remains in a black box, as it were. Thus invisibility is also a condition for the struggle within the process of circulation. It is troubling that many Marxists posit surplus value only in the ‘exploitation’ of the production process rather than in the differences between value systems. These Marxists see the relationship between capitalists and wage workers as a (disguised) extension of that between feudal lord and serfs and they believe that this was Marx’s idea. But it originated in the Ricardian Socialists, who drew from Ricardo’s theory of profit the idea that profit making is equal to the exploitation of surplus labor. This became the central theory of the English labor movement in the early nineteenth century. Though it is true that Marx himself said a similar thing time and again and it may entertain a vulgar ear, it should be distinguished from that aspect of Marx that actually elucidated the enigma of surplus value. The best it can do is to explain absolute surplus value (achieved by the elongation of the labor day), but not relative surplus value (achieved by the improvement of labor productivity)—the particular characteristic of industrial What is seeingwith the relationship between capitalist capitalism. and wage worker in more, comparison the relationship between feudal lord and serf is seriously misleading: first, it results in envisioning the abolishment of the capitalist economy from the vantage point of the master/slave dialectic; and second, it leads to centralizing the struggle in production process by ignoring the circulation process. The Marx of , in contrast, the priority the circulation process. In Capital the manner of Kant,stresses Marx points out an of antinomy: He http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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says, on the one hand, that surplus value (for industrial capital) cannot be attained in the process of production in itself , and, on the other hand, that it cannot be attained in the process of circulation in itself . Hence, “Hic Rhodus, hic salta!” Nevertheless, this antinomy can be undone, that is, only by proposing that the surplus value (for industrial capital) comes from the difference of value systems in the circulation process (like in merchant capital), and yet that the difference is created by technological innovation in the production process . Capital has to discover and create the difference incessantly. This is the driving force for the endless technological innovation in industrial capitalism; it is not that the productionism comes from people’s hope for the progress of civilization as such. It is widely believed that the development of the capitalist economy is caused by our material desires and faith in progress; so it is that it would always seem possible to change our mentality and begin to control the reckless development rationally; and further, it would seem possible to abolish capitalism itself, when we wish. The drive of capitalism, however, is deeply inscribed in our society and culture; or more to the point, our society and culture are created by it; it will never stop by itself. Neither will it be stopped by any rational control or by state intervention. Marx’s Capital does not reveal the necessity of revolution. As the Japanese Marxian political economist, Kozo Uno (1897–1977) pointed out, it only presents the necessity of crisis. 4 And crisis, even though it is the peculiar illness of the capitalist economy, is the catalyst for its incessant development; it is part of the whole mechanism. The capitalist economy cannot eradicate the plague, yet neither will it perish because of it. Environmentalists warn that the capitalist economy will cause unprecedented in the future, yet it is not that these disasters will terminatedisasters the capitalist economy. Also, it is impossible that capitalism will collapse by the reverse dynamic, when, in the future, commodification is pushed to its limit—it is impossible that it would die a natural death. Finally, the only solution most of us can imagine today is state regulation of capital’s reckless movement. But we should take notice of the fact power—which that the state, won’t like capital, is driven by globalization its own certain be dissolved by the of autonomous http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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capitalism. This autonomy should nevertheless be understood in distinction from the sense of historical materialism’s doctrine that state and nation assume superstructure in relationship with economic base; they are relatively autonomous to, though determined by, it. First of all, as I have suggested, the very notion that the capitalist economy is base or infrastructure is itself questionable. As I have tried to elucidate in the book, the world organized by money and credit is rather one of illusion, with a peculiarly religious nature. Saying this from the opposite view, even though state and nation are composed by communal illusion, precisely like capitalism, they inevitably exist thanks to their necessary grounds. Simply put, they are founded on exchanges that are different from the commodity exchange. So it is that no matter how many times one stresses their nature of being “imagined communities,”5 it is impossible to dissolve them. As young Marx pointed out vis-à-vis another bind: “To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand the real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions . The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears , the halo of which is religion.”6 The same can be said of state and nation. After reflecting upon “value form,” the Marx of Capital seems to explicate the historical genesis of commodity exchange in the chapter “Process of Exchange.” There he stresses that it began in between communities: “The exchange of commodities begins where communities have their boundaries, at their points of contact with other communities, or with members of the latter. However, as soon as products have become commodities in the external relations 7 of a community, they also, by reaction, become commodities in the internal life of the community.” Despite its appearance, this depiction is not strictly of a historical situation, but the form of exchange that is discovered and stipulated only by a transcendental retrospection. Furthermore, Marx’s statement, which I quoted earlier, is in fact based upon the premise that there are other forms of exchange. Commodity exchange is a peculiar form of exchange among other

exchanges. First,return. there is Though exchangebased withinupon a community—a ity of gift and mutual aid,reciprocit also http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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imposes the community’s code—if one does not return, one will be ostracized—and exclusivity. Second, the original exchange between communities is plunder. And rather it is this plunder that is the basis for other exchanges: For instance, commodity exchange begins only at the point where mutual plunder is given up. In this sense, plunder is deemed a type of exchange. For instance, in order to plunder continuously, it is necessary to protect the plundered from other plunderers, and even nurture economico-industrial growth. This is the prototype of the state. In order to keep on robbing, and robbing more and more, the state guarantees the protection of land and the reproduction of labor power by redistribution. It also promotes agricultural production by public undertakings such as regulating water distribution through public water works. It follows that the state does not appear to be abetting a system of robbery: Farmers think of paying tax as a return (duty) for the protection of the lord; merchants pay tax as a return for the protection of their exchange and commerce. Finally, the state is represented as a supra-class entity of reason. Plunder and redistribution are thus forms of exchange. Inasmuch as human social relations entail the potential of violence, these forms are inevitably present. And the third form is what Marx calls the commodity exchange between communities. As I analyze in detail in the book, this exchange engenders surplus value or capital, though with mutual consent; and it is definitively different from the exchange of plunder/redistribution. Furthermore, and this is the final question of this book, a fourth kind of exchange exists: association. This is a form of mutual aid, yet neither exclusive nor coercive like community. Associationism can be considered as an ethicoeconomic form through of human relation that can appear onlyItafter a society once passes the capitalist market economy. is thought that Proudhon was the first to have theorized it; according to my reading, however, Kant’s ethics already contained it. In his famous book, Imagined Communities , Benedict Anderson said that the nation-state is a marriage between nation and state that were originally different in kind. This was certainly an important suggestion. Yet it should not be thatheterogeneous—the there was another marriage between two entities thatforgotten were totally http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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marriage between state and capital. In the feudal ages, state, capital, and nation were clearly separated. They existed distinctively as feudal states (lords, kings, and emperors), cities, and agrarian communities, all based upon different principles of exchange. States were based upon the principle of plunder and redistribution. The agrarian communities that were mutually disconnected and isolated were dominated by states; but, within themselves, they were autonomous, based upon the principle of mutual aid and reciprocal exchange. Between these communities, markets or cities grew; these were based upon monetary exchange relying on mutual consent. What crumbled the feudal system was the total osmosis of the capitalist market economy. But the economic process was realized only in the political form, of the absolutist monarchy. The absolutist monarchical states conspired with the merchant class, monopolized the means of violence by toppling feudal lords (aristocracy), and finally abolished feudal domination (extra-economic domination) entirely. This was the very story of the wedding between state and capital. Protected by the absolutist state, merchant capital (bourgeoisie) grew up and nurtured the identity of the nation for the sake of creating a unified market. Yet this was not all in terms of the formation of the nation. The agrarian communities, that were decomposed along with the permeation of the market economy and by the urbanized culture of enlightenment, had always existed on the foundation of the nation. While individual agrarian communities that had been autarkic and autonomous were decomposed by the osmosis of money, their communalities—mutual aid and reciprocity—themselves were recovered imaginarily within the nation. In contradistinction from what Hegel called the state of understanding (lacking spirit), or the Hobbesian state, the nation is grounded upon the of mutual aid descending from agrarian communities. Andempathy this emotion consists of a feeling of indebtedness toward the gift, indicating that it comes out of the relation of exchange. It was amid the bourgeois revolution that these three were legally married. As in the trinity intoned in the French Revolution—liberty, equality, and fraternity—capital, state, and nation copulated and amalgamated themselves into astate force forever after the inseparable. Hence to be strict the modern must be called capitalist http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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nation-state. They were made to be mutually complementary, reinforcing each other. When economic liberty becomes excessive and class conflict is sharpened, the state intervenes to redistribute wealth and regulate the economy, and at the same time, the emotion of national unity (mutual aid) fills up the cracks. When facing this fearless trinity, undermining one or the other does not work. If one attempts to overthrow capitalism alone, one has to adapt statism, or one is engulfed by nationalist empathy. It goes without saying that the former appeared as Stalinism and the latter as fascism. Seeing capitalist commodity exchange, nation, and state as forms of exchange is possible only from an economic stance . If the concept of economic infrastructure has significance, it is only in this sense. In the modern period, among the three principles of exchange, it was the commodity exchange that expanded and overpowered the others. Inasmuch as it operated within the trinity, however, it is impossible that the capitalist commodity exchange could monopolize the whole of human relationality. With respect to the reproduction of humans and nature, capital has no choice but to rely on the family and agrarian community; in this sense capital is essentially dependent upon the precapitalist mode of production. Herein exists the ground of the nation. On the other hand, while absolutist monarchs disappeared by bourgeois revolutions, the state itself has remained. The state can never be dissolved and subsumed into the representatives of national sovereignty (i.e., government). For the state, no matter what kind, always exists as the bare sovereign vis-à-vis other states (if not always to its nation); in crises (wars), a powerful leader (the subject of determination) is always called for, as evidenced in Bonapartism and fascism. One frequently hears today that the will be gradually decomposed by the globalization of nation-state capitalism (neo-liberalism). This is impossible. When individual national economies are threatened by the global market, they demand the protection (redistribution) of the state and/or bloc economy, at the same time as appealing to national cultural identity. So it is that any counteraction to capital must also be one targeted against the state and nation (community). The capitalist nation-state fearless because its makeup. The denial of one ends up being isreabsorbed into theofring http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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of the trinity by the power of the other two. Countermovements in the past, such as corporatism, welfare society, and social democracy, resulted in the perfection of the ring rather than its abolition. Marx thought that the socialist revolution would be possible only in the most advanced country, England, because socialism was supposed to be possible only in the stage where bourgeois society was fully ripe, ripe enough to decompose. Nonetheless, in reality it could not have seemed less likely to him that it would occur. In the particular situation where universal suffrage was installed and labor unions strengthened, revolution seemed like it had receded even farther into the distance. What really receded, however, was the revolution that was imagined from the vantage point of and as an extension of bourgeois revolution; the fact was that from that juncture on, a different kind of revolution came to be called for. One should not forget that it was under such circumstances that Marx came to grips with the task of writing Capital . His recognition that a criticism of capitalism would no longer suffice made him write such a monumental piece. After Marx’s death, as the social democratic party in Germany made remarkable advances, Engels came to abandon the classical concept of violent revolution and believe in the possibility of revolution via parliamentary means. This was the path to social democracy, in which the state manages the capitalist economy and redistributes the wealth to the working class. Next, Engels’s disciple Bernstein eliminated the last dregs of the “revolution” fantasy that were still present in Engels. Meanwhile, Marxism was established along the line of Leninism, which rejects such visions of social democracy. However, at the end of the twentieth century, the left has ultimately returned of thinking. Clearly, this is) to completely lose sightto ofBernstein’s the criticalway need to supersede (aufheben the capitalist nation-state. In World War I, social democrats not only failed to pre vent the war, but also got involved in the frenzy of nationalism. And it is quite possible that they will repeat the same faux pas in the future. Yet, as all of us know well by now, Leninism cannot replace it. Is there an alternative? I would posit that it can be found in Capital, the Marx wrote as he deliberately remained England the book possibility of classical revolution was fadinginaway. As Iwhere have http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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explained, the trinity of capital, nation, and state is rooted in the necessary forms that human exchange could assume, and therefore, it is nearly impossible to get out of the ring. Marx in Capital , however, discovered an exit, the fourth type of exchange: association. The Marxists of the late nineteenth century overlooked the communism of later Marx, the idea that an association of associations would replace the Capital-Nation-State. In The Civil War in France — written as an address to the general council of the international working men’s association—Marx wrote: “If united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon a common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of capitalist production—what else, gentlemen, would it be but Communism, ‘possible’ Communism?”9 The association of producers’/ consumers’ cooperatives has been conceptualized and practiced by socialists since Robert Owen, and by Proudhonist anarchists. In Cap- ital , too, Marx considers cooperatives in comparison with stock companies and highly appreciates them: While stock companies are only passive abolition [aufhebung ] of the capitalist system, the positive abolition is discovered in the cooperative of which stockholders are workers themselves.10 But Marx saw their limits as well. They are destined either to fail in the fierce competition with capital, or to turn themselves into stock companies. For this reason, both Lenin and Engels ignored them or, at best, marginalized them as subordinate to labor movements. On the other hand, and notwithstanding the limits, it was precisely in them that Marx saw the possibility of communism. Bakunin attacked Marx as a centralist thinker by associating him with thethat stateMarx socialist Lassalle. either direction did not know or ignored the fact was critical of He Lassalle’s (the Gotha Programme) to have the state protect and foster cooperative production. Marx was clear: “That the workers desire to establish the conditions for co-operative production on a social scale, and first of all on a national scale, in their own country, only means that they are working to transform the present conditions of production, and it haswith nothing common foundation of co-operative societies stateinaid. But as with far asthe the present co-operative societies http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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are concerned, they are of value only insofar as they are the independent creations of the workers and not protégés either of the government or of the bourgeois.”11 In other words, Marx is stressing that the association of cooperatives itself must take over the leadership from the state, in the place of state-led cooperative movements, whereby capital and state will wither away. And this kind of proposition of principle aside, Marx never said anything in particular about future prospects. All in all, communism for Marx was nothing but associationism, but inasmuch as it was so, he had to forge it by critiquing. Marx’s thinking fell between that of Lassalle and Bakunin. This oscillation allowed later generations to draw either stance from Marx’s thought. But what we should see here is less contradiction or ambiguity than Marx’s transcritique. What was clear to Marx was that it is impossible to counter the autonomous powers of the trinity by simply denouncing them. Based as they are upon certain necessities, they have autonomous powers. In other words, functioning as they are as transcendental apperception, not only are they irresolvable but also even revive stronger. To finally abolish the trinity, a deep scrutiny into (and critique of) them is required. Where can we find the clue to form the countermovement? This, I believe, is in the theory of value form in Capital . In the preface, Marx clarified his stance as follows: To prevent possible misunderstandings, let me say this. I do not by any means depict the capitalist and landowner in rosy colors. But individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, the bearers [Träger ] of particular class-relations and interests. My standpoint, from which the development of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he remains, socially speaking, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.12

The “economic categories” mentioned here signify the forms of value. Who are capitalists and proletariats is determined by where the individuals are placed: in either relative form of value or equivalent form. This is totally irrespective of what they think. This structuralist view was a necessity. Here Marx did not suffice with simply accusing capitalism of immorality; this is the essence of Marxian http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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ethics. In Capital , there is no subjectivity. Even capitalists—especially those in stock companies—are agents of capital’s movement, but not subjects. The same is true of workers. So it is that people either read in Capital the (natural historical) law of history whereby a capitalist society gradually yet apodictically turns into a communist society, or sought motives of revolutionary acts in pre-Capital texts. As is evident, however, neither method worked. Concerning the former, it is totally impossible to assume that capitalism will end autotelically. In principle there cannot be a telos as such in natural history. Concerning the latter, what was discovered in those texts was, more or less, subsumed into a narrative of the Hegelian dialectic of master and slave: that is, proletariat qua slave will finally rebel against bourgeoisie qua master at the extremity of alienation and impoverishment. In this narrative, a workers’ rebellion is supposed to take place in the production process as a general strike, and this would lead to their seizure of state power. I cannot believe that Marx’s position at the time of writing Capital was such. If Capital has been rather shunned by Marxists themselves, it is more because of the difficulty in finding a prospect of revolution therein. And the new revolution would have to be different from those which could happen in various places of the world outside England and North America. Then, how is a revolution possible in the world where there seems to be no moment for subjective intervention to appear? The fact that in value form place determines the nature of the subject who occupies it nevertheless does not prevent capitalists from being subjective. Since capital itself is the subject of a selfreproductive movement, the agents—capitalists—can be active, and this activity is precisely that of money or the position of purchaser (the equivalent form). On the otherno hand, those whobut sell to thebelaborpower commodity—workers—have other choice passive. In this relationality, it is only natural that they can only engage in an economic struggle wherein they negotiate with capitalists over their own commodity price. It is absolutely impossible to expect workers to stand up under such conditions. If this has occurred historically, it has been thanks to social chaos resulting from war, or a situation where employers were particularly villainous. But it is not that workers resistance against capital is totally hopeless. The http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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movement of capital M-C-M —namely, the realization of surplus value—is dependent upon whether or not products are sold. And surplus value is realized in principle only by workers in totality buying back what they produce. In the production process, the relationship between capitalist and workers is certainly like that between master and slaves. But the process of capital’s metamorphosis (or transubstantiation) is not so one-dimensional as to be defined by that. Because at the end of the cycle, capital, too, has to stand in the position of selling (the relative form of value), and it is precisely at this moment and this moment only that workers are in the subjective position. This is the place where the commodities of capitalist production are sold—the place of consumption . This is the only place where workers in totality with purchasing power are in the buying position. Marx articulated this: “What precisely distinguishes capital from the master-slave relation is that the worker confronts him as consumer and possessor of exchange values, and that in the form of the possessor of money , in the form of money he becomes a simple center of circulation—one of its infinitely many centers, in which his specificity as worker is extinguished.”13 For capital, consumption is the place where surplus value is finally realized, and for this objective precisely, the only place where it is subordinated to the will of consumers/workers. In the monetary economy, buying and selling as well as production and consumption are separated. This introduces a split in the workers’ subject: as workers (the sellers of labor-power commodity) and consumers (the buyers of capitalist commodities). In consequence, it comes to appear as if corporations and consumers were the only subjects of economic activities. It also segregates the labor and consumers’ In recentmovements history, while movements have been movements. stagnant, consumers’ havelabor flourished, often incorporating issues of environmental protection, feminism, and minorities. Generally, they take the form of civil acts, and are not connected to, or are sometimes even antagonistic to, the labor movement. After all, though, consumers’ movements are laborers’ movements in transposition , and are important only inasmuch as they are Conversely, thebecome labor movement could go as beyond the bounds of itsso. ‘specificity’ and universal inasmuch it self-consciously http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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acts as a consumers’ movement. For, in fact, the process of consumption as a reproduction of labor-power commodity covers a whole range of fronts of our life-world, including child care, education, leisure, and community activities. But what is at stake here is obviously related to, yet clearly different from, the process of reproduction in the sense of Gramsci: the cultural ideological apparati such as family, school, church, and so forth. In this context, it is first and foremost the process of the reproduction of labor-power as a topos of ordeal for capital’s self-realization, and hence the position in which workers can finally be the subject. Marxists failed to grasp the transcritical moment where workers and consumers intersect. And in this sense, the anarcho-sandicalists, who opposed them, were the same. They both saw the specific class relation in the capitalist economy (capitalist and wage workers) as a version of that of feudal lord and serfs. They both believed that what had been evident in the feudal system came to be veiled under the capitalist commodity economy; therefore, the workers are supposed to stand up and overthrow the capitalist system according to the dialectic of master and slave. But in reality, workers do not stand up at all, because, they believe , the workers’ consciousness is reified by the commodity economy, and their task as the vanguard is to awaken workers from the daydream. They believe that the reification is caused by the seduction of consumerist society and/or manipulation by cultural hegemony. Thus, to begin with, what they should and can do is to critically elucidate the mechanism. Or to say it outright, that is the only business left for them today. What Fredric Jameson calls “the cultural turn” is a form of ‘despair’ inherent in the Marxist practice. There are various forms of the despair, but they are, more or less, all the result of production-process centrism. What about civil acts that overlap the consumption front? In keeping a distance from labor movements, they lack a penetrating stance toward the capitalist relation of production. They tend to be absorbed into the social democracy that, approving the market economy, seeks to correct its shortcomings through state regulations as well as redistribution of wealth. I saidBut, that from Marx of did notthere present an way easy for way Capital out of ,capitalism. theCapital beginning, is no the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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scrutiny of money that transforms into capital, to present a direct procedure for abolishing/sublating it. The Marxists after Engels, who read the theory of value form merely as an introduction, did not develop any account of money themselves. They imagined that the state regulation and planned economy would abolish the capitalist market economy, brushing aside the fact that abolishing the market economy would be equal to abolishing free exchanges of individuals. Their stance was based totally on the labor theory of value (of classical economics), that is, their vision totally belonged to the domain of the value system of capitalist economy. From this stance, the best we got was the vision of a society where everyone gets what he or she earns. They were blinded to the autonomous dimension of money that Marx tackled in Capital . As I have said, money is not merely a denominator of value, but a mediating function through which all individual commodities are exchanged, and through which the value-relation among all commodities is constantly ad justed and readjusted. For this precise reason, money exists as an organizer of the system of commodities, namely, a transcendental apperception X of human exchange. Certainly in the everyday market economy, money qua illusion is hypostatized. Due to fetishism, the movement of capital occurs as an auto-multiplication of money. Bourgeois economists stress the superiority of the market economy by veiling the aspect of capital’s movement. Yet one cannot abandon the market economy in general. It would result in a total loss. And again, there is no prospect of abolishing capital and state in social democracy that acknowledges but controls the capitalist market economy. The ultimate conclusion of Capital is the antinomy: money should exist; money of should not exist. To supersede ) money equals the creation a money that would fulfill the(aufheben conflicting conditions. Marx said nothing about this possible money. All he did was critique Proudhon’s ideas of labor money and exchange bank. Proudhon, too, was based upon the labor theory of value; he sought to make a currency that purely valorizes labor time. Here there was a blind spot: Labor value is conditioned by the social exchanges via money; it is value onlyqua after the fact of exchange. That to say, theformed social as labor time substance of the value is formed viaismoney, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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which thus cannot replace money. Labor money would tacitly rely on the existing monetary economy; even if it tried to challenge the existing system, it would just be exchanged with the existing money for the difference in price with the market value. What it could do at best would be to neutralize money. Having this antinomy in mind, the most exciting example to me is LETS (Local Exchange Trading System), devised and practiced by Michael Linton since 1982. It is a multifaceted system of settlement where participants have their own accounts, register the wealth and service that they can offer in the inventory, conduct exchanges freely, and then the results are recorded in their accounts. In contrast to the currency of the state central bank, the currency of LETS is issued each time by those who receive the wealth or service from other participants. And it is so organized that the sum total of the gains and losses of everyone is zero. In this simple system exists a clue to solving the antinomy of money. When compared to the exchange of mutual aid in traditional communities and that of the capitalist commodity economy, the nature of LETS becomes clear. It is, on the one hand, similar to the system of mutual aid in the aspect that it does not impose high prices with high interest, but, on the other hand, closer to the market in that the exchange can occur between those who are mutually far apart and strangers. In contrast to the capitalist market economy, in LETS, money does not transform into capital, not simply because there is no interest, but because it is based upon the zero sum principle. It is organized so that, although exchanges occur actively, ‘money’ does not exist as a result. Therefore, the antinomy—money should exist and money should not exist—is solved. Speaking in the context of Marx’s theory however of value just form, the currency of LETS is services a general equivalent, which connects all the wealth and and does not become an autonomous entity. The fetish of money does not occur. In LETS, there is no need to accumulate money as the potency of exchanges, nor is there worry about an increase of losses. The system of value-relation among wealth and services is generated via the currencies of LETS, but the wealth and services are not unconditionally commensurable, in state currencies. Finally, amongexthem, labor value as “the commonasessence” would not be established post facto. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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LETS is neither simply economic nor simply ethical. It creates an economico-ethical association. While the mutual aid in traditional communities compels fidelity to them, and the market economies compel the belonging to the communities of currencies (states), the social contract in LETS is like Proudhon’s “association.” Individuals can quit a particular LETS and belong to another LETS anytime. Unlike the currency of a state, the currency of LETS is really currencies— it is a multiplicity. More important, in contrast to other local currencies, LETS offers each participant the right to issue his or her own currency (simply by the act of registering/recording in an account). To say that one aspect of the sovereignty of the state exists in the right to issue currency means that LETS actually offers sovereignty to the multitudes, going far beyond the specious motto ‘sovereignty resides in the people.’ Therefore, the potency of LETS is not just to protect and stimulate the local economy. It engenders an association that entails principles of exchange other than those of the Trinity. The last crucial aspect of LETS is that it is formed in the circulation process, where consumers hold the initiative. While conventional cooperatives of producers as well as consumers tend to falter in the hopeless competition with full-hearted capitalist enterprises, LETS could nurture the free, autonomous subjectivity of consumersas-workers. Only when LETS and the financial system based upon it expand, it should be said, can the noncapitalist producers’ and concumers’ cooperatives autonomously exist. But, in terms of strategy, LETS itself cannot terminate capital’s auto-multiplying movement. It would remain as partial, complementary to the market economy, no matter how popular it would become. For this reason, what is 14

required—aside from the movement that seeks to ex-scendent capitalist economy like LETS—is the struggle remaining within the capitalist economy. Where can they be united? It goes without saying that it is in the position where workers appear as consumers, namely, at the front of circulation . In the movement of capital M-C-M , capital has to confront two critical moments: buying labor-power commodity and selling prod

ucts to workers. either moment capitalThat from achieving surplus Failure value. Ininother words, it failsdisables to be capital. is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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to say that in these moments workers can counter capital. The first moment is expressed by Antonio Negri as “Don’t Work!” This really signifies, in our context, “Don’t Sell Your Labor-Power Commodity!” or “Don’t Work as a Wage Laborer!” The second moment says, like Mahatma Gandhi, “Don’t Buy Capitalist Products!” Both of them can occur in the position in which workers can be the subject. But in order for workers/consumers to be able ‘not to work’ and ‘not to buy’, there must be a safety net whereupon they can still work and buy to live. This is the very struggle without the capitalist mode of production: the association consisting of the producers’/consumers’ cooperatives and LETS. The struggle within inexorably requires these cooperatives and LETS as an extra-capitalist mode of production/ consumption; and furthermore, this can accelerate the reorganization of capitalist corporation into cooperative entity. The struggle immanent in and the one ex-scendent to the capitalist mode of production/consumption are combined only in the circulation process, the topos of consumers workers. For it is only there that the moment for individuals to become subject exists. Association cannot exist without the subjective interventions of individuals, and such is possible only having the circulation process as an axis. Karl Polanyi likened capitalism (the market economy) to cancer.15 Coming into existence in the interstice between agrarian communities and feudal states, capitalism invaded the internal cells and transformed their predispositions according to its own physiology. If so, the transnational network of workers qua consumers and consumers qua workers is a culture of anticancer cells, as it were. In order to eliminate capital, it is imperative to eliminate the conditions by which it was produced in the first place. The counteractions against 

within legal without capitalism and and , having their in three the circulation front, are totally nonviolent; nonebase of the can interrupt them. According to my reading, Marx’s Capital offers a logical ground for the creation of this culture/movement. That is, the asymmetric relationship inherent in the value form (between commodity and money) produces capital, and it is also here where the transpositional moments that terminate capital can be grasped. And

it is the task of transcriticism to make full use of these moments. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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1 The Kantian Turn

1.1

The Copernican Turn

When Kant called his new project in Critique of Pure Reason the “Copernican turn,” he was alluding to his own inversion of the subject/object hierarchy: while pre-Kantian metaphysics had maintained that the subject copies the external object, Kant proposed that objects are constituted by the form that the subject projects into the external world. In this sense, the Kantian turn is obviously a shift to ward subject-centrism (or anthropocentrism), while the turn known by the name of Copernicus tends toward the opposite: the shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism—a negation of the stance that is earthcentered (identifiable as ego-centered). Did Kant ignore the turn in the latter sense? No, I think not. It is my contention that in his constellation of thought surrounding the “thing-in-itself” and/or “transcendental object,” he was echoing this very essence of the Copernican especially in stressing relation with turn, the external, objective world.the passivity of subject in Kant wrote in Critique of Pure Reason: The sensible faculty of intuition is really only a receptivity for being affected in a certain way with representations, whose relation to one another is a pure intuition of space and time (pure forms of our sensibility), which, insofar as they are connected and determinable in these relations (in space and time) according to of laws of the unity of experience, called object. The non-sensible cause these representations is entirelyare unknown to us, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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and therefore we cannot intuit it as an object; for such an object would have to be represented neither in space nor in time (as mere conditions of our sensible representation), without which conditions we cannot think any intuition. Meanwhile we can call the merely intelligible cause of appearances in general the transcendental object, merely so that we may have something corresponding to sensibility as a receptivity. To this transcendental object we can ascribe the whole extent and connection of our possible perceptions, and say that it is given in itself prior to all experience. But appearances are, in accordance with it, given not in themselves but only in this experience, because they are merely representations, which signify a real object only as perceptions, namely when this perception connects up with all others in accordance with the rules of the unity of experience.1

The central concern in this passage is the ‘thing’, which, prior to our act of constituting objects, affects the subject by means of sensibility and provides it with its contents—what appears to be the world. In other words, Kant stresses the passivity or Geworfenheit (thrownness) of the subject. All philosophers after Kant except for Heidegger—even such a faithful Kantian as Schopenhauer—denied the exterior validity of the concept of the thing-in-itself. As a consequence, Kant came to be mistakenly identified as the founder of the philosophy of subjectivity—that which insists upon the subject as actively constituting the world. This interpretation certainly seems to accord with Kant’s implication in regard to the Copernican turn, but Kant himself was quick to deny the simple-minded idealism. If so, what did Kant really seek to do? Did he simply intend to combine rationalism and empiricism critically? In order to grasp the Kantian Copernican turn precisely, one first has to clarify the turn of Copernicus himself. The idea of heliocentrism had existed since ancient times, so it was not his invention. But it was prohibited, and Copernicus was rather hesitant to endorse this ‘new’ cosmological position during his lifetime. According to Thomas Kuhn, Copernicus basically followed the Ptolemaic cosmology even in De Revolutionibus, which was published in 1543, the year he died; it was only the addendum to the book, the part that only astronomers could decipher, that became influential for the coming age. His real contribution here was the proposition that the discrepancy among the revolutions of heavenly bodies, which had dogged geocentricism since Ptolemy, could be solved if and only if we would http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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see the globe as revolving around the sun. This hypothesis does not offer positive proof of heliocentrism itself, however, and it took as long as a century for it to be fully accepted as a cosmological principle. Nonetheless, even those who still believed in geocentricism had to rely on the Copernican system of calculation. Although they believed that the truth was that the sun revolves around the earth, for the sake of calculation they still could think ‘as if ’ the opposite were the case. After all, the true significance of the Copernican turn lay in the hypothetical stance itself. In other words, the significance lay not in forcing any choice between geocentricism or heliocentrism, but rather in grasping the solar system as a relational structure —using terms such as ‘earth’ and ‘sun’—that is totally independent of empirically observed objects or events. And only this stance could render the turn toward heliocentrism. Thus the significance of the Copernican turn was twofold. In the same manner Kant managed to get around the basic contradiction in the philosophy of his time, whether it was founded in the empirical senses (as was empiricism) or in rational thinking (as was rationalism). Instead, Kant introduced those structures—that is, forms of sensibility or categories of understanding—of which one is unaware, calling them “transcendental” structures. Words such as ‘sensibility [Sinnlichkeit ]’ and ‘understanding [Verstand ]’ had long existed as conceptualizations of life experience: ‘to sense’ and ‘to understand’. But Kant completely altered their meanings in a way similar to what Copernicus had done when he rediscovered ‘sun’ and ‘earth’ as terms within the solar system qua reciprocal structure. But here it is not necessary to reiterate Kant’s terminology. What is crucial is this architectonic that is called “transcendental.” And even if these particular words or concepts are not always used in various post-Kantian contexts, isthe same architectonic can be found there. One notable example psychoanalysis, in which Thomas Kuhn saw a direct correspondence with the Copernican turn. Because the Copernican theory is in many respects a typical scientific theory, its history can illustrate some of the processes by which scientific concepts evolve and replace their predecessors. In its extrascientific consequences, however, the Copernican theory is not typical: few scientific theories havethe played so large century, a role in nonscientific thought. But neither is it unique. In nineteenth Darwin’s theory of evolution raised similar http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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extrascientific questions. In our own century, Einstein’s relativity theories and Freud’s psychoanalytic theories provide centers for controversies from which may emerge further radical reorientations of Western thought. Freud himself emphasized the parallel effects of Copernican discovery that the earth was merely a planet and his own discovery that the unconscious controlled much of human behavior.2

For that matter, the revolutionary aspect of Freudian psychoanalysis was not in the idea of the “unconscious controlling much of human behavior”; as presented as early as in Interpretation of Dreams (and this idea had existed since antiquity), it was in his attempt to see what exists in the gap between consciousness and unconscious vis-à-vis the form of language. In the course of this attempt, he came to extract the unconscious qua transcendental structure. While stressing the wide impact of the Copernican turn beyond the domain of the natural sciences, Kuhn ignored Kant’s own use of the figure. For Kuhn, too, was bound by the stereotype about Kant, namely, that the Kantian form and category were based on Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics. Yet this is simply not true. As I will show later, Kant was able to conceptualize form with respect to sensibility only because he had already had a sense of the possibility of a nonEuclidean geometry. All in all, the crux of Kant’s account of science was that scientific cognition is an open system, and that any scientific truth can be no more than a hypothesis (qua phenomenon). But those who identify or criticize Descartes and Kant as subjectivists, automatically posit geocentrism in Kant. Only as long as we are bound by the stereotype does it appear that Kant was an anthropocentrist (or rationalist), and that, in contrast, Freud posited the unconscious (like the sun) as the center by overturning the position that was consciousness-centered (earth-centered). But Kuhn’s own position cannot even distinguish Freud from Jung. In fact for him they are one and the same. While collaborating in his early career with Freud, Jung himself likened the concept of the Oedipus complex to the “stable point outside of our own sphere on which an objective understanding of its currents becomes possible,” comparable to the Copernican revolution. The importance of this realization should not be underestimated, for it teaches us that there is an identity of fundamental human conflicts which is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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independent of time and place. What aroused a feeling of horror in the Greeks still remains true, but it is true for us only if we give up the vain illusion that we are different, i.e., morally better, than the ancients. We have merely succeeded in forgetting that an indissoluble link binds us to the men of antiquity. This truth opens the way to an understanding of the classical spirit such as has never existed before—the way of inner sympathy on the one hand and of intellectual comprehension on the other. [By making the detour through the buried substructure of our own souls, we can seize for ourselves the vital meaning of the culture of antiquity, and by this means thus gain that stable point outside of our own sphere on which an objective understanding of its currents becomes possible.] That at least is the hope we draw from the rediscovery of the immortality of the Oedipus problem.3

This manner of emphasizing the “unconscious”—or, more precisely, the “collective unconscious”—had already become influential in Romanticism, long before Freud and Jung. It was thus not Freud’s property. In fact, Jung quoted from various Romantic poets and thinkers to support his claim. On the other hand, Freud opposed the general notion of “collective unconscious.” Freud’s unconscious is strictly that which is discovered (or produced) in an analysand’s “resistance” during the psychoanalytic dialogue. For Freud, there would be no unconscious if not for resistance [Widerstand ] and disavowal [Verleugnung ]. He conceptualized the triadic structure of ego, superego, and id, not as something that exists in empirical reality, but rather as a structural mechanism that is methodologically assumed to exist in resistance and disavowal. As Freud’s figures of the “judge” of the superego and the “censor” of the superego clearly express, the triad is structurally similar to a court of law. And, for that matter, Kant, too, persisted in speaking in judicial terms. Jung came to break away from Freud in a way very similar to that in which Herder, Fichte, and Schelling broke away from Kant. Alternatively put, Jung belonged to a lineage of Romanticism epitomized by the same philosophers. Jung’s negation of rationalism certainly constituted a remarkable revolution, and it is true that, by contrast, Freud was faithful to the tradition of the Enlightenment insofar as he retained a rationalistic stance. But it was Freud who finally rendered the truly radical turn, one that is totally irrelevant to the concerns of vulgar Romanticism. Freudian psychoanalysis is as distinct http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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from empirical psychology as it is from the collective unconscious. It is, as he claimed, a metapsychology and, in our context, a “transcendental” psychology. Seen from this perspective, the isomorphism between the Kantian faculties (of sensibility and understanding) and the Freudian psychical structure is evident. Both are discoveries of the transcendental query. That is, as a certain function that can be spoken of only as figure ; they are functions about which we can only say that they are at work. And with Lacan, who sought to recover the Freudian sense of transcendental psychology, the triadic structure came to be even more ostensibly Kantian: Kantian illusion/Lacanian imaginary; the form/the symbolic; and the thing-in-itself/the real. But my objective is not to interpret Kant through Freud, but the opposite. Kant is consistently the target of criticism accusing him to be the primogenitor of the philosophy of subjectivity. What Kant really did, however, was to present the boundaries or limits of human subjective faculties, and in so doing criticize metaphysics as an arrogation that oversteps those boundaries. Much like Freud’s ‘id, ego, and superego’, Kant’s ‘sensibility, understanding, and reason’ are not things that exist empirically. In this sense, indeed, they are nothing ; which, however, is a ‘nothing’ that exists as a certain function . More precisely, transcendental apperception (or subjectivity) is the ‘function as nothing’ that ‘bundles’ the three faculties together into a single system. “Transcendental” inquiry can be deemed ontological (Heidegger), in the sense that it discovers the function as nothing (qua Being). At the same time, in the specific sense that it designs the structure of which we are unaware, it is also properly structuralist. But this kind of association does not always create new thoughts; perhaps lostterm, in the“transcendental,” contextual association. it is that wesomething persist in is thealways Kantian except So that in order to elucidate its dynamism and function further, transcritique has to intervene. Kant’s Copernican turn is not a turn toward the philosophy of subjectivity, but that toward the thing-in-itself by a detour of the scrutiny of subjectivity. It was for this objective and nothing else that Kant is elaborated thething-in-itself transcendental structure subjectivity. Then, what the concept ? It has always of been concerned with http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the problematic of ethics, even before Critique of Practical Reason took ethics up as subject matter. It is concerned, in other words, with the problematic of the other . Kant did not initiate his whole project with the matter of the other. And neither would I. But one of the most crucial points I would like to address in this book is that the Kantian turn is a revolution toward thought centered on the other, and this turn was more radical than any self-claimed epistemological turn has been since. 1.2

Literary Criticism and the Transcendental Critique

Kant’s three critiques targeted three domains consecutively: scientific thought, morality, and the arts (and biology). Kant scrutinized not only the peculiarity of each domain, but also their relationship to each other. But his followers totally forgot that these domains had not existed as such before Kant—they were the discoveries of Kant’s criticism. The sun has existed consistently since before and after Copernicus. It unchangingly rises from the east and sets in the west. But after Copernicus, it came to be another thing: The term took its place within the system of calculation. So now, with respect to the same sun, one has different objects. In the same way, before and after Kant the categorization of scientific thoughts, moralities, and the arts was totally altered. One should not read Kant’s books, therefore, taking his categorizations for granted. One should read the Kantian critique that itself created the categorization. Critique of Judgment (1790), the last of the three Critiques, is said to have posed a solution to problems omitted from the previous two— Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787) and Critique of Practical Reason Critique (1788). That is, and the third ostensiblynature bridged gaps between cognition morality and between andthe freedom by way of positing art as the mediator. The main subject of the third Critique —the faculty of judgment—is isomorphic to the faculty of imagination-power [ Einbildungskraft ] that mediates sensibility and understanding in cognition. In Kant’s view, art does not begin from concept but realizes it latently. In other words, art is that which can intuitively (or sensually) realizeof what moralitybasis are supposed to realize. This notion art cognition offered anand important for http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the philosophers of Romanticism and thereafter. They believed that art was the authentic knowledge from which both science and ethics derived; in art, the synthesis of all domains was always already achieved. Hegel posited philosophy as being higher than art—but only after he had aestheticized philosophy. Heidegger, too, considered art (or poetry) as primordial in his “turn” from “Being and time” to “time and Being.” It is evident that Kant posited a clear relationality between science, ethics, and art with his three Critiques . But what is more important is that he ultimately presented the structure in which the three categories form a ring, and that the thematic ring corresponds to the triadic categorical structure on a different level: thing-in-itself, phenomenon, and transcendental illusion, every one of which is indispensable for attaining the structure—or the “Borromean knot,” to adopt a Lacanian term.4 But it is misleading to think that in the third Critique he resolved the impasse he had encountered in the pre vious two. It is not that the Kantian critique—the discovery of the triadic structure—was brought to a completion by Kant’s account either of art or of the judgment of taste, in the third Critique . Instead, it could be said, from the beginning, the Kantian critique had been derived from the problematic of the artistic experience. There have been a number of etymological inquiries into the origin of Kant’s use of the term ‘critique’, all of which return eventually to ancient Greece. But the problem with etymological retrospection is that it tends to occlude origins of the recent past, the actual historical formation. I rather believe that the Kantian critique came most immediately from ‘criticism’ in the literal sense, that is, commercial journalism—an arena [Kampfplatz ]—wherein the classical aesthetics ascribed to Aristotle no assessment longer relevant, and thus ongoing is the struggle with respect are to the of value. Kant confessed that “the remembrance of David Hume [especially his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)] was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted [the] dogmatic slumber” he was enduring under the influence of Leibniz-Wolffian School.5 Perhaps this is true, but Hume’s influence was not the main source of Kant’s critiKommentar zu cal position. Asreinen HansVernunft Vaihinger pointed out in hiswhat (2 vols., 1881–1892), must have Kants Kritik der http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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really awakened Kant was the book by the Scottish critic, Henry Home (1766–1782), titled Element of Criticism (1763–1766). According to Vaihinger, the following remark by Kant indicates why he read Home’s book with such excitement: “Home has more correctly called Aesthetics Criticism, because it does not, like Logic, furnish a priori rules.”6 This suggests that Kant’s use of the term ‘critique’ may indeed have derived from Home. Kant first used the term “critique of reason” in “An Announcement for the Arrangement of the Lectures in the Winter Semester 1765/1766.” 7 In the text, “the critique of reason [die Kritik der Vernunft ]” is considered logic in the wide sense, in juxtaposition to “the critique of taste [die Kritik des Geschmacks ]”— namely, aesthetics—as that which has a very close affinity of material cause. From this, too, one can presume a nexus shared by Kant’s “critique” and Home’s book with its eponymous “criticism.” With Home, Kant seized the moment to reconsider the possibility of an aesthetic judgment of taste and to investigate its basis. Home had sought a universality of the judgment of taste—a measure of beauty and ugliness—in principles immanent in human essence. He insisted on the a priori nature of human sensibility with respect to beauty and ugliness. At the same time, however, Home employed empirical and inductive methods of observing the general rules of taste, collecting and categorizing materials from all the domains related to art and literature from antiquity to the present. Confronting the necessity of critical judgment, he refused to take any particular principle for granted and charged himself with the task of questioning the foundational principles or infallible measures of criticism. By taking up Home’s term “criticism,” Kant further developed the concept into his own “critique”—a signifier of the fundamental 8

scrutiny rational humanthe faculties. Homeofhad to confront “element of criticism” particularly in England, because that is where two principles were clashing: on the one hand, there was classicism positing a certain empirical norm in art and literature; and on the other, there was the Romanticist ideal cherishing an individual’s uninhibited expression of emotion. Basically taking the latter standpoint, Home still dared to seek a ground where judgment could be universal, andhe Kant wastacitly especially struck critical by this endeavor. In Critique dealt with of Judgment, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the same thesis and antithesis. Like Home, Kant acknowledged that the judgment of taste had to be subjective (or individual), while believing at the same time that it should also somehow be universal. In Kant’s case, however, he distinguished universality from generality: Thus we will say that someone has taste if he knows how to entertain his guests [at a party] with agreeable things (that they can enjoy by all the senses) in such a way that everyone likes [the party]. But here it is understood that the universality is only comparative, so that the rules are only general (as all empirical rules are), not universal, as are the rules that a judgment about the beautiful takes upon itself [sich unternimmt ] or lays claim to.9

A general rule induced from experience cannot be universal. Since Aristotle, aesthetics has been general and not universal, in the same way as physics. Classicism had consistently attempted to extrapolate rules from works that had been given the designation ‘masterpieces’, and make these rules normative. As opposed to this, for Kant, “there [could] be no rule by which someone could be compelled to acknowledge that something is beautiful.”10 Nonetheless, the judgment of taste, which is distinguished from mere comfortableness, must be universal: The judgment of taste itself does not postulate [ postuliert ] everyone’s agreement (since only a logically universal judgment can do that, because it can adduce reasons); it merely requires this agreement from everyone [es sinnet nur jedermann diese Einstimmung an ], as an instance of the rule, an instance regarding which it expects confirmation not from concepts but from the agreement of others. Hence the universal voice is only an idea.11

To make it doubly clear: postulieren means to assume as self-evident, while ansinnen means to make an (unreasonable) request or demand. In the judgment of taste, there is no rule that can compel. At this juncture, Kant introduces “common sense [sensus communis ],” that is, socially and historically engendered customs. In The New Sci- ence, Giambattista Vico had argued that “common sense [senso commune ] is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire people, an entire nation, or the entire human race.”12 Common sense is a norm (following which innumerable mediocre works are written). Common sense changes over time; but the change is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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not continuous because it is caused by the violent intervention of individuals (i.e., geniuses) who oppose and deviate from it. For his part, however, Kant restricted this phenomenon to the judgment of taste only, that is, to the fine arts [die schönen Künste ]: “In scientific matters, therefore, the greatest discoverer differs from the most arduous imitator and apprentice only in degree, whereas he differs in kind from someone whom nature has endowed for fine art.”13 But there is still a problem. If common sense is a historically transforming social convention, it cannot guarantee the universality of the judgment of taste. Common sense is both historically and presently plural—common senses . If there is universality at all, it must be beyond plural common senses. Did Kant give up, then, on the requirement of universality? Did he mean that in the fine arts one should make do with common senses, since universality may be found in other domains? Of course, such questions are themselves wrong. Kant certainly distinguished among natural science, ethics, and art, but the distinction itself is not his terminus ad quem, for he consistently required universality in each of these domains. In Cri- tique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reason, for example, he sought universal law as opposed to a general rule based upon experience. But, does it mean that scientific thought and ethics contain universal law while art lacks it? No. If universality is unaccounted for in art, it is the same in other domains. Or, at least, Kant began his thinking in this manner. The radicalism of his critique exists in that he reconsidered the question of universality from the vantage of the judgment of taste. In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant detects subjectivity in the autonomous act of understanding, while in Critique of Judgment, he uses the terms subjective versusin objective a highly prosaic manner: in other words, the sensuous general in is considered subjective. It follows that the multitude of individual subjects expresses themselves on the level of feeling: either pleasure or displeasure. Subjectivity as understanding, on the other hand, is considered an impersonal, a priori faculty—in this case, language’s faculty—and does not appear as individual subject. Nonetheless, even though Kant poses the issue of plural subjectivity—beginning from the feeling of no pleasure/ displeasure—the problematic in Critique is by means of Judgment http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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confined to the matter of commonly understood cultural taste. In the arena of the judgment of taste, no one can prove the universality of his or her individual standpoint. And, viewed in inverse logic, when people cannot prove the truth of their cognition, they use the figure “judgment of taste,” no matter how serious the object. We say, “Well, it’s just a matter of taste” or even, “Well, it’s all a matter of taste.” Indeed, every judgment ultimately results in a judgment of taste—except analytic judgment. Finally, Kant distinguishes the judgment of taste from the matter of pleasure/displeasure or comfort. Comfort is acknowledged to be an individual matter, while the judgment of taste, from the beginning, is required to prove its universality. In other words, the judgment must be accepted by others. As Wittgenstein might say, comfort is a “private language,” while the judgment of taste belongs to a “common language game.”14 When Kant speaks of “common sense,” this is it. And the real problem lies in the fact that there are many language games in the world. Therefore, the universality of the judgment of taste becomes a problem of communication among people who have different systems of rules, namely, among others . The requirement of universality in the judgment of taste is the sine qua non underlying all synthetic judgments. Therefore, it is wrong to think that Kant discovered an autonomous, peculiar problem in the fine arts. Rather, he sought to reconsider all problematics through “criticism” in the judgment of taste. Kant held that beauty is discovered by disinterest in the object. This is, as it were, a methodological bracketing of the interests. What kind of interests, then, must be bracketed? Intellectual and moral. Confronting a certain object, one judges it in at least three domains simultaneously: true or false; good or bad; pleasurable displeasurable. Usually these form an intermixed complexity. Andoronly when a certain object is received by bracketing the other concerns (i.e., true or false and good or bad) does it become an aesthetic object. But what Kant characterized with respect to the judgment of taste is applicable also to both cognition and morality. In modern science, the cognition of the object is realized only by bracketing judgments that are moral (good bad)Kant andattempts aesthetica (pleasurable or displeasurable). In the sameorway, respect to purification with http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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morality. In this case, it is achieved by bracketing pleasure as well as happiness. It is crucial to keep in mind, however, that bracketing is not the same as negation. If this is the case, it is not outrageous that Kant solved the third antinomy in Critique of Pure Reason by considering that the conflicting terms could stand together. Thesis—Causality in accordance with laws of nature is not the only one from all another the appearances the world can beinderived. is also necessary towhich assume causality of through freedom order toItexplain them. Antithesis—There is no freedom, but everything in the world happens solely in accordance with laws of nature.15

The idea that everything is determined by natural cause is made possible by the position that brackets freedom. Conversely, only when the determination by natural cause is bracketed, can the idea of freedom intervene. Which idea is ‘correct’ does not matter, for the very question never arises. One attains the cognitive domain by bracketing moral and aesthetic dimensions, but they must always be unbracketed whenever necessary. The same can be said of moral and aesthetic domains. When one seeks to explain everything from one and the same positionality, one is inexorably confronted by antinomy. I deal with the ethical question of freedom in section 3.4. Here I would stress one tangled problematic: cognitive, moral, and aesthetic domains are all constituted by a change of attitude (i.e., transcendental reduction); and in the beginning these domains do not exist in and of themselves. It follows that in every domain the same problem recurs. For instance, in Critique of Practical Reason, the problem of the other is explicit. But it is implied in Critique of Pure Reason as well. And the very problem of the other is what Kant originally encountered with respect to aesthetic judgment. As I argue later, the “thing-in-itself” is ultimately equal to “the other.” But, in order to reach that point, it is a sine qua non to begin with the problematic of aesthetic judgment. What distinguishes the third Critique from the first two is the appearance of plural subjectivities. To tackle this Kant did not resort to, say, general consciousness or general subjectivity; rather, he scrutinized what kind of agreement could be made among a multitude http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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of subjectivities wherein there is “no rule by which someone could be compelled to acknowledge that something is beautiful.” Hannah Arendt granted primary importance to this aspect of the third Cri- tique and sought to read it as a principle of political science.16 JeanFrançois Lyotard observed in it a mediation between language games without the establishment of a meta-language.17 But Lyotard’s reading is a regression to Hume insofar as it considers the issue of universality to be simply one of the coalition among common senses. After all, it is misleading to presume a transition or development between Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Judgment, since the former was already affected by and took into account the aporia posed in the arena of criticism in the journalistic sense. Thus our task is to reread Critique of Pure Reason from this vantage point. Kant’s distinction between universality and generality sprang from the problematic of modern science beginning with Copernicus. This should be distinguished from Francis Bacon’s positions of corroborative evidence and induction exemplified. In the first place, the heliocentricism (of Copernicus) is not the kind of matter that is easily proven. Descartes sought to publish his account of the universe as one sympathetic to Copernicus, but abandoned his plan after learning about Galileo’s prosecution, and then wrote Discourse on Method . As this anecdote might imply, Descartes was not necessarily speculative; rather, he stressed the significance of hypothesis and presented a methodology where hypothesis comes first to be proven later by experimentation (by whomever). But, again, can hypothesis be verified by experimentation at all? It is impossible to induce a law from experience, or it is impossible to extract a universal proposition from singular propositions. A universal proposition is technically an indefinite expansion of conjunctive propositions wherein it isproposiimpossible to verify apodictically the infinite chain of elementary tions. Thus the crux of Hume’s skepticism is that since a universal proposition cannot be constituted, a law is finally no more than a custom. But some held that, while a universal proposition could not be verified positively, at least it could be proven false. And inasmuch as it is not proven false, the universal proposition can be considered true. Karl Popper famously maintained that thewere universality the proposition could be claimed if no falsification possibleof when http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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a proposition is posed in a falsifiable way. Although Popper appreciated the fact that this idea was latent in Kant’s own work, he also accused him of remaining in the subjectivist framework.18 If a certain proposition can be deemed universal at all, it is only insofar as one presumes the existence of the other who may falsify it at present as well as in the future. To Popper, however, Kant appears to have presented a rather different, arguably even opposite, approach—as if universality could be guaranteed by a priori rule! But, one has to be extremely cautious with respect to Kant’s positionality here, for, as we have seen, it was only after having confronted the problematic of the judgment of taste (i.e., the universality in plural language games) that Kant wrote Critique of Pure Reason . Critique of Pure Reason begins by describing a single subjectivity, to be sure. This does not mean, however, that Kant neglected the existence of the multitude of other subjects. Rather, he did not even dream that universality could be attained by an agreement among plural subjectivities, that is, by intersubjectivity. For Kant, who was also a scientist, it was self-evident that an a priori synthetic judgment is not easily attained—and a fortiori not during his lifetime, when heterogeneous hypotheses were very much in conflict in the natural sciences and not merely on “der Kampfplatz der Meta- physik .” An agreement with others—no matter how many, and including a falsification that is based upon prior agreement—hardly guarantees universality. An agreement is customarily made within the realm of common sense, just to reinforce it. If universality at all exists, therefore, it must be something that goes beyond plural common senses. It is small surprise, then, that Popper’s position came to be criticized within the philosophy science. Asposed Thomas argued, there is a possibility that even of a proposition in aKuhn falsifiable way is not always falsified; instead, the institution of proof itself is determined by the “paradigm.”19 Furthermore, as with Paul Feyerabend, the truth-value of scientific cognition tout court is determined by discursive hegemony.20 And so Popper eventually shifted his position to think of the development of science more in the manner of evolu21

tionary theory, that is, stronger theories survive. Wasnot. the Kantian critique buried bythat these later deployments? I think First, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Kuhn’s paradigm closely corresponds to Kant’s common sense. Second, what Kuhn spoke of in reference to his paradigm shift were only those “geniuses”—Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein—not unlike the geniuses who appear already in Kant’s third Critique . Perhaps Kuhn never dreamt of such a coincidence because of the complications: After all, Kant had limited his application of the concepts ‘genius’ and ‘common sense’ to the domain of fine art; and the sharp distinction between natural and cultural sciences made by the neo-Kantians (Heinrich Rickert, among others) became very influential. Meanwhile, the concept ‘paradigm’ is widely accepted against Kuhn’s own design precisely because it addressed a problematic wider than that of natural science, which is to say that it has the impetus of “criticism” or even “literary criticism.” Seen from this standpoint, it might be that contemporary philosophers of science have drawn close to the ground Kant cultivated in Critique of Judgment . But again it must be noted that Kant had already been aware of the problematic inherent in the arena of journalistic criticism when he began writing Critique of Pure Reason . In this first Critique, the other (or the other subject) is ostensibly absent. The book persists in pursuing the introspective mode of inquiry. Those who criticize Kant unexceptionably question if introspective inquiry (i.e., the monologue) is by itself sufficient to scrutinize the foundation of science. It is true that Kant did not seek to introduce the agreement of others, because the agreement itself would not guarantee a universal proposition. Instead, in the concept of the thingin-itself, he implied the future others who could falsify. But this is not to say that our thought could never be universal because of future others. On the contrary, the question of universality could not the first others be posed without taking the history of philosophy, Kant was the tointo haveconsideration. introduced theInproblematic of the other in this succinct manner. 1.3

Parallax and the Thing-in-Itself

Philosophy begins with introspection. Nonetheless, the kind of inof PureofReason trospection Kant performed in Critique is quite unique. It isthat a criticism of introspection. Thinking this aspect of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the Kantian introspection, one ought not ignore his rather strange text “Dreams of a Visionary Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics.” Kant wrote this essay in 1766 for a journal in the playful style of eighteenth-century essayists. It was inspired by the famous earthquake that struck Lisbon on November 1, 1755, All Saints Day—the very moment the faithful were at prayer in church. No wonder the event raised such skepticism about the Grace of God. The Lisbon earthquake shook all Europe at its root—the general populace and intellectuals alike. It rent a deep crack between sensibility and understanding, as it were, which, right up to Leibniz, had maintained a relationship of remarkably seamless continuity. The Kantian critique cannot be separated from this profound and multilayered crisis. Several years later, Voltaire wrote Candide, deriding Leibnizian predestined harmony, and Rousseau insisted that the earthquake was punishment for human society’s having lost touch with nature.22 By distinct contrast, Kant (who wrote as many as three analyses of the problem) stressed that the earthquake of 1755 had no religious meaning whatsoever, attributable as it was to natural causes alone. He also advanced scientific hypotheses about the cause of the quake, as well as possible countermeasures to avert future occurrences. It is noteworthy that while even empiricists could not help searching for ‘meanings’ to attribute to the event, Kant did no such thing. But his radical materialism coexisted with the opposite and opposing radicalism that he simultaneously embraced—that is, his concern with metaphysics. That is to say that he was fascinated by the intellect of the visionary Swedenborg, who was said to have ‘predicted’ the earthquake. Kant not only conducted an inquiry into Swedenborg’s purportedly miraculous power, but also wrote a letter 23

in Even the hope with of hismeeting interesthim. in visionary phenomena, however, Kant persisted in his belief in natural causes. The former he considered to be daydreams, or a sort of brain disorder. He maintained that although a vision is in actuality just a thought in the mind, it appears to have come from the outside, by way of the senses.24 At the same time, however, he could not deny Swedenborg’s intellect. While, in many cases, the claim perceive supra-sensible the senses is delusional, theretoare a verythe few whose claimsthrough of possessing such http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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power might in some sense be verifiable. Swedenborg was this exception: a first-class scientist, he was by no means demented; and, here there was credible evidence of his psychic power. Kant had to acknowledge this, but at the same time he had also to negate it. Though he called it a “psychosis,” he could not help taking “the dreams of a visionary” seriously. And yet he problematized his own seriousness: “Therefore, by no means do I blame my readers, if they, instead of acknowledging the visionary as a half citizen of the other world, are quick to write him off as a hospital candidate and thereby shirk from all further inquiry.”25 But this caveat would be less interesting, were it restricted merely to “the visionary’s dreams.” Kant stresses that the same is true of metaphysicists and metaphysics, since they treat thought not deriving from experience as substantial. In this sense, his essay could be read as “Dreams of Metaphysics Explained by Dreams of a Visionary.” He asks, “What kind of folly exists which cannot be brought to the mood of the bottomless world wisdom [philosophy]?” Whereupon he continues: “Therefore, by no means do I blame my readers . . . .” In other words, the dreams of metaphysicists are also first class “folly” and evidence of a “psychosis.” There is no major difference between being obsessed with dreams of metaphysics and with the dreams of a visionary. At this moment of his life, Kant admitted that being obsessed with metaphysics was sheer madness, and yet philosophers could not help but be mad in this sense. Thus his essay is really speaking of a metaphysician in the guise of speaking of a visionary, and the metaphysician in this case was Kant himself—before he encountered Hume, that is. A decade and a half later, Kant opened the 1781 preface to Critique of Pure Reason, with the assertion that “[n]ow, in accordance with the fashion of26the age, the queen [read metaphysics] despised on all sides,” nonetheless, he added, “it is pointlessproves to affect indifference with respect to such inquiries, to whose object human nature cannot be indifferent. Moreover, however much they may think to make themselves unrecognizable by exchanging the language of the schools for a popular style, these so-called indifferentists, to the extent that they think anything at all, always unavoidably fall back into metaphysical assertions, which theyown yet split, professed so much to despise.” 27 But this is precisely Kant’s or rather the one he http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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had faced in “Dreams of a Visionary,” where he wrote in a completely self-contradictory (indeed, antinomic) manner. He both affirmed Swedenborg and metaphysics, and scorned this very affirmation. In Critique of Pure Reason, this conflict takes the form of denying reason’s expansion of knowledge beyond its limit, even while acknowledging reason’s drive to do precisely this. In the first Critique, the satiric selfcriticism of “Dreams of a Visionary” thus turns into a critique of reason by reason. Which is to say that, instead of treating this merely as his personal problem, Kant ‘turns’ (by a process that a Freudian or Lacanian might well call ‘transference’) to treat it as a problem “given to [reason] by the nature of reason itself.”28 This, precisely, is the crux of the “transcendental critique,” or one important aspect of what I am calling transcritique . In any case, the transposition from “Dreams of a Visionary” to Cri- tique of Pure Reason is decisive. Yet, in order to read the latter, one must refer to the former. For it is there that Kant’s idiosyncratic manner of reflection is explicit.29 “Formerly,” Kant wrote in “Dreams of a Visionary,” “I viewed human common sense only from the standpoint of my own; now I put myself into the position of another’s reason outside of myself, and observe my judgments, together with their most secret causes, from the point of view of others. It is true that the comparison of both observations results in pronounced parallax, but it is the only means of preventing the optical delusion, and of putting the concept of the power of knowledge in human nature into its true place.” 30 Here Kant is not expressing the commonplace, that not only must one see things from one’s own point of view, but also, simultaneously, from the point of view of others. If this is what he meant, it would be run-of-the mill: the history of philosophy is filled reflections seeingwould oneself as others would see. In Kant this with “point of view ofonothers” manifest itself only by way of the “pronounced parallax.” To understand this properly, it is necessary to exemplify a technology that did not exist in Kant’s time. ‘Reflection’ is often spoken of by way of the metaphor of seeing one’s image in the mirror. The mirror image is identified with the image byinto the consideration. other. But in today’s context, photography also beseen taken Let us compare them. At the must time http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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photography was invented, those who saw their faces in pictures could not help but feel a certain hideousness—just like hearing a tape recording of one’s own voice for the first time. While it had been possible to see one’s own image, whether by reflection in a mirror, water, or in a painted portrait, these methods were too sub jective. Although the mirror image can be identified with the image seen by the other, there is still a certain complicity with regard to one’s own viewpoint. After all, we can see our own image in the mirror ‘any way we like’; and the mirror image is not fully fixed (not to mention the fact that it is left/right inverted or inside out). A painted portrait is a depiction by the other, but any hideousness in seeing the image can be ascribed to the subjectivity (read malice) of the other. By contrast, photography sustains a different, much more severe, objectivity . Even though there is always a photographer, his or her subjectivity is less influential than the painter’s, for there is an ineradicable, mechanical distance in the photographic image. Strange as it may be, we cannot see our faces (read the thing-in-itself), except as an image reflected in the mirror (read phenomenon). And only thanks to the advent of photography, did we learn that fact. But again, photography is also an image, and, of course, people eventually get used to the mechanical image, so much so that they eventually come to feel that the image is themselves. But the crux here is the “pronounced parallax”—that which people presumably experience when they ‘first’ see their photographic image. The effect of parallax is evident also in Derrida’s statement that consciousness is equivalent to “hearing oneself speak [s’entendre par- ler ].”31 In regard to this claim, Hegel would say that it is the speaking that objectifies (or externalizes [entäussert ]) the self; but this objectified voice (or utterance ]) in Hegelian sense is not ob jective at all—it is merely[Äusserung my view . To bethe objective, there must be the displacement or derangement one experiences when one first hears one’s own recorded voice. The hideousness or uncanniness one experiences is due to the viewpoint of others that intervenes therein. When I first see my face and hear my voice from the others’ viewpoint, I think it is not my face nor my voice. In Freudian terms, this would be the “resistance” the analysand. to terms with the visual andofaudible images;Eventually, one has toone getcomes used to http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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them. But in philosophical reflection, this is not the case. The philosophy that begins with introspection-mirror remains snared within the specular abyss of introspection. No matter how it seeks to introduce the other’s stance, this situation never alters. It is said that philosophy began with Socrates’ dialogues. But the dialogue itself is trapped within the mirror. Many have criticized Kant for having remained in a subjectivist self-scrutiny, and suggest that he sought an escape in Critique of Judgment when he introduced plural subjects. But the truly revolutionary event in philosophy had already occurred in Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant attempted to implode the complicity inherent in introspection precisely by confining himself to the introspective framework. Here one can observe the attempt to introduce an objectivity (qua otherness) that is totally alien to the conventional space of introspection-mirror. Most straightforwardly said, what is at stake in “Dreams of a Visionary” is the critical position that Kant himself was in at that time: pursuing rationalist philosophy on the line of Leibniz/Wolff, there was no other choice but to accept Hume’s empiricist skepticism, yet he was not at all satisfied by either. For about ten years after that, up until Critique of Pure Reason, he confined himself in silence. The stance that he called transcendental came into existence sometime during this period. Kant’s approach in Critique of Pure Reason is different not only from subjective introspection, but also from objective scrutiny. Though it is a self-scrutiny through and through, the transcendental reflection inscribes others’ viewpoint. Said inversely, though it is impersonal through and through, the transcendental reflection is still self-scrutiny. One tends to speak of the transcendental stance as a mere method, and still,The one transcendental speaks of the structure facultiescould Kant discovered asworse a given. stance, of however, not have appeared if not for the pronounced parallax. Critique of Pure Reason is not written in the mode of self-criticism as is “Dreams of a Visionary,” but the pronounced parallax is present, functioning therein. It came to take the form of “antinomy,” the device to reveal both thesis and antithesis as optical illusions. After the publication Critique Pure Reason (A), Kanthave expressed his realization that theoforder of ofhis reasoning would been http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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better if he had dealt with the distinction between phenomenon and the thing-in-itself after “The Antinomy of Pure Reason” (in the section “Transcendental Dialectic”).32 In fact, it is true that, because Kant began with the distinction between phenomenon and the thing-in-itself, many readers’ understanding of Kant’s total design (his “Architectonik ”) retrogresses to the conventional duality of phenomenon and essence or surface and depth. This is the impression given to both those readers who deny and those who affirm the concept of ‘the thing-in-itself’. Those who reject it as mystical understand it only within the dichotomy, and even those who retain it, like Heidegger, interpret it only in the sense of the ontological depth or “abyss” [Abgrund ]. In truth, however, there are no mystical implications in the properly Kantian thing-in-itself.33 It is something like one’s own face in the sense that it undoubtedly exists but cannot be seen except as an image (read phenomenon ). What is crucial here is henceforth the antinomy as a pronounced parallax—the sole thing that reveals what is more than an image (phenomenon). In fact Kant poses antinomy not only in the section on the transcendental dialectic but almost everywhere. For instance, as one of the crucial examples, he draws out transcendental subjectivity X from the antinomy between the Cartesian thesis, “There is an identical ego,” and the Humian antithesis, “There is no identical ego.” It is generally understood that in Critique of Pure Reason, Kant considers the thing-in-itself as that which stimulates sensibility and gives it content, while in Critique of Practical Reason, transcendental subjectivity itself is deemed the thing-in-itself. This apparent inconsistency has caused much confusion. And, concomitant with this, there is the common interpretation that the first Critique deals with the theoretical practical domain whileHannah the second dealsrefuted with the But this that division is not accurate. Arendt this idea, .arguing the counterconcept to the theoretical is not the practical, but the speculative . (As I have clarified with respect to the “third conflict of transcendental ideas,” the theoretical stance that pursues laws of nature and the practical stance that pursues freedom can coexist, if the operation of bracketing one or the other is necessitated.) In point of

fact, even scientific theory can be in no other way than practical, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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because it would not even exist were it not for the “regulative idea,” the assumption that nature be elucidated. Kant himself addressed the issue of “the doctrinal faith” (or “beliefs”) [der doktrinale Glaube ] that accompanies “theoretical judgments” [theoretische Urteile ] as follows: [T]hus there is in merely theoretical judgements an analogous of practical judgements, where taking them to be true is aptly described by the word belief, and which we can all doctrinal beliefs [der doktrinale Glaube ]. If it were possible to settle by any sort of experience whether they are inhabitants of at least some of the planets that we see, I might well bet everything that I have on it. Hence I say that it is not merely an opinion but a strong belief (on the correctness of which I would wager many advantages in life) that there are also inhabitants of other worlds.34

The connotation here is that scientific cognition—or synthetic judgment—is not speculation, and yet it inexorably involves a certain spec or bet (though one might also add that it is also a kind of spes, expectation or hope, insofar as it is related to faith). For this reason, scientific cognition can be expansive. However, just as it is misleading to definitively divide the theoretical and the practical, the thing-in-itself can also not be divided into the thing and the other ego (or the other subject). It is not the thing that negates (falsifies) a scientific hypothesis; it is not the thing but the future others who speak. However, while it is the other who can negate our cognition (qua phenomenon), this negation has to be accompanied by the other’s sense-datum (qua the thing). What is crucial here is the otherness, be it of the thing or of the other person. But this otherness is nothing mystical. What Kant implied by the thing-in-itself was the alterity of the other that we can never take for granted and internalize just on our whim or at our convenience. Nor is theonly point merely thatand Kant deplored the Rather, fact thatthe we are able to know phenomena not substance. Kantian point is that the universality of phenomena (qua synthetic judgment) is taken into consideration only insofar as we wholeheartedly posit the alterity or otherness of the other. Kant did consider the attitude that anticipates what the alterity would be as “speculative.” On the other hand, however, he also held that even though this attitude—again spes —attains only illusion http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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[Schein ], it is a sine qua non (vis-à-vis the transcendental illusion). In fact, the regulative idea—that we be able to recognize nature— functions heuristically. The founder of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, who was involved in the Manhattan Project, said that what was treated in the counterintelligence community as the real secret was not the manual for making the atom bomb; it was the fact that it had already been made. When both Germany and Japan were developing the idea of making the bomb, they would have succeeded in its production had they discovered that it was possible . Solving traditional “chess problems” is far easier than playing a real game of chess because the faith that the king can be checkmated is the most helpful clue to the problem’s solution. The notion that the natural world comprises mathematical structure is also an example of ‘theoretical faith’. For the same reason, natural science came into existence only in the modern West thanks to the ‘theoretical faith’ it had nutured. It has also been said that Kant rejected metaphysics/theology in Critique of Pure Reason but recuperated it in Critique of Practical Reason . In reality, he rebuffed it in the latter, too, and in the former he made the point clear that all theories, if they are to be synthetic and expansive, cannot do away with a certain faith. What he sought in the second Critique were the conditions prerequisite to establishing a universal law of ethics as opposed to a general moral order based on empirical data. By taking this approach, Kant rejected the truth claim of religion, but accepted it as a regulative idea. To be sure, one who chose to live strictly according to the universal law of ethics would doubtless lead a tragic life in reality. If not for eternal life and God’s final judgment, such a life would inexorably absurdity culminate . Itsame follows that had to any accept faith to as a regulativeinidea at the time as Kant he rejected attempt prove it theoretically: that is, he rejected this particular aspect of metaphysics. Necessarily misled by the categorical distinctions among the theoretical, the practical, and the aesthetic, one should not overlook the problematics Kant pursued consistently on other, different levels.

What is mostthe important is that, Kant to introduce other, and that in thisseeking other isuniversality, not one who canhad be http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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identified with the self in any sense of intersubjectivity or common sense. This is not some transcendent other—divine or God—but a transcendental other. Nor is this other a one who introduces relativism into our thinking, but rather the one who makes us face the problem of universality. The rigorous consistency of the Kantian critique, which informs all his work, derives directly from this radical point of departure: the problematic of universality in the judgment of taste, which is also to say, criticism in a journalistic sense.


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2 The Problematic of Synthetic Judgment

2.1

Mathematical Foundations

Regarded as he has been as a philosopher of subjectivity, the most organized criticism of Kant understandably sprang up from the philosophy of science. As I have been contending, however, one of the most crucial points of Kant’s scientific thinking was the problematic of the other, and this aspect has been overlooked. Kant’s theory of mathematics in particular has been not simply misunderstood but consistently disdained. Here I would like to argue against this stance vis-à-vis mathematics and illuminate the brilliance of his critique. Kant detected synthetic judgment in every domain of thinking except for logic, the domain of tautology. Mathematics was no exception. Or, more to the point, Kant’s radical contribution here was that he considered even mathematics—the very domain believed to be mostsynthetic stable and certainDuring because its being analytical—as an a priori judgment. hisof lifetime, it was this stance that earned Kant the worst reputation of all of his ideas, and it has been constantly attacked ever since. But Kant maintained this stance because previous philosophy had insisted that only analytic judgment was apodictic, and accordingly took mathematics—which philosophy was convinced was the most analytic of judgments—as a norm. Iing would to shed more direct on Kant’s intervention by lookinto like specific instances of thislight old philosophical conviction. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Leibniz held that the basis of truth lay in “being identical or reducible to the identical truth,” and he further distinguished between contingent truth (truth of fact) and necessary truth (truth of reasoning). In contingent truth, the predicate is contained in the concept of the subject; nevertheless, contingent truth cannot be reduced to an equivalency or identity between subject and predicate, and thus it can never be proven—what Leibniz expressed as “continued resolution.” Still, according to Leibniz, only analytic judgment is true. Nonetheless, he also came to posit, by way of the “principle of sufficient reason,” that even truths of fact are analytic judgments that are deducible from the subject. For example, in the contingent proposition of fact ‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon’, the phrase ‘crossed the Rubicon’ is contained already (enthymemically, as Leibniz says) in the subject ‘Caesar’. In short, Leibniz believed that all synthetic judgments result in analytic judgments. The early Kant thought in a similar manner. Meanwhile the Hume who “interrupted [Kant’s] dogmatic slumber” with his acute skepticism still believed that only mathematics was analytic. And for this, Kant criticized him: [I]t was nonetheless just as if he had said: Pure mathematics contains only analytic propositions, but metaphysics contains synthetic propositions a priori . Now he erred severely in this, and this error had decisively damaging consequences for his entire conception [concerning the necessary connection between cause and effect]. For had he not done this, he would have expanded his question about the origin of our synthetic judgments far beyond his metaphysical concept of causality and extended it also to the possibility of a priori mathematics; for he would have had to accept mathematics as synthetic as well. But then he would by no means have been able to found his metaphysical propositions on mere experience, for otherwise he would have had to subject the axioms of pure mathematics to experience as well, which he was much too reasonable to do.1

In this respect, it must be said that Hume’s skepticism was indeed inconsistent; he did not move beyond the convention that solely analytical thinking is solid while the synthetic is questionable. By contrast, Kant’s epoch-making contribution lay in his skepticism concerning the analytic nature of mathematics—the very ground of metaphysics since at least Plato. But even those who agreed with Kant’s critique of metaphysics did not understand his insight into http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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mathematics as synthetic. As far as this point was concerned, they were too steeped in metaphysical thinking. It was Kant alone who dared to step into, and to subvert, the sacred precinct that the conflicting philosophical poles—rationalism and empiricism—had simply taken for granted. What is more, this radicalism is intimately related to the fact that Kant imagined the possibility of a new mathematics. The so-called crisis of mathematics is said to have begun with two mathematical innovations of the late nineteenth century: nonEuclidean geometry and set theory. To be more precise, Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) had already thought of both possibilities, including what kind of crises they would cause; but he kept quiet and even discouraged public discourse about them. Therefore, it is not the case that the critical situation of mathematics suddenly surfaced in the late nineteenth century; by the mid eighteenth century, the idea of non-Euclidean geometry was already known. For instance, it had already been demonstrated that from the axiom, ‘the sum total of the three internal angles of a triangle is smaller than that of two right angles’, a system of theorems could be constructed without contradiction. Furthermore, non-Euclidean geometry in the context of the problem of the sphere had also already been conceptualized. As Gottfried Martin points out, Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777), one of the founders of this tendency, was a friend of Kant’s.2 And Kant’s awareness of the possibility of new mathematics is evident in his papers on physics, as I will demonstrate. What Kant sought to ground philosophically was certainly not the mathematics and physics that had already been solidly established in the eighteenth century. A foundational theory would never have to be constructed in the first place if not in response to a crisis of foundation itself. What drives towardit rigorous theoretical grounding is always criticalphilosophers consciousness—as is precisely exemplified also in Marx’s “critique of political economy,” which would not have come into existence in the absence of actual financial crises. For his part, what drove Kant toward his own foundational theory was a radical sense of crisis, which, however, was far too progressive to be shared or accepted by his contemporaries. And, to a certain degree, it the could be said that later,fate avoided publicly declaring crisis (so as to Kant, avoid like the Gauss legendary of Hippasos). http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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If Kant’s texts are so still suggestive today, it is ultimately because of his pioneering sense of the crisis, but also because of his discursive prudence with regard to stating more publicly the depth and implication of this crisis. Hence the need for a transcritical reading of his work.3 When he was twenty-two years old, Kant wrote in his graduate thesis that “If the law changes, the expansion [of space] will also turn to have different properties and dimensions. The science of all the possible space will be without doubt the highest geometry the finite understanding can undertake. Though, as we realize, it is impossible to represent a more than three dimensional space.” 4 Now, one of the most influential aspects of The Elements by Euclid (306–283 B.C.E) is the thesis that a theorem can be deduced from an axiom without contradiction. But this claim does not hold for the di verse mathematics that have developed over history. The development of mathematics has been driven more by applied mathematics, or by games, than by any principle. This is because the crux of mathematics has always been located in the practice of grasping the relation of things. As an effect of the Euclidean principle, however, it has been assumed that all mathematical procedures could and should follow the proof as a formal (and analytical) deduction from an axiom. And this is the reason why mathematics has become established as the fountainhead of analytical judgment. Nonetheless, prioritizing analytical judgment was not the specific property of mathematics itself. It is metaphysics that has taken mathematics as the norm because of the presupposition that mathematics is analytical. In other words, it is Plato’s dogma that only analytical thinking is true that made Euclidean geometry possible. Therefore, to undermine Plato’s position, mathematics must bethe thetruth primary field of critique. And of the matter is that the question of whether or not the Euclidean “elements” are truly analytical has been asked more or less from the inception of mathematics. The Elements consist of definitions, axioms, and postulates, and among these, it is the fifth postulate that has been most controversial: If a straight line crosses two other straight lines so that the sum of the two interior angles on one side of it is less than then twoeighteenth straight lines, if extended far enough, crosstwo on right that angles, same side . Inthethe century, this was http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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restated into a simpler proposition, the famous “parallel postulate”: Through a point P outside a line L there is one and only one line parallel to L . The particular postulate in Euclid’s The Elements was thrown into doubt by the following question: Isn’t this theorem deducible from other postulates and axioms? What non-Euclidean geometry made clear was that Euclid’s fifth postulate is independent of the other Euclidean axioms; and further, not only that this is not intuitively self-evident but also that contradiction will not occur even if other postulates are adopted. For instance, Lobachevsky’s geometry was derived from the proposition The sum total of the three internal angles of a triangle is smaller than that of two right angles , while Riemann’s geometry came from the proposition The sum total of the three internal angles of a triangle is larger than that of two right angles . Using different expressions, Lobachevsky adopted the postulate In a plane, through a point outside a line L, there are an infinite number of lines which do not intersect L , while Riemann chose Through a point P outside a line L there is no line parallel to it; that is, every pair of lines in a plane must intersect . But, to repeat, and as Gottfried Martin also emphasizes, Kant had already thought of the possibilities of non-Euclidean geometry. In fact, when Kant considered mathematics as an “a priori synthetic judgment,” he already had explicitly in mind the very nature of axioms. Kant clearly maintained both that axioms are independent of empirical substance and that they are, at the same time, not sheer constructs of the concept (or understanding). Empirically speaking, for example, since parallel lines do not intersect, it follows that the axiom, parallel lines intersect , is independent of empirical reality. Viewed from the Leibnizian standpoint, within the concept of the triangle (read the subject) what is already included is the predicate: The total of the three internal angles of geometry a triangle isis equal that of two . Therefore, non-Euclidean just atoreductio rightsum angles ad absurdum . From the Leibnizian standpoint, axioms as such had been obstacles, so he had sought to do away with them—but in vain. Kant thought of the problematic of axioms in a much more sophisticated manner. He explained the difference between analytic judgment and synthetic judgment in two ways: analytic judgment is

where the concept ‘predicate’ is included in the concept and it can be proven only by the law of contradiction. In ‘subject’, contrast, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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synthetic judgment requires something other than the law of contradiction. Which is to say that Kant’s consideration of mathematics as being an a priori synthetic judgment derives rigorously from his consideration of the status of axioms. Thus Kant opposed the reduction of mathematics to logic. Kant notwithstanding, however, the concept that mathematics is an analytic judgment proved itself not to be easily shaken. A notable example is the later nineteenth-century logicism of Frege/Russell, which expressed the clearest conviction that mathematics be logical. Russell, in particular, was this delusion’s prime proponent. On the one hand, he was an empiricist like Hume; on the other, he insisted that mathematics was analytical. As he put it: The proof that all pure mathematics, including Geometry, is nothing but formal logic, is a fatal blow to the Kantian philosophy. Kant, rightly perceiving that Euclid’s propositions could not be deduced from Euclid’s axioms without the help of figures, invented a theory of knowledge to account for this fact; and it accounted so successfully that, when the fact is shown to be a mere defect in Euclid, and not a result of the nature of geometric reasoning, Kant’s theory also has to be abandoned. The whole doctrine of a priori intuitions, by which Kant explained the possibility of pure mathematics, is wholly inapplicable to mathematics in its present form.5

Russell’s seminal account is deeply biased by the erroneous belief that Kant pursued mathematics in the context of pre-non-Euclidean geometry. But Kant’s mathematics was already far beyond the assertion that it was “wholly inapplicable to mathematics in its present form.” At the end of the day, it was sooner Russell’s twentiethcentury logicism—“all pure mathematics are nothing but formal logic”—that had been proleptically ruptured by possibilities conceived in the eighteenth century by Kant. During the twentieth century, the foundational theory of mathematics diverged into three main sects: logicism, formalism, and intuitionism. An intuitionist, Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer (1881–1966), took a finitist stance, as opposed to treating infinity as substance. In his view, although the law of classical logic was based on finite sets, people had mistakenly come to apply it to infinite sets, forgetting its true origin. He further argued that the crucial law of the excluded middle—‘Either a proposition A or its negation non-A must be true’—precisely cannot be applied to infinite sets. The law of the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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excluded middle is used in the manner: ‘If the hypothesis—it is not A —falls into a paradox, the proof—it is A —is achieved.’ This type of proof is functional only in finite cases, but not in the case of infinite sets. Finally, Brouwer held that the paradox that occurs in infinite sets is due to abuse of the law of the excluded middle. And about this, too, Kant had had something important to say. Kantian dialectics in Critique of Pure Reason present how antinomy occurs due to the abuse of the law of the excluded middle. Kant distinguishes between negative judgment—‘he does not die ’—and infinite judgment—‘he is immortal ’. Although the infinite judgment is an affirmative judgment, it is commonly mistaken for a negative one. Similarly, the proposition—‘the world is not bounded’—is deemed equipollent to the proposition—‘the world is infinite’. The law of the excluded middle is functional in the case of ‘the world is bounded or not bounded’, but not in the proposition ‘the world is bounded or infinite’, in which both propositions can be false. Thus Kant revealed that the law of the excluded middle inexorably falls into paradox with respect to infinity . But arguably the most radical paradox of contemporary mathematics derives from Georg Cantor’s theory of infinite sets—especially his attempt to treat infinity as a number. And this paradox, too (whether Cantor himself was aware of it or not), is intimately connected to Kant’s theory of antinomy. In order for a universal proposition to be established, for instance, it is sine qua non to collect instances indefinitely. And this act will never reach the point where everything is collected, where the infinity is attained. Since ancient Greece, elementary logic has always taken the example of syllogism: “all humans die; Socrates is a human; therefore, Socrates dies.” In the strict sense, the proposition humans die” is a generality based upon experience,“all and not universality (infinity). (indefinity) There may be a man who does not die. But, in terms of the procedure of proof, unless counterevidence that there is a man who does not die is actually posed, the proposition can be deemed a scientific truth. It is totally unlikely that such counterevidence could ever be posed in reality, however, it should still be considered a possibility. It is at this point that ‘the other’ has intervene asThe theconcept ultimateofground for a universal proposition to betoestablished. universality itself inexorably http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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introduces the problematic of ‘the other’. The domain of mathematics is not exempted from this, though those who considered mathematics as a type of analytic judgment sought to do away with it. Famously, the paradox of contemporary mathematics derived from Cantor’s theory of sets that sought to grasp infinity itself as a number. And this must have some link to Kant’s theory of antinomy, though Cantor did not think that way. According to Martin, the closest approximation to Kant’s approach among all contemporary theories of mathematical foundations is intuitionism. Intuitionism acknowledges only finite objects, namely, those that can be constituted. In Martin’s words: If we are trying, from today’s point of view, to understand Kant’s explanations about the constructive character of mathematics, then we [have to be] aware that we are using facts which Kant hadn’t yet known in this precise way. Such an explanation of Kant based on our contemporary insights nevertheless seems to be possible because the Intuitionists themselves accept this relationship with the Kantian premises. Given this, the Kantian thesis of the intuitive character of mathematics means the limiting of mathematics to those objects that are constitutable [konstruierbar ]. From here, Kant’s position towards Euclidean geometry can be made clear. We have already said that even many Kantians passionately contested the possibility of non-Euclidean geometry. Certainly this protest had a certain justification in Kant’s positions, but things are much more difficult here than one first assumed. They became even more burdened because of the fact that Kant—just like Gauss later—neglected to speak of non-Euclidean geometries. And when we view the battles provoked by the introduction of non-Euclidean geometries, we must indeed say that Kant was right to be cautious. There can be no doubt, however, that Kant himself was quite clear about the fact that, in geometry, what is logically possible goes far beyond the realm of Euclidean geometry. But Kant held fast, even if presumably erroneously, to one thesis. What goes beyond Euclidean geometry is logically possible, it is true, but it is not constitutable. This means that it is not intuitively constitutable. And this means, in turn, that for Kant it does not exist mathematically. Only Euclidean geometry exists in the mathematical sense, whereas all non-Euclidean geometries are mere thought-objects.6

From this standpoint, Martin reinterprets the significance of Kant’s having deemed mathematics constitutive. Intuitive is equal to constitutable .

All geometries can be thought without contradiction, whereas


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cognizable ones are limited, and this limitation overlaps finite constitutability . All in all, it was for this reason that Kant set up the distinctions between thing-in-itself and phenomena, thinking and cognition. Therefore, we must acknowledge that Kant’s theory is not in the least obsolete; indeed it assumes a strong position in contemporary theories of mathematical foundations. Kant was aware that by taking up any axiom, an alternative geometry could be produced without contradiction; yet, at the same time, he did consider space and time—the basic forms of sensuous intuition— to be Euclidean. For this reason, he is thought to have grounded Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics philosophically . Moreover, his thinking has even been used as a basis to counter non-Euclidean geometry. But, as I have been arguing, just the opposite is closer to the truth. His starting point was that, in order for non-Euclidean geometry to be constituted, Euclidean geometry was a sine qua non. One of the methods to prove the consistency of an axiomatic system is to appeal to an intuitive model. For example, in Riemannian geometry, the axiomatic system takes the sphere of Euclidean geometry as its model; it then assumes a plane to be a sphere in the Euclidean system, a point to be a point on the sphere, and a straight line to be the greater circle. By so doing, the individual axioms of Riemannian geometry can be transferred into the theorems of Euclidean geometry. Which is to say that, inasmuch as Euclidean geometry is consistent, so too is non-Euclidean geometry. However, since the consistency of Euclidean geometry cannot be proven in and of itself, one has to appeal to intuition, after all. Thus the problematic of non-Euclidean geometry eventually circles back to Euclidean geometry. One should note in passing, however, that the crux of the formalism of David Hilbert (1862–1943) lies in jettisoning this problematic and its procedures . In his Foundations of Geometry [Grundlagen der Geometrie , 1899], he insisted that not only Euclid’s fifth postulate but also other definitions and postulates are by no means self-evident truths, in part because concepts such as ‘point’ and ‘straight line’ have no meaning in and of themselves. So Hilbert formalized mathematics into logic. ThisHe is not to say, however, that just any geometries symbolic can be constituted. set up a precise standard of judgment as http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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to whether or not three measures can be satisfied within any axiomatic system: (1)completeness (all theorems can be derived from an axiomatic system); (2) independence (there are theorems which can no longer be proven if any proposition is extracted from an axiomatic system); and (3) consistency (it is impossible to prove mutually contradictory theorems within an axiomatic system). Hereby, Hilbert sought to ground mathematics, not by intuitive selfevidence, but solely by theoretical consistency. For this, he was criticized by intuitionists; but to adhere strictly to intuitionism would inexorably limit the territory of mathematics. In response, therefore, while Hilbert did adopt the finitistic stance advocated by intuitionists, he also still sought to ground mathematics without resorting to intuition. This was the so-called Hilbert’s Program (developed 1917–1925), and it was basically Kantian in inspiration. Finally, however, Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) pushed Hilbert’s Program literally to the limit, by demonstrating that it (particularly its third standard) falls inexorably into self-referential paradox.7 Gödel’s proof (first advanced in 1931) was executed within a persistent formalism in its argument that, inasmuch as formalism is taken for granted as a premise, it automatically reveals its paradox. And this argument also helped implement the rupture of Russellian logicism. The basic lesson of Gödel’s proof is that mathematical truth is not necessarily expressed within the formal axiomatic system; in other words, there can be truths which are not formally grounded. But an additional lesson, arguably equally important, is this: inasmuch as a mathematical system is consistent, it cannot prove its own consistency. Yet we neither need to lament nor get overly excited by the absence of the mathematical ground Gödel revealed. The dream achieving a solid foundation by way of a this formal axiomatic systemofwas never inherent in mathematics itself; dream was informed by metaphysics, for which only analytic judgment is sound. And it was metaphysics, in this precise sense, that Kant sought to undermine. But inasmuch as metaphysics relies on mathematics, this critique first had to be executed in mathematics—before throwing the result back into philosophy. Gödel’s meta-mathematical critique had such a ‘deconstruction’ function in the can history of mathematics. In this sense, Gödelian be connected to Kant’s http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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transcendental critique. In any case, what I want to stress is that, from today’s standpoint, Kant was entirely correct when he deemed mathematics a synthetic judgment. As Kant maintained, synthetic judgment is an expansive judgment [ Erweiterungsurteil ]. And so it is that mathematics has developed in the past and will continue to do so in the future. In his later years, Wittgenstein spoke of mathematics as a motley bundle of inventions. In this expression, he, too, affirmed with Kant that mathematics is a synthetic judgment. 2.2

The Linguistic Turn

Philosophers of the postlinguistic turn tend to accuse Kant of having remained within the philosophy of subjectivity. But this claim is simply not true, and conceals the true radicality of his thought. For what Kant problematized as the activity of subjectivity was in actuality language . Kant’s saying that phenomena are constituted by the form of sensibility and by the category of understanding is equivalent to saying that they are linguistically constituted. Not by chance, a neo-Kantian philosopher like Ernst Cassirer renamed them “symbolic form.” For this reason, the prospect of going ‘beyond’ Kant by appealing to the linguistic turn can only be misleading. To make this point clear, I will refer to Wittgenstein, since he is commonly embraced by linguistic turn thinkers. Returning to Gödel for a brief moment, it is not as if his proof paralyzed the whole practice called mathematics. It rendered obsolete only that part of the system which is infallibly deduced from an axiom. Which is to say that Gödel liberated mathematics from the bind of infallibility with which it had been unfairly charged from without. Wittgenstein. is how he spoke of his position This with didn’t regardshock to Russell: “It is my Here task, not to attack Russell’s logic from within, but from without;” and with regard to Gödel: “My task is not to talk about (e.g.) Gödel’s proof, but to by-pass it.” 8 What do those expressions, “from without” and “to by-pass,” mean? That Gödel “attacks Russell’s logic from within” means that he, in effect, deconstructs Russell’s formal system by inducing its undecidability from So is without?” Wittgenstein declaring thatthat he would do the same within. thing “from Notthen precisely. The fact Wittgenstein http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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spoke so much about Russell and so little about Gödel, in the climate in which the “Incompleteness Theorem” was giving mathematical society such a salutary shock, only speaks of Wittgenstein’s antipathy toward Gödel’s position, and brings Wittgenstein closer to Kant’s transcendental critique. Gödel was a tacit Platonist. He demonstrated the undecidability of Cantor’s continuum hypothesis, but with respect to the fallacy of that hypothesis, it is said that Gödel claimed he could intuit it through meditation, if not prove it formally. He ‘acted out’ the performance of negatively proving the absence of a foundation by way of formal demonstration only because he believed a priori in the mathematical substance that would require no further foundation. Instead of writing positively, he implies negatively. If so, wasn’t Gödel’s “negative theology”—deconstructing the formal grounding with a make-believe faith—the true target of Wittgenstein’s antagonism, much more than Russell’s wholehearted faith in the foundation?9 In his late career, Wittgenstein focused on a radical reconsideration of the procedure of proof —the premise for Gödel’s undecidability as opposed to decidability. Mathematical thinking is canonically seen as infallible only insofar as it is consistently deduced from an axiom. Wittgenstein thrust two explosive contingencies into this system of faith. The first of these contingencies is the practical and historical nature of mathematics, namely, the index of its heterogeneity and excess, which cannot be reduced to a basic axiomatic system. In the case of Gödel’s proof, it is based upon a translation from the foundations of non-Euclidean geometry: first, into Euclidean geometry, and second, into natural numbers. As Wittgenstein relates this translation: What is it to coordinate one system of proofs with another? It involves a translation rule by means of which proved propositions of the one can be translated into proved propositions of another. Now it is possible to imagine some—or all—of the proof systems of present-day mathematics as having been coordinated in such a way with one system, say that of Russell. So that all proofs could be carried out in the system, even though in a roundabout way. So would there then be only the single system—no longer that many?—But then it must surely be resolved http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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into the many—One part of the system will process the properties of trigonometry, another those of algebra, and so on. Thus one can say that different techniques are used in these parts.10

Certainly, Wittgenstein opposed the projects of Russell, inter alia, to ground the whole of mathematical practice in set theory. For instance, according to Russell, ‘1, 2, 3, . . .’ can be translated into ‘1, 1  1, (1  1)  1, . . .’ as a grounding. With this method, however, any even moderately larger equation (say, 84  24  2,016) becomes too cumbersome. According to the Wittgenstein who noted “A mathematical proof must be perspicuous,”11 it is definitely not perspicuous, whereas with the decimal system it becomes perfectly perspicuous. In Russell’s view, calculation in the cardinal system (1, 1  1, [1  1]  1, . . .) is grounded and authentic; in Wittgenstein’s, even calculation using the decimal system is a mathematical a system of proofs in andbeoftaken itself.in,“Iand want say that:invention if you haveand a proof-pattern that cannot bytoa change in notation you turn it into one that can, then you are producing a proof, where there was none before.” 12 For Wittgenstein, it was simply no longer necessary to prove mathematical systems by means of a “general foundation.” As he put it, “it is not something behind the proof, but the proof, that proves.”13 New forms of expression mathematical proofs automatically produce new conceptsor in new and by themselves. For example: Now surely one could simply say: if a man had invented calculating in the decimal system—that would have been a mathematical invention!—Even if he had already got Russell’s Principia Mathematica .14 It [mathematics] forms ever new rules: is always building new roads for traffic; by extending the network of the old ones. 15 But the mathematician is not a discoverer: he is an inventor. 16

From time to time in mathematics it happens that identical theorems arise from different fields and contexts. Rather than considering them as one and the same, however, Wittgenstein, who understood mathematics as consisting of multiple systems, considered that they belong to different systems of rules. It was in this context that heis wrote, as we have seen,and “I proof—And should likeupon to this say: mathematics a MOTLEY of techniques http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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is based its manifold applicability and its importance.”17 Thus what Wittgenstein objected to was founding multiple systems of rules upon a single system. But this is not to say that mathematical polysystems are completely separate and unrelated. Though they are translatable into (i.e., interchangeable with) each other, they do not share the same system. “Family resemblances” was the name he gave to such “a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing.”18 Instead of producing something common all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no onetothing in common which makes us use the same word for all, but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all “language.”19

Likewise, what are grouped together under the umbrella term ‘mathematics’ are polysystems that cannot be centralized. Wittgenstein stressed this heterogeneity not only because mathematics deals with heterogeneous Nature in a practical manner—no less than do the various sciences—but also, and more important, because heterogeneity comes from an acknowledgment of the other who cannot be interiorized. And this is the second contingency, the first being the practical and historical nature of mathematics. Wittgenstein’s critique of formalism was thus focused on its tendency to exclude the otherness of the other, the contingency of the relation to the other. Generally speaking, mathematical proofs appear to be done automatically and peremptorily. But Wittgenstein stressed that, as to subjects following rules, they are less automatic than compulsory. This position is reminiscent of the Plato—though unlike Gödel’s Plato—who associated geometric proof with dialogue. Or more precisely, if Plato made mathematics infallible, it was by way of introducing the proof as a dialogue in the sense of collaborative inquiry. In the Meno , Plato’s Socrates induces a boy who is not welleducated in geometry to prove a theorem. In this demonstration, Socrates proves that there is neither “teaching” nor “learning,” but only “recollection” [anámnesis ]. This is known as “Meno’s paradox” or the paradox of pedagogy. The proof is executed in the form of a “dialogue,” but a peculiar one in which the only thing Socrates need http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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say is, “You see Meno, that I am not teaching . . . only asking.”20 The prerequisite to the dialogue is a rule that stipulates: ‘Upon the acceptance of a basic premise (axiom), one must do nothing to contradict it’. Proof becomes unattainable at any moment if the boy utters anything contradictory to what he has said previously. In other words, the boy has always already been taught to follow the rules, which he then ‘recollects’. Prior to the dialogue, he already shares the a priori rules. Who taught them to him? There is nothing extraordinary about Socrates’ method. It is based on specific Athenian legal institutions. Nicholas Rescher has reconsidered dialectics in terms of those forms of disputation and courtroom procedure in which an interlocutor (prosecutor) presents his opinion, and an opponent (defendant) counters his point, followed by the interlocutor’s response.21 In this way, the first interlocutor’s point does not have to constitute an absolutely infallible, indisputable thesis. As long as no effective counterproposal is raised against the initial assertion, it is understood to be valid and consequential. In such argumentation, the interlocutor bears the onus probandi , the burden of proof; and the defendant is not required to give testimony. Socrates’ method clearly follows this course. It is significant that Plato began the Meno by describing the case of Socrates himself, who believed so strongly in the dialogic justice that he accepted his own death as a result of a verdict. For the Socratic method, even if the verdict were found to be unjust, it is the process of justice itself that is of primary importance—and Socrates acknowledged as true only what passed through this process. In many courts of law, both opponents must obey a common rule that technically allows the prosecutor and the defense attorney to exchange any time.game Thoseare who do not acknowledge and adhere to theroles legalatlanguage either ordered out of court or ruled incompetent by the court. In this sort of game, no matter how forcefully or enthusiastically they might oppose one another, neither opponent occupies the position of “the other.” As Rescher notes, this dialogue always has the potential to become a monologue. Indeed, in the works of Aristotle and Hegel, dialectics did become a monologue. And though dialogues written in the form of conversation, finallyPlato’s they, too, must were be considered http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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dramatic monologues—as Bahktin pointed out in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics . Western philosophy thus began as an introspective— that is, monologic—dialogue, or, alternatively, dialogic monologue. Mathematics is privileged because its knowledge has a compelling power far beyond that of the subjectivity I . Which does not mean, however, that the power is due to the characteristics of mathematics in and of itself; rather it is thanks to Plato’s and Euclid’s notion that only that which survives the process of legal argumentation can be deemed mathematics. In this manner, mathematical proof is presumed to be produced by intersubjectivity, that is, by that which lies beyond individual cognition. The true Socratic/Platonic invention is not the idea that reason inheres in the world or the self, as is often claimed, but rather that only that which goes through the dialogic process is rational. Those who refuse dialogue, no matter how deep the truth they may grasp, are irrational. Whether or not the world or the self contains reason in and of itself ultimately counts for nothing; only those who are subjected to dialogue are rational. And this is also the standpoint from which the pre-Socratics are scrutinized. Being rational is equivalent to accepting, as premise, the principle of dialogue with others. Proof, no matter how it be written, assumes a compelling power because it includes collaborative scrutiny with others. Finally, it is thanks to this process that mathematics has been considered as the norm. As I have pointed out, Popper’s concept of ‘proof to the contrary’ is based on this same conviction. And Kant’s position, that mathematics is a synthetic judgment, was its most radical critique. Synthetic judgment is universal only insofar as proof to the contrary is presupposed—not the proof of the other who shares the same system rules, but of the other does share same the system of rules.ofKant’s radicalism exists who in the factnot that he the pursued problem of alterity in communication deep into mathematics , and that he did this by introducing the transcendental other, the other who cannot be internalized into the same system. The transcendental other—as distinct from the transcendent other, the sacred other (God)—is a quintessentially secular other who is everywhere and everytime in front of us. One later Wittgenstein’s most crucial contributions is his emphasis onof precisely this secular other. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Part of Wittgenstein’s skepticism was aimed at the dialogue that supports the specifically metaphysical foundation of the mathematic proof. The Wittgensteinian skepticism is connected to the cognition that mathematics, qua “motley” of various systems of rules and proofs, cannot be deduced to a single system of rules, if mutual translation is possible. And his target extended beyond mathematics to the “language game” in general. But, at the same time, one should not forget that the privileged position of mathematics, along with its metaphysics of proof, remained his primary target. Without this aspect, what we would have would be just another mundane language game. Wittgenstein was skeptical of the Platonic dialogue because it did not take the true other as its counterpart, and thus could always be converted into a monologue. If a stranger, an ostensible other, can be internalized, it is because he or she shares the common set of rules. Strictly speaking, dialogue has to be with the one that engages the other who does not share the same set of rules. Here is how Wittgenstein posits the other who cannot be internalized: “Someone who did not understand our language, a foreigner, who had fairly often heard someone giving the order: “Bring me a slab!,” might believe that this whole series of sounds was one word corresponding perhaps to the word for “building-stone” in his language.”22 To communicate with foreigners or children is, in other words, to teach a code to someone who does not yet know it. And in such a case, the situation is the same from the other’s standpoint: To the other, I am a foreigner or a child to be taught. Communication with the other who does not share the same set of rules will inexorably take place in a teaching/learning relationship. Conventional theories of communication take for granted a shared system of rules, but in the case of communication with foreigners or children—or psychotics foreven that matter—such a system is absent from the very outset, or never possible. This is no exception, but the daily landscape of human lives. As human beings, we are all born children and learn language from our parents (or their equivalents). As a result, we come to share common rules. Likewise, in our daily communication with others, mustremember always havethis incommensurable though we do not we always surprising fact.domains, Thus communication http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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must, in reality, become mutual teaching. If there is a system of common rules, it is achieved only after the event of the teaching/learning relationship. In the beginning, this mutual relationship is asymmetrical. And this is the most fundamental aspect of communication. Again, this is not an anomaly—it is our daily state of affairs. Rather, the anomalies are commonly considered to be the ‘normal’ cases, namely, in the dialogue that takes for granted a common set of rules, as one big merry party or symposium. Therefore, Wittgenstein’s introduction of the other into his reflection on communication is equal to having reintroduced the initial asymmetric relationship—the one so charged with impossible crossings. In this context, “teaching” has nothing to do with authoritarian hierarchy, because the teaching (or psychoanalytic) position is the lesser one, subordinate to the others’ (or analysand’s) demand for understanding. In the context of the political economy, teaching is ‘selling’ one’s knowledge to the other. Marx made this fundamental point very clear in his theory of exchange: The individual commodity never contains the substantial value that classical economists claimed was immanent in it. It cannot have a value (or even use value) if it is not sold (exchanged). And, if not sold, it is a thing to be simply discarded. The “selling” position is subordinated to the ‘choice’ of the buyer (the possessor of money), and their mutual relationship is the epitome of asymmetricity. To Wittgenstein, the “someone who [does] not understand our language, a foreigner,” is not simply one among just any example he might have taken. It is the very other, the sine qua non, in relation to his “methodical doubt.” To borrow an example, when I shout, “Bring me a slab!,” I may believe in the existence of a meaning internal to my utterance, butisifproven it means “building-stone” to the other, the internal signification to be null and void. Wittgenstein’s other is he or she who precisely nullifies this entire internal process—the one who appears as a “bizarre skeptic,” to adopt Saul Kripke’s expression.23 In his early career, Wittgenstein had famously concluded, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”24 In that case, “whereof one In cannot speak”ofmeant art and religion, but yet science and math. this issue categorical distinction, it isnot fairly http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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easy to associate Wittgenstein with Kant. For instance, in Wittgenstein’s Vienna ,25 Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin have little trouble in describing how Wittgenstein developed his thinking in the Kantian/ Kierkegaardian atmosphere of Vienna, and the ‘character traits’ he developed there never changed, even throughout his later working life in England, including, initially, with Russell. But what about Wittgenstein’s later work? In his theory of the language game in Philosophical Investigations , he banned the disciplinary division between science, ethics, and art—making it look, perhaps, as if he had finally distanced himself from Kantianism. However, the core of the Kantian critique has nothing substantial to do any categorical divisions; instead, it lies in the introduction of alterity into the architectonic of the categorical universe. If this is true, then the later Wittgenstein is even more Kantian than early Wittgenstein. It is here , in this problematic of alterity—the other who is empirically omnipresent but grasped only transcendentally—that Kant and Wittgenstein, most radically, most transcritically, intersect. There is another canonical perception that Wittgenstein advocated the precedence of social language over private language, namely, solipsism. While this sounds plausible and benevolent, finally it buries the radial crux of his skepticism—nullifying it. Wittgenstein’s “skeptic” really attacks only the tacit solipsistic nature of intersubjectivity or dialogue, whenever it takes the form of “apodictic proof.” It is high time for us to redefine “solipsism.” It is not the idea that only I exist, but that what is true of and for me is common to everyone . This apparently innocuous, but in fact draconian move functions as a tacit politics of internalizing the other. And, as tacit, it is much harder to refute or combat than more explicit moves. Furthermore, and for the same reason,the I suggest that itstrictly is alsospeakhigh time to redefine “dialogue.” To repeat main point, ing it is that which occurs between others who do not share a common set of rules, namely, that which takes place in an irrevocably asymmetrical relationship. And others are just like that, but they are different from what anthropologists call strangers (or the uncanny). As with Freud, unheimlich (uncanny) originally meant the familiar heimlich )Furthermore, (image). . Herein existsour the‘other’ mechanism self-projection (as in selfis notofthe Absolute Other that is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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again a self-projection. What is truly crucial and problematic to us, in contrast, is the otherness of the everyday, relative other. If these points are not taken into consideration, serious confusion will inevitably occur, as has happened with respect to Wittgenstein. His theory has been mistaken as a sort of sociological observation. One salient example is what has happened with his concept of “language game.” Today, it is often conflated with, and usurped by, the Durkheimian fait social or the Saussurean langue . To be sure, in fact Wittgenstein did often use the figure of chess, much like Saussure. In Saussure, the figure shows this: first, that the essence of language exists in a form that is irrespective of the material, such as sounds and letters; and, second, that the meanings of the ‘pieces’ exist in the rules of their movements, and that these are encoded within the relational system (of difference) that encompasses other pieces. For this reason, if the functions and arrangements of the pieces were altered, the ‘identical’ set of pieces would be playing totally different games. In sum, the figure of chess suggests that language is a differential formal system, independent of references and meanings—which are themselves the products of the system. This is formalism, or at least one type. And Wittgenstein’s theory of the language game was precisely poised to undermine the practical and historical nature of mathematics’ very premises of this version of the formalist idea. The figures of chess, indeed of games in general, lead one to draw the inference that a rule can be presented explicitly. For instance, grammar is considered a rule of language. But do those who are able to speak, say, fluent Japanese systematically or systemically know the grammar? Most often not, including myself. Grammar was originally conceptualized as a method for studying foreign or dead classical languages. a strict sense, grammar is not a rule but a discovered (read also:Inproduced) regularity without which foreigners might never efficiently master a language. On the other hand, fully knowing the grammar of a language one already speaks is not merely unnecessary but also simply impossible for the speaking subject. Before the advent of modern nationalism, people in Europe and elsewhere might never have dreamt that their vernacular have grammars, uponlanguages them, notcould to mention other kindslet of alone rules. grammars imposed http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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A rule of a language is discovered from the point of view of foreigners who need to learn—not of those who speak it. Which is to say that “I” do not need to and cannot know the grammar, say, of the “Japanese I am already speaking.” At the same time, however, I can point out the grammatical mistakes in foreigners’ speech. Which is to say that, technically, I do “know” the grammar. Nonetheless, I cannot present a grammatical “basis” to explain the mistakes of foreigners. I can simply point out that “we do not say it that way.” It is in this sense that I “don’t know” Japanese grammar; what do I know is only the “use.” Adults do not and cannot normally teach the rules of language; they simply talk to their infants. When the infants begin to talk, becoming mature, adults either correct their mistakes, or just laugh. While adults do not know the rules as rules, they “practice” them all the time—and by so doing they also “teach.” If ‘we’ can teach children grammar at all, it is only because ‘they’ already ‘know’ that language. It is possible to say this is all that is indicated by “Meno’s paradox.” “I have just said that you are a rascal, and now you ask me if I can teach you, when I say there is no such thing as teaching, only recollection.”26 Though a rule exists, it cannot be explicitly presented. In spite of it all, however, teaching does exist. The boy who has managed to demonstrate a geometric theorem by way of a dialogue with Socrates has already been taught the rule. On the other hand, as Plato also stresses, there is no teaching—in the sense that a teacher cannot present the rules explicitly. Wherein exists teaching/ learning a rule, therein exists something that cannot be rationally elucidated any further. As noted earlier, Plato tried to solve this paradox by appealing to the “doctrine of recollection” [ anámnesis ]— knowing thatofit‘well-bred’, was a myth,which a “noble lie” [gennaion ], ‘noble’ infull thewell sense is in part only topseudos say ‘linguistically competent’—thus tightly closing the tautologous circle. The “doctrine of recollection” is based upon the idea that the identical exists fundamentally within everyone, collectively. So when Kant speaks of the a priori form or category, it sounds as though he were restating the “recollection” of the identical. But Kant, almost uniquely, is not.was Hisreally formulation mathematics quavery a priori synthetic judgment posed inoforder to refute the idea that http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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mathematics is an analytical judgment, namely, a “proof.” Synthetic judgment is posited with respect to—and to respect—the problematic synthesis of a radically split sensibility and understanding; and what renders this split is the existence of the other, of polysystems. This is what Kant sought to address with his concept the thing-in-itself. 2.3

Transcendental Apperception

In Critique of Pure Reason , Kant seems to maintain that cognition (qua synthetic judgment) is established by transcendental subjectivity (or apperception). This does not entail, however, that cognition (e.g., that of natural science) is established without the intervention of other subjects, unlike the case of art. Neither does this entail that synthetic judgment is automatically and easily established. Rather, in his Critique of Pure Reason , Kant focuses on a specific inquiry: If cognition, which must be synthetic judgment, can be established at all, then in what form? Kant’s presupposition of the transcendental sub ject (or apperception) has also been criticized by postlinguistic turn philosophers. But it is impossible to eradicate the problematic whole proposed by Kant (and, for that matter, by Descartes) by shedding light on thinking or the subject from the vantage point of language alone. Saussure insisted that language is a social system. If so, how can he grasp langue , which is a synchronic system? It is impossible to identify this problematic empirically, quite simply because it is impossible to survey the whole event of langue , that is, all the varieties of words used at this moment. It follows that what Saussure calls langue —to him, as French speaker—is technically the sum of all the French words hedeparts knows from at this transcendental moment. In other words, Saussure’s linguistics really introspection. He says that langue is not substantive; it exists only in the speaking subject. He rejects the conventional account, according to which a sign expresses a certain meaning, because whenever there is a meaning to a “speaking subject,” then there is also a form that discriminates the meaning—and the reverse is impossible. Langue exists not as an ob ject, but is considered to exist as meanings are mutually communicated. Saussure also spokeinsofar of langue as a synchronic system—but http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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such a whole is only presumed after the fact, from his own language experience. In the Saussurean system, and its legacy, a word is the “synthesis” of the signifiant (the sensible) and the signifié (the suprasensible). But the crucial point here is that such a synthesis is established only ex post facto—that it makes sense to me . In the end, when Saussure suggested that form (le signifiant ) constitutes a differential, relational system, the architectonic of the system tacitly took as a premise what Kant had already called “transcendental apperception.” It is Roman Jakobson who began to clarify this point. He opposed Saussure’s notion that “in language there are only differences, and without positive terms .”27 He thought it would be possible to order the phonetic organization Saussure had left in a jumble by reconstructing it as a bundle of binary oppositions. Modern specialists in the field of acoustics wonder with bewilderment how it is possible that in thea human eargiven has no the great variety of sounds language thatdifficulty they areinsorecognizing numerous and their variations so imperceptible. Can it really be that it is a purely auditory faculty that is involved here. No, not at all! What we recognize in spoken language is not sound differences in themselves but the different uses to which they are put by the language, i.e., differences which, though without meaning in themselves, are used in discriminating one from another entities of a higher level (morphemes, words).28

Phonemes are not the same as voice/sounds; they are “form” that comes into existence as differentiality only after entities of a higher level are presupposed. The same can be said of morphemes, words, and even sentences; they, too, are all extracted as differentiality (or form) only when entities of respectively higher levels are presupposed. This means that “structures” always and tacitly are premised on the “transcendental subjectivity” that synthesizes them. Nevertheless, structuralists thought it possible to do away with, and even deny, transcendental subjectivity, because they presumed the existence of a function that, though nonexistent substantially, makes a system a system: Thus the zero sign. Jakobson introduced the zero phoneme in order to complete the phonemic system. “A zerophoneme,” he wrote, “is opposed to all other French phonemes by the absence both of distinctive features and of a consistent sound characteristic. On the other hand, the zero-phoneme is opposed to http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the absence of any phonemes whatsoever.”29 Zero signs of this sort undoubtedly derived from mathematics. For instance, the mathematical structure formulated by Nicolas Bourbaki (André Weil et al.) is a transformational rule that is not visible like form, but is an invisible function. Included as a sine qua non within a transformational rule is a nontransformational function. The zero phoneme Jakobson established corresponds to the unit element e in mathematical transformational groups. Owing to this, a bundle of oppositional relations of phonemes can constitute a structure. Lévi-Strauss was inspired by this assertion of the orderly composition of chaos: “Structural linguistics will certainly play the same renovating role with respect to the social sciences that nuclear physics, for example, has played for the physical sciences.”30 And he applied the Kleinian group (as algebraic structure) in his analysis of the heterogeneous kinship structures among ‘uncivilized’ societies. It was here that structuralism in the narrow sense was born. In the final analysis, however, the zero sign is a restatement of transcendental subjectivity—the nothingness that constitutes the structure of a system—and it is impossible to do away with it. Zero was invented in India, and originally the name for not moving a bead on an abacus-like counting board. If it were not for zero, the numbers, say, 205 and 25 would be indistinguishable. In other words, zero is “opposed to the absence of any number whatsoever.” It introduced the place-value system. In Sanskrit the word for zero is the same as the word for the Buddhist concept of emptiness, sunyata . It is not an exaggeration to say that Buddhist philosophy was developed around this concept.31 When Gilles Deleuze observes that “structuralism is inseparable from a new kind of transcendental phi32

losophy, places surpass what occupies them,” inheplace neglects to add that where a transcendental philosophy was already in the place-value system. Thus structuralism began with an introduction of the “zero sign,” though thereafter structuralists have not bothered to examine its philosophical implications. Instead, they believed they had managed to clear out the ‘modern thought’ originated in the ego cogito. By the time they thought it possible to do away with subjectivity, theythen had forgotten already and jectivity as a however, premise, and it. tacitly conceived of subhttp://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Returning to Saussure, one has to see the significance of his ambiguity—the source of Jakobson’s discontent. Saussure advocated that in language there are only differences. He saw language as value—an idea that represented only chaos for Jakobson. It is important to note, however, that when Saussure saw language as value he had already assumed the existence of the other, that is, different systems of languages (langues ). The emphasis on “only differences in language” was not only made in reference to within one relational system (langue ), but from the beginning was also addressed without —to the existence of a multitude of relational systems ( langues ). Which is to say that Saussure discovered langue by way of an introspection, while at the same time presupposing the externality beyond introspection, or the alterity beyond internalization. Saussure’s skeptical approach toward linguistics departed from the very sense of difference. Accordingly, it might be said that Saussure’s linguistics was a Kantian critique of two existing tendencies: on the one hand, Wilhelm von Humboldt’s early nineteenth-century linguistics, which considered languages as Volksgeist , and, on the other, historical linguistics, which observed the transformation of language, as if due to a natural scientific law, as an object independent of consciousness. Against the former, Saussure’s approach rejected the internal coherence of language, and emphasized it against the latter. In other words, his ambivalence lay in the fact that he considered langue as an enclosed synchronic system, even as he negated such an internal coherence. From this perspective, the meaning of Saussure’s statement that language is social becomes clear. He is not simply saying that language is a fait social (Durkheim) beyond individual consciousness; nor is he simply saying that individual existonly onlyas inone a larger relational system. Those accounts considerterms language langue — one system or community, and as such they are restatements of transcendental subjectivity. But language is properly social only when it is seen as, and in, communication with the other—with those others who belong to other systems of rules ( langues ) or communities. As I noted earlier, Wittgenstein sought to scrutinize linguistic communication innot thefrom context teaching foreigners. He negated pri vate language the of conventional position—that language is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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a rule of a community—but from a heterology that sees language in that kind of “social” communication wherein those who belong to different communities encounter each other. Therefore, if there is such a thing at all as the linguistic turn , it exists not in the denial of subjectivity from the vantage point of language, but rather in a discovery of subject within the “doubt” fostered in the field of social difference. Such is the transcritical critical place.


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3.1

Subject and Its Topos

Kant’s transcendental critique has been attacked for being a successor to the Cartesian method that constitutes the world by way of the cogito . It is possible to defend Kant against this position by pointing out a number of characteristics that dissociate him from Descartes. But instead of doing this now, I would like to reconsider Descartes himself, who is being nearly unanimously attacked nowadays. In his Discourse on Method (1637), Descartes speaks autobiographically about the motives behind his overall skepticism: reading old books he had learned that discourses on truth vary according to different historical contexts; and by traveling he had learned that truths themselves are the constructs of grammars and customs of communities. He wrote: and, having recognized since then, in traveling, that all those who have sentiments very contrary to ours are not, for that reason, barbarians or savages, but that many of them make use of reason as much as or more than we do; and, having considered how much different one and the same man, with his very same mind, being brought up from his infancy among the French or the Germans, becomes from that which he would be if he had always lived among the Chinese or the cannibals; and how, even down to the very fashions of our clothing, the same thing that pleased us ten years ago, and that will perhaps please us once again ten years hence, now seems to us extravagant and ridiculous—so that it is much more custom and example that persuade us than any certain knowledge, and yet the voices of the majority http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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are not a proof that be worth anything for truths even a little difficult to discover, because it is much more likely that one man alone had found them than that a whole people had: having learned, having recognized and having considered all this, I say, I was unable to choose anyone whose opinions might have seemed to me to have to be preferred to those of the others, and I found myself constrained, as it were, to undertake to guide myself by myself.1

It is commonly said that Descartes was a solipsist who closed off dialogue and sought to secure truth by way of his concept of ego . As is evident in the passage just cited, however, Cartesian doubt begins from his realization that the truths people believe in are simply determined by the “example and custom” of the community to which they belong, namely, by shared rules and paradigms. That is to say that Descartes had already been observing the world in the manner of a cultural anthropologist. As I pointed out earlier, many postlinguistic-turn philosophers reject methods such as his, motivated as they appear to be in introspection. But the reason Descartes himself tended toward introspection in the first place was because his predecessors of the philosophia scholastica —whether nominalist or realist— had all thought within the frame of the “grammar” of the Indo-European language group. In this respect, the Cartesian cogito is nothing if not the awareness that our thought is always already bound by language. In Kant’s terminology, this is the “transcendental” standpoint toward language. The transcendental position is equivalent to bracketing the imagined self-evidence of the empirical consciousness in order to reveal the (unconscious) conditions that constitute it. What is crucial here is that the transcendental standpoint inexorably accompanies a certain kind of subjectivity . According to Wittgenstein, as we have also seen, skepticism is made possible by a language game; it is a part of the game. Certainly, today, beginning from Cartesian doubt is already a language game. But what Descartes doubted originally was the specific game of skepticism that had been dominant since antiquity. As he framed the problem of doubt in Discourse on Method , “Not that I were, in order to do this, to imitate the skeptics, who doubt only in order to doubt, and who affect being always undecided: for, on the contrary, my whole plan tended only toward assuring me, and toward casting http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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aside the shifting earth and the sand in order to find the rock or the clay.”2 Certainly, today, this doubt is incorporated into modern philosophy, supporting as it does the philosophy of subjectivity. And, isn’t precisely such an institutionalized doubt what Wittgenstein sought to undermine? In fact, Wittgenstein, too, called the proper stance from which to inquire about philosophical issues, from the vantage point of language, “transcendental.”3 Here it is possible to find Wittgenstein’s otherwise concealed “change of attitude,” though he never spoke of it himself. Meanwhile, many of those who advocate the linguistic turn in the philosophical context, though often invoking Wittgenstein, forget the problematic of a certain cogito that is already inexorably involved in the change of attitude. Let us take up the example of another one of Descartes’ major critics, Lévi-Strauss. Speaking of a traditional ethnographer, he criticizes the cogito as follows: “Here they are,” he says of his contemporaries, “unknown strangers, nonbeings to me since they so wished it! But I detached from them and from everything, what am I? This is what remains for me to seek” (First Walk). Paraphrasing Rousseau, the ethnographer could exclaim as he first sets eyes on his chosen savages, “Here they are, then, unknown strangers, non-beings to me, since I wished it so! And I, detached from them and from everything, what am I? This is what I must find out first.” To attain acceptance of oneself in others (the goal assigned to human knowledge by the ethnologist), one must first deny the self in oneself. To Rousseau we owe the discovery of this principle, the only one on which to base the science of man. Yet it was to remain inaccessible and incomprehensible as long as there reigned a philosophy which, taking the Cogito as its point of departure, was imprisoned by the hypothetical evidences of the self; and which could aspire to founding a physics only at the expense of founding sociology and even a biology. Descartes believes that he proceeds directly from a man’s interiority to the exteriority of the world, without seeing that societies, civilizations—in other words, worlds of men— place themselves between these two extremes.4

I return momentarily to Descartes, after noting that while LéviStrauss does pass Descartes off as a villain here, this move is strategic. His real targets are certain successors of Cartesianism in France— Sartre in particular. On the other hand, Discourse on Method had already been written from the standpoint of an anthropologist. The http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Cartesian cogito was originally what James Clifford called an “anthropological Cogito.” Writing as an anthropologist, Descartes continues the passage as follows: It is true that, so long as I did nothing but consider the customs of other men, I found there hardly anything of which to assure myself, and that I noticed there almost as much diversity as I had previously done among the opinions of philosophers. So the greatest profit that I derived therefrom was that, seeing many things that, although they seem to us very extravagant and ridiculous, do not cease to be commonly accepted and approved among other great peoples, I learned not to believe too firmly anything of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom; and thus I delivered myself, little by little, from many errors that can obfuscate our natural light and render us less capable of listening to reason. But, after I had spent some years thus studying in the book of the world and trying to acquire some experience, I one day made the resolution to study within myself, too, and to employ all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths that I should follow. In this I succeeded much better, it would seem to me, than if I had never been away, either from my country or from my book.5

Reading this, it is impossible for us not to associate Descartes with Lévi-Strauss, among the most merciless of his critics. For instance, the retrospective style in Tristes tropiques (1955) is in important respects reminiscent of the Discourse on Method . After receiving his degree in philosophy, as he relates his story, Lévi-Strauss chose to go abroad instead of continuing study in France—he had hoped to go to Japan first, but could not. It is likely that he would have gone any where that was not the West. In other words, he did not go abroad as an anthropologist. But at this moment, his anthropological inquiry—albeit informal—had already begun moving “away from his country and his book.” Or, more precisely, this was a commencement less of anthropological research than the continuation of a certain, as yet unnamable, “philosophical investigation.” Descartes’ primary concerns had also not entailed the experience of the plurality of places he traveled; and, for his part, Lévi-Strauss expresses this laconic disclaimer about traveling at the beginning of Tristes Tropiques: “I hate traveling and explorers.” For traveling and exploration simply consume and dissolve difference: by traveling we never encounter the difference the other whopeople resists he ourencountered internalization. What Descartes saw inorthe ‘uncivilized’ http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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were not fascinating, interesting strangers, but the other who rejects empathy à la Rousseau . Lévi-Strauss adds a further claim in Tristes tropiques : “The fact that so much effort and expenditure has to be wasted on reaching the object of our studies bestows no value on that aspect of our profession, and should be seen rather as its negative side. The truths that we seek so far afield only become valid when they have been separated from this dross.”6 The truths Lévi-Strauss seeks so far afield— precisely as had Descartes before him—exist only when they have been separated out from the pluralism encountered by traveling and expedition. The ultimate weapon Lévi-Strauss uses against this process is precisely what Descartes’ weapon had been: mathematics (structuralism). Lévi-Strauss acknowledges the existence of universal “reason” against/within the various myths and marriage systems he eventually encounters. If so, the Lévi-Strauss who considered Rousseau to be founder of anthropology, seeing in him the “principle, the only one on which to base the science of man,” should have quoted Descartes rather than Rousseau, or anybody else. What is more, Lévi-Strauss encountered the same difficulties as had Descartes. The “unconscious structure” he grasps is a deductive entity; and, for this reason, it has been subjected to innumerable criticisms by positivist anthropologists. For him, contrary to his critics, the last standard upon which to judge the adequacy of hypothetical models lies in whether or not they have a “higher explanatory value” that is “itself consistent.” And it is the role of experimentation to examine this value and internal consistency. This is definitely a different method from any that seeks an inductive theorization adduced from the collection of empirical data. To the precise contrary, this the Cartesian method in parthe excellence—which is hardly limited to orisby the natural sciences narrow sense. Lévi-Strauss’s method contributed mightily to an intellectual revolution, the advent of structuralism, very much because he chose to start from the axiomatic (or formal) operation by transcendentally reducing the empirical consciousness of both the observed and the observer. Michel Serres has maintained that “structure” should be defined a sheerly “imported” from“only contemporary formalasmathematics. Structureconcept, as such namely, is achieved when the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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formal sets of elements and relations can be extracted” by excluding content (or meaning); and, as he stresses, the structuralist analysis engendered a new methodical spirit and was an important revolution with respect to the question of meaning.7 But what one must acknowledge precisely here is that the founder of structuralism in this sense was neither Saussure nor Marx, and certainly not Rousseau, but Descartes. For he himself innovated mathematics itself instead of just ‘importing’ concepts from mathematics to his philosophy. The axiomatism of contemporary mathematics derived not from Euclid’s geometry but from Descartes’ analytical geometry, which transposed perceptive geometric figures into the coordinate of numbers. This inevitably introduced the problem of “real numbers,” as distinct from natural numbers, and led to the advent of the post-Cantorian theory of sets. So far, I have deliberately tried to defend Descartes from those who attack him as an (hypothetical) enemy. But it is impossible to deny the fact that there was a confusion in Descartes himself which made his accusers almost inevitable. The problem concerns the discrimination between “to doubt [dubitare ]” and “to think [cogitare ]”. In Discourse on Method , Descartes reflects that the existence of the doubting subject cannot be denied after doubting everything else. But then, just after this, he quickly concludes with his famous, or infamous, “I think, therefore, I am [cogito, ergo sum ]”. Nonetheless, “doubting” and “thinking”—or the “subject of doubt [res dubitans ]” and the “subject of thinking [res cogitans ]”—must be different. Descartes posits “thinking” as the ground of all actions: “But what, then, am I? A thing that thinks. What is a thing that thinks? That is to say, a thing that doubts, perceives, affirms, denies, wills, does not will, that imagines also, and which feels.”8 Kant called this kind of thinking subject a “transcenden

tal subject of thought X.” I(This could also belike written as the scendental subject,” though do not necessarily this kind of “tranword play.) To Kant it is apperception that can never be represented, and for him Descartes’ formulation that “it is (or I am) [sum ]” is a fallacy. Cartesian cogito is dogged by the ambiguity between “I doubt” and “I think”; furthermore, the ambiguity is inevitable as far as trying to speak of the transcendental ego is concerned. Descartes writes: For a long time I had noticed that, as for morals, it is sometimes necessary to follow opinions that one knows to be quite uncertain, all the same as if


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they were indubitable, as has been said above; but, because I then desired to devote myself solely to the search for the truth, I thought that it was necessary that I were to do completely the contrary, and that I were to reject, as absolutely false, all that in which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see whether there would remain, after that, something in my beliefs that were entirely indubitable. [. . .] I resolved to feign that all the things that had ever entered my mind were no more true than the illusions of my dreams. But, immediately afterward, I took note that, while I wanted thus to think that everything was false, it necessarily had to be that I, who was thinking this, were something. And noticing that this truth—I think, therefore I am—was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were not capable of shaking it, I judged that I could accept it, without scruple, as the first principle of the philosophy that I was seeking. 9

Note the sudden jump that occurs between “I doubt” and “I think.” In Descartes, “I doubt” is a personal determination of will. And this “I” is a singular existence—Descartes himself (1). In a sense, (1) is an empirical self, and is simultaneously the doubting subject (2), who doubts the empirical subject (1)—by way of which the transcendental ego (3) is discovered. In Descartes’ discourse, however, the relationship between these three phases of the ego is blurred. When Descartes says, “I am [ sum ],” if he means that his “transcendental ego exists,” it is a fallacy, as Kant said. For the transcendental ego is something that can only be thought, but cannot be or exist , that is, it cannot be intuited . On the other hand, Spinoza interpreted “I think, therefore I am” as neither a syllogism nor a reasoning but as meaning simply, “I am as I think” or “I am thinking [ ego sum cogitans ]”; or, even more simply and definitively, “man thinks [homo cogi- tant ]”.10 But, speaking more realistically, the Cartesian, “I think, therefore I am,” means “I am as I doubt [ego sum dubitans ].” The “determination” to doubt the self-evidence of the psychological ego cannot simply originate from a psychological ego, but neither can it from the transcendental ego that is discovered by doubt. If this is so, however, what exists? Actually, as I will show later, the correct way of formulating the question is not, “what exists?” but “who is it? ” But this move requires a detour through Husserl. The question—What exists?—was hardly irrelevant to Kant. For in the transcendental critique, the “determination” to bracket empirical self-evidence, or “I criticize [reprehendo ],” is omnipresent, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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notwithstanding the fact that Kant did not mention it. The ultimate importance of the Discourse on Method lies in the fact that it revealed another problem in the sum : how does the “I” who brackets all self-evidence exist?—though Descartes never touched upon it again after this particular text. (To Kant, too, the problematic of sum was finally imperative. As I touch upon later, the Kantian transcendental critique was not simply abstract and theoretical, but a matter of his own existence.) On the other hand, Husserl criticized Kant, to develop transcendental phenomenology, by returning to Descartes. “Accordingly,” Husserl wrote, “one might almost call transcendental phenomenology a neo-Cartesianism, even though it is obliged—and precisely by its radical development of Cartesian motifs—to reject nearly all the well-known doctrinal content of the Cartesian philosophy.”11 In the place of considering the transcendental ego as apperception, as had Kant, Husserl considered it, as had Descartes, to be a ground from which solid science can be deduced, and thought it imperative to de velop this line more persistently and rigorously than had his predecessor. In this context, Husserl made a noteworthy point: We can describe the situation also on the following manner. If the Ego, as naturally immersed in the world, experiencingly and otherwise, is called “interested” in the world, then the phenomenologically altered—and, as so altered, continually maintained—attitude consists in a splitting of the Ego: in that the phenomenological Ego established himself as “disinterested onlooker,” above the naively interested Ego. That this takes place is then itself accessible by means of a new reflection, which, as transcendental, likewise demands the very same attitude of looking on “disinterestedly”—the Ego’s sole remaining interest being to see and to describe adequately what he sees, purely as seen, as what is seen and seen in such and such manner.12

Here Husserl not only distinguishes between psychological ego and phenomenological (or transcendental) ego, but also points out the being of the I who further observes the “splitting of the Ego” as an “onlooker.” This ego exists as a will to phenomenological (or transcendental) reduction—which is, for Husserl, equivalent to the “willing” to forge philosophy into a science built on an absolutely solid ground. In the strict sense, therefore, it is insufficient to point out the existence of only two kinds of ego—psychological and transcendental. Husserl continues, “Obviously it can be said that, as an Ego in the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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natural attitude, I am likewise and at all times a transcendental Ego, but that I know about this only by executing phenomenological reduction.”13 Which is to say that there are three egos: the empirical ego; the ego who seeks to transcendentally reduce that ego; and the ego who is transcendentally discovered as a result. In this account, Husserl recovers the distinction between “I doubt” and “I think” that Descartes had blurred, namely, the distinction between the I who doubts (or executes the transcendental reduction) and the transcendental subjectivity (who is discovered by it). Husserl attempts to constitute the world by the transcendental ego, including other egos, yet he does not consider the ego to be a substance, as had Descartes. The Husserlian transcendental ego is the intentional function (noesis ) of consciousness, which intervenes in the intentional object (noema ). With this formulation, Husserl thought he had given philosophy the right to constitute beings from consciousness. This is different from Fichte’s earlier attempt, in the more immediate post-Kantian context, to constitute the world by the transcendental ego. For, in Husserl’s case, the transcendental ego is sustained by the “willing”—itself an empirical consciousness—that discovers it by a transcendental change of attitude. But Husserl’s new distinction confronts him with a serious paradox: the world is constituted by the transcendental ego, yet the “I” who wills to doubt everything belongs to the same world. As Husserl himself put it: This is precisely the difficulty. Universal intersubjectivity, into which all ob jectivity, everything that exists at all, is resolved, can obviously be nothing other than mankind; and the latter is undeniably a component part of the world. How can a component part of the world, its human subjectivity, constitute the whole world, namely, constitute it as its intentional formation, one which has always already become what it is and continues to develop, formed by the universal interconnection of intentionally accomplishing subjectivity, while the latter, the subjects accomplishing in cooperation, are themselves only a partial formation within the total accomplishment. The subjective part of the world swallows up, so to speak, the whole world and thus itself too. What an absurdity!14

Husserl believed that “the paradox of human subjectivity: being a subject of the world at the same time as being an object in the world” was resolvable. He sought to do so by transforming it into a http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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new question: “How I can have, beyond my individual self-consciousness, a general, a transcendental-intersubjective consciousness?”15 However, this only leads to yet another aporia: Can the other egos be constituted by the ego? With respect to this question, Husserl first explained the constitution of the other Ego by way of a “self-transposition-into [Selbsthineinversetzen ],” a Blickwechsel , toward what appears as the object (or body): “Because of its sense-constitution [the Other] occurs necessarily as an ‘intentional modification’ of that Ego of mine which is the first to be Objectivated, or as an intentional modification of my primordial ‘world’: the Other as phenomenologically a ‘modification’ of myself.”16 After all, for Husserl, the other is no more than a “modification of myself.” He finds the “alterity,” being other, in the self-differentiation (the distinction between self and nonself) within the transcendental ego. There is no doubt that the otherness of the other is absent in this move. Everything occurs inside the transcendental ego: “Within and by means of this ownness the transcendental Ego constitutes, however, the ‘Objective’ world, as a universe of being that is other than himself—and constitutes, at the first level, the other in the mode: alter Ego.”17 Husserl maintains that his solipsism is tentative, heuristic, and methodological—one which should be overcome by an association of monads, namely, intersubjectivity. But, as is already evident, the other whom Husserl sought to constitute cannot be deemed the veritable other in our transcritical context. Earlier I argued that Kant introduced the other in order to attain the universality of science. This otherness appears under the name thing-in-itself, or it is the otherness grasped by way of the passivity of sensibility. Husserl borrowed the term “transcendental” from Kant— but only order to return to Descartes, ignoring Kant. Husserl could notin acknowledge the structures of Kant’s architectonic: sensibility, understanding, and reason; thing-in-itself, phenomenon, and idea (transcendental illusion). If Kant’s transcendental critique appeared to Husserl to be impure, it was precisely because it contained the heterology, the “other’s standpoint.” Kant maintained that one can think of—but not intuit—the thingin-itself, that, if not for Husserl’s this discrimination, onethewould entrappedand by antinomy. Thus paradox is just same be as http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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what Kant meant by antinomy. For instance, there is nothing new in Husserl’s argument that “grasping the whole world, we are within it; or vice versa: being in the world, we grasp it; saying that we are nowhere but in this world, we are on the meta-level of the world.” Husserl encountered it at the end of his inquiries, but it is the problem he really should have confronted at the very outset. That is to say that “being other” should not be a conclusion, because it is that which motivates the transcendental critique from the first. It should be said that Husserlian phenomenology is ultimately a solipsism that has no way out. In his Speech and Phenomenon , Derrida rebuked Husserlian phenomenology as phonocentrism and West centrism. But the same critique cannot be applied to Kant. As I have said many times, his transcendental position is initiated by a pronounced parallax, that is, notably dogged by otherness. While Husserl saw his philosophical ground in the West since ancient Greece, Kant was a cosmopolitan. He neither traveled nor exiled himself like Descartes; he lectured mainly on geography and anthropology; he refused an invitation from Berlin University and remained in his hometown, Königsberg. In his case, this refusal to move assumed a kind of transposition. In passing, Descartes was not the kind of thinker that Husserl wanted to make of himself. According to Husserl, Descartes has sought to secure the validity of the transcendental ego’s constitution of the world by way of God, instead of intersubjectivity, before moving on to his existential proof of God. There are three kinds of proof in Descartes, two of which are the same as those put forth by Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) and the philosophia scholastica . The one that is original to Descartes is expressed in the following passage from Discourse on Method : [E]ngaging in reflection thereupon that I doubted, and that, as a consequence, my being was not totally perfect, for I clearly saw that it is a greater perfection to know than to doubt, I decided to search for the source from which I had learned to think of something more perfect than I was; and I knew evidently that this had to be from some nature that were, in effect, more perfect.18

Descartes scrutinized this problem further in the third of his Medita- tions on the First Philosophy (1641), in what might well be called a proof after the effect. This proof for the existence of God by no means belongs on the same level as the previous ones. Descartes had


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demonstrated the validity of the existence of res cogitans by the fact that the doubting self itself remains after doubting everything. In his proof of God’s existence, he again invoked “I doubt [reprehendo ].” The difference here, however, is that, instead of the transcendental cogito, a doubting singularity now appears. If so, what does this “proof” really indicate? Punning on Spinoza’s interpretation of cogito, Descartes is saying that I am as I doubt—thanks to the existence of what makes me doubt. What compels Descartes’ doubt is the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of discourses, and in being-other to the community one belongs to. The heterogeneity, the difference, is not what one produces; and it is not that which is grasped from the vantage point of identity. When one says the multitude of cultural systems are different, for example, one tacitly takes for granted the existence of a common, objective world. To Descartes, however, the existence of the objective world had to be founded in the first place. Seen from this perspective, one recognize that what Descartes called God was the very difference that compelled him to doubt, namely, the otherness that can never be internalized. In the final analysis, and from the very beginning, what is hidden under doubting is the alterity—the otherness of the other. Pascal accused Descartes of wanting to do away with God, if possible. And if one really tries to do away with God, one should just restate ‘God’ as ‘the other’—who is not transcendent and absolute, but relative. The crux of Cartesian doubt Cogito is that it was constantly dogged by the other. This crucial problem of transcriticism was effectively lost after Descartes’ Medita- tions , which corresponded, in turn, to his own loss of “being as doubting” and its external mode of existence. And so it was that 

Lévi-Strauss, too,that losthis hisstance “anthropological Cogito” intoward his later Once he stated would be progressive hisyears. own culture and conservative toward the objective cultures; finally, he ended up being conservative toward his own culture as well. 3.2

Transcendental and Transversal

Der Verlust der natürlichen Selbstverständlichkeit In ., W. Blankenburg called schizophrenia a “living phenomenological reduction.” http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Phenomenologists methodologically bracket the self-evidence of the life world—that is, I exist and the objective world exists—based upon the premise that they can unbracket it anytime they want. For schizophrenics, on the other hand, the self-evidence is always already lost. Schizophrenics know that they exist and the world exists, but they cannot sense it vividly; for them it is tremendously difficult to live the world of self-evidence, namely, to unbracket phenomenological reduction. And if, in contrast, phenomenologists can bracket and unbracket self-evidence at will, then by what means? Hume radically questioned the Cartesian ego cogito , arguing that there are multiple I s—multiple egos in one person’s being—and that identical subjectivity as such exists only customarily—such as a republic or commonwealth—as an imaginary union of the I s. In regard to this kind of skepticism, he expressed his feelings as follows: “We have, therefore, no choice left but betwixt a false reason and none at all. For my part, I know not what ought to be done in the present case. I can only observe what is commonly done; which is, that this difficulty is seldom or never thought of; and even where it has once been present to the mind; is quickly forgot, and leaves but a small impression behind it.”19 But then he is quick to correct himself. But what have I here said, that reflections very refined and metaphysical have little or no influence upon us? This opinion I can scarce forbear retracting, and condemning from my present feeling and experience. The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to re ject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what cause do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty. Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, orthese by some avocation, andIlively of my senses, which obliterate all chimeras. I dine, play aimpression game of back-gammon, I converse, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hour’s amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any further. 20

Even after this correction, however, Hume continues to spell out his contradictory feelings about skepticism: It is just empty and frivolous, it results in self-destruction, and so on. These depictions tell us that, for Hume as for Descartes, to doubt was never merely some sort of intellectual puzzle. It induced in him an almost morbid state of mind. But then, after dining with friends and having other diversions, he manages—somehow—to regain the world of self-evidence. From the Kantian standpoint, what this transformative event points to, if negatively, is that the transcendental Ego (or apperception) exists . The nature of Kantian apperception is that it is revealed as the lack of itself. In the reading of Heidegger, it is nothing as a being but exists as an ontological To Hume, practicingfunction. transcendental reduction by bracketing the world of self-evidence—and then coming back to the same world by unbracketing—could never be voluntary. If it is true that the only distinction between philosophers and psychotics is that the former can bracket and unbracket freely and the latter cannot, then David Hume definitely belongs to the latter group. If, however, Hume is not not a psychotic, it would be wrong define philosophers— scholars of philosophy, of course—as freetoagents of bracketing. In a certain sense, they, too, are compelled to doubt the world of self-evidence. It seems that philosophers intentionally deplete the self-evidence of the world, but perhaps they do so because they have already lost self-evidence from the beginning. I am not trying to say that philosophers are close to or candidates for schizophrenia, but I am sug-

gesting that the transcendental reduction in philosophy cannot merely be a methodology. Socrates attributed the commencement of his skepticism to the oracle of Apollo, while Descartes attributed his to a dream. But these two cases nevertheless indicate the same thing: their doubts are not motivated simply by their spontaneous wills. Doubting is not a game we opt to play, but a produced, constructed experience. Doubting, in tandem with the subject that exists as doubting, ensues from http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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realistically existing difference or otherness. Yet this subject is definitely different from the transcendental subject. In contrast to Descartes, Kant spoke little of it, save with respect to the criticizing self. “Now, this is the path—the only one that remained—which I have pursued, and I flatter myself to have found on it the elimination of all the errors that had thus far set reason, as used independently of experience, at variance with itself.”21 The “I” spoken here is this I , namely, Immanuel Kant himself. This is neither a transcendental ego, nor an empirical ego; for this I is the one that doubts the empirical I , and, we shall see in a moment, it is the most crucial to the transcritical context. Unlike Descartes, however, Kant did not confuse the “doubting I” with the “thinking I.” A critique that assesses what our cognitive powers can accomplish a priori does not actually have a domain as regards objects. For it is not a doctrine: its only tasksituation) is to investigate whether and how ourrealm powers allow us (when given their to produce a doctrine. The of this critique extends to all the claims that these powers make, in order to place these powers within the boundaries of their rightful [use].22

The transcendental critique is distinct from the faculties discovered by it; it does not belong to any domain of the faculties. So where does the critique come from? From the topos on which Kant was standing—namely, the “interstice” between empiricism and rationalism. For Kant, empiricism and rationalism were not simply two scholastic doctrines. Between them he encountered the paradox between being in the world and being the subject who constitutes the world—the same paradox as the one with which Husserl was to struggle. Taken together, empiricism and rationalism struck Kant as a “pronounced parallax”—and, as I have already mentioned, this is where Kant’s critique began. For him, the “critique” was inseparable from his “being as criticizing,” that is, externalized existence. In contrast to Descartes, Kant did not speak of “I doubt [ dubito ].” Consequently, the critical cogito after Descartes existed in certain thinkers—including Kant—who kept quiet about it, or even publicly negated it. The first major example is Spinoza, the first of Descartes’ extensive critics. Descartes himself, in his later work, considered thinking http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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and extension to be two substances. But, as he put it in Discourse on Method , if thinking is determined by grammar and customs, it is also just a “machine” in the broad sense. The crux of the Cartesian cogito existed only in the “doubts”: What if we are just made to think, while we believe we actively think? What if we are enframed by sham problems charged by language? For his part, Spinoza considered thinking and extension to be two aspects of “one and the same substance.” By this move, however, it is not that Spinoza negated the Cartesian cogito; rather, he sought to recover its critical function. For Spinoza, God is equal to the world; and Descartes’ “free will” and “God,” far from going beyond the world, are just representations produced within the world. In a sense different from Heidegger, Spinoza implied that humans are beings-in-the-world/nature and cannot transcend it. This was a critique of Cartesianism, but not, in the properly transcritical sense, a denial of “being as doubting [dubitans ].” In fact, though denying free will, Spinoza thought it possible that humans could be relatively liberated from the rule of passion by re vealing the cause of being ruled. In other terms, Spinoza affirmed the freedom of will to cognize the world; yet again, this will should not be spoken of positively, for it cannot be separated from the sum : “being as doubting [dubitans ].” Indeed, this is precisely his Ethica . Spinoza was himself a singular cogito who refused to belong to any community; his was an externalized existence. He was not a temporary refugee, like Descartes, but lived in the interstice of nowhere land, having been excommunicated not only from the Christian church but also from the Judaic synagogue. Making the interstice difference itself his world, Spinoza literally lived ego sum dubitans . He 

never spoke of the except the when wrote of Descartes. Which, however, doescogito, not contradict facthe that he himself existed as a cogito. The one and only substance for Spinoza, God world, implies his transcendentalization of the space in between individual systems; and by this, Spinoza undermines all the grounds of selfevidence inherent in those systems. But our task here is to return Descartes’ dubito to the empirical 

world from whence it originated—not toor recuperate orphilosophers’ recontexualize by Husserl’s “transcendental motive,” by so many http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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will to understand everything transparently. But return is not the same thing as a straightforward going back to the empirical world. Instead, we have to reconsider Descartes’ sum , especially in the way it is coextensive with dubitans —that is, reconsider sum transcendentally. From this perspective, cogito sum reveals itself as being similar to, but also radically different from, the Being of beings that Heidegger disclosed. Here is Heidegger’s formulation of the problem: sum ’ is to serve as the point of departure for the existential If the ‘cogito analytic of Dasein, then it needs to be turned around, and furthermore its content needs new ontologico-phenomenal confirmation. The ‘sum ’ is then asserted first, and indeed in the sense that “I am in a world.” As such an entity, ‘I am’ in the possibility of Being towards various ways of comporting myself—namely, cogitationes —as ways of Being alongside entities within-the world. Descartes, on the contrary, says that cogitanes are present-at-hand, and that in these an ego is present-at-hand too as a worldless res cogitans .23

Heidegger undeniably inverts the order of “cogito ” and “sum .” In other words, his starting point is not cogito but “being there [ Dasein ]” as in being-in-the-world [in-der-Welt-sein ]. In this manner, Heidegger believed he had succeeded in overturning the thought initiated in the Cartesian ego. But while this might be a critique of Husserl, it is by no means a critique of either Descartes or Kant. Heidegger transfigured the Kantian distinction between the empirical and transcendental levels to that between the ontic and the ontological, and emphasized this shift as if it were his own invention. He also persisted in stressing the importance of the transcendental ego as nothing, namely, Being—as opposed to the empirical egos of beings. But he never mentioned a word about the external beings who exist between communities. For this reason, his “being there [ Dasein ]” is at the same a “Being-with [Mitsein ].” Which, him,orhowever, meant (thetime German) here there is no for margin gap for Volk . And the doubting cogito, the singular existence, ever to emerge. Still, if one dares to persist in using ontological terms, one could induce ontology from Cartesian doubt in the following manner. Cogito qua dubito is the awareness of the difference between systems, and sum is being in between them. What is really commonly concealed in Heidegger philosophyclaimed, is not the difference betweendifference beings and Being, as but the transcendental or http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the interstice—the very thing Heidegger himself ended up concealing by his political ontology. And so it is also that Heidegger interpreted the Kantian transcendental critique exclusively along its vertical vector, to its depth. For me, by contrast, transcendental critique should be considered and practiced— at the same time —along its transversal vector. And I call this multidimensional oscillating engagement “transcritique.” Now, in criticizing Descartes, Heidegger returned to the preSocratics. To be kept always in mind here, however, is the fact that these thinkers were foreigners to Athens. Being in the Mediterranean space of intercourse, they thought in the interstices, or intermundia — to use Marx’s favorite term from Epicurus.24 They did not depart from any polis as the self-evident premise of their thinking. Parmenides, for example, defied the Gods, and Heraclitus rebuked community rituals. As Ortega y Gasset said, “It was in them [other cities] and not in Athens that this new type of individual was formed.”25 Although it was the center of politics and information, Athens was initially less developed with respect to thinking than were the margins of the Greek world. The people of the Athenian community, who were enjoying their politico-economic hegemony, suddenly experienced an inundation of the paradoxa of previously unknown thinkers. “For a ‘people’ [Athenians] as profoundly reactionary and intensely adherent to traditional beliefs, it was an extremely unsettling experience.”26 In this climate, Socrates occupied quite an ambiguous positionality. Executed by Athenians as a dangerous thinker whose faith was informed by foreign elements, to his mind he was a genuine Athenian, faithful to the polis . Unlike foreigners, he did not charge for his teaching. Instead of purging foreign thought, of the his dialogue, Socrates scrutinized and internalized it. by In means actuality, dialogue itself is the very form that excludes the other heterogeneous as well as the thinker merchant. The fact that Socrates himself was excluded came to conceal his oppression of the other-heterogeneous. In Plato, Socrates’ ‘execution’ assumes the same significance as that of Jesus’ death for the Apostle Paul. Which is to say that Plato dra

matized onewhole of many contingent of can the time, as Socrates’ a sacrificedeath, for the community of executions the polis . We http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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never know who Socrates really was, but at least we know what Plato accomplished in Socrates’ name: the way of excluding external thought by internalizing and detoxifying its radicality. In Plato’s philosophy, just as in Hegel’s, all anterior thoughts are superseded [aufheben ] or elevated stored abolished. Plato’s dialectics (dialo- gos ), established by the exclusion of otherness, were another monologue (monologos ). So when Heidegger praises Parmenides and Heraclitus while attacking Plato, I cannot help but be skeptical about his intentions, as when he writes: “Parmenides stood on the same ground as Heraclitus. Where indeed would we expect these two Greek thinkers, the inaugurators of all philosophy, to stand if not in the being of the essent?”27 What does the expression “in the being [Sein] of the essent [Seiendes]” mean? Heidegger’s sophistic rhetoric and forced etymology blind us to a much more crucial matter—the fact that these philosophers stood in between communities. According to Heidegger, Heraclitus saw Being as “the gathering together of the conflicting,” and Parmenides saw identity as “the belonging-together of antagonisms.”28 In the final analysis, all that this really should mean, however, is that they thought in the world as a heterogeneous space of intermundial intercourse, rather than thinking in the space of a community gathered around a univocal set of rules. From the beginning, it is impossible for those within a community to be “inaugurators of all philosophy.” It was only by standing in between communities that Heraclitus was able to see Being as “the gathering together of the conflicting,” and Parmenides to see identity as “the belonging-together of antagonisms.” It is clear that this radical positionality was lost in the Platonic Socrates, who was firmly 



rooted in the community Athens.Plato Problematizing the loss of Being, Heidegger may have of attacked as the instigator of this line of thinking, yet his own positionality was isomorphic to Plato’s— excluding the heterogeneity of the thought that comes from the topos of trade, and internalizing the denuded skeleton of that thought. For Heidegger, in the end, the loss of Being was equal to the loss of the German agrarian community. In our own context, if “lossofofthe Being” any significance at all, should bethe as term the loss topos retains as difference, the loss of the itspace of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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intercourse in the intermundia . And precisely this loss is the proper site of transcritique. 3.3

Singularity and Sociality

Kant drew a keen distinction between universality and generality, similar to the manner in which Spinoza had distinguished idea from concept. While generality can be abstracted from experience, uni versality cannot be attained if not for a certain leap . As I have been arguing all along, the condition for a certain cognition to be universal is not necessarily that it be based upon an a priori rule, but that it be exposed to the judgment of others who follow a different set of rules. Thus far, however, I have been speaking mainly of this condition spatially , which will now have to be dealt with temporally . What I particularly want to stress is this point: The veritable others whom we cannot anticipate are the ones who live in the future. Or, more accurately, the future is truly the future only insofar as it is of the other; the future we can anticipate is not the veritable future. (I deal more fully with ‘the other as the future’ in chapter 4 vis-à-vis Kant and Marx.) Thinking in this manner, it is clear that universality can never be grounded by public consensus, because the latter can be pertinent only to a single community, no matter how large. This does not mean, however, that we can abandon the concept ‘public’. Instead, our task is to change the very meaning of ‘public’—which is precisely what Kant did. In his response to the question, What is enlightenment? Kant answered that it is “man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.” In the concrete, this means becoming a member not (only) of a national community but (also) ofisa that cosmopolitan society. What is noteworthy about this formulation Kant shifted the significations of the public/private pair. The public use of man’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men; the private use of reason may quite often be very narrowly restricted, however, without undue hindrance to the progress of enlightenment. But by the public use of one’s own reason man learning I mean thatreading use which anyone make it as ause the entire . What may I term the of private ofofreason is addressing that which public http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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a person may make of it in a particular civil post or office with which he is entrusted. [. . .] But in so far as this or that individual who acts as part of the machine also considers himself as a member of a complete commonwealth or even of cosmopolitan society [Weltbürgergesellshaft ], and thence a man of learning who may through his writings address a public in the truest sense of the word, he may indeed argue without harming the affairs in which he is employed for some of the time in a passive capacity.29

In common usage, ‘public’, asbut opposed to ‘private’,the is uttered at this the level of community or nation, Kant considered public in sense to be the private domain in reverse. Here is another indispensable aspect of the Kantian turn . This turn exists not simply in the fact that Kant emphasized the precedence of the public domain, but in the fact that he radically transformed the meaning of ‘public’. Within a community, paradoxically, being public cosmopolitan 

appears to be rather individual . In a community, being individual is deemed being private, because it is against the shared public consensus. For Kant, however, being individual is equivalent to being public—in the cosmopolitan sense. Communities and nation-states exist in reality, and so do international organizations centered on certain nation-states, but “cosmopolitan society” or “world-civil-society [Weltbürgergesellshaft ]” in the Kantian sense does not exist in reality. People cannot be members of world-civil-society in the same sense that they belong to their communities. If not for an individual’s will to be cosmopolitan or a world citizen, world-civil-society would not exist. Employing reason in regard to the world-civil-society necessitates consideration of the future other, even at the expense of any present public consensus. It is well known that Hegel negated such a stance as the spirit’s abstract, subjective stage; for him, individuals become universal only as members of a nation-state. In order to avoid possible confusion and misunderstanding here, I would like to redefine several pairs of keywords. First, I stress the distinction between universality and generality. These two words are almost always confused, and the same is true of their opposing concepts: singularity and particularity. Gilles Deleuze drew a lucid distinction between universality and generality in Difference and http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Repetition (1968) while touching upon Kierkegaardian repetition:

“Generality, as generality of the particular, thus stands opposed to repetition as universality of the singular.”30 His point is that while the connection between particularity and generality requires a mediation or a movement, that between singularity and universality is direct and unmediated. Which is to say, sensu stricto, that while generality and individuality are mediated by particularity, the latter pair can never be mediated. Universality in the sense of Romanticism is the equivalent of generality in our context. For instance, while for Hegel individuality is connected to universality (in his case, universality equals generality for this precise reason) by way of particularity (qua the nation-state), for Kant there is no such mediation. What exists in between the terms is only incessant ethical determination (or, for Deleuze, repetition ). This latter way of being individual is precisely the way of being singular. Only the singular man can be universal—this is Kierkegaardian terminology, but it is implicit already in Kant. With respect to sensibility and understanding, Kant invoked what he called the “scheme” as that which synthesizes these terms with imagination. Consider a triangle drawn on a piece of paper. The triangle could be arbitrary and of diverse shape, but we recognize any three lines connected to each other at their endpoints as a triangle in general . Because of the scheme, the individual and the general are synthesized. Later, Ernst Cassirer reformulated this idea as “symbolic form,” just as earlier the Romantics had reconsidered mediation as the particular that synthesizes individuality and universality (equaling generality, in their case). Hegel formulated the problem as follows: “the particular, because it is only the determined universal, is also an individual, and conversely individual,31because is the determinate universal, is just as muchthe a particular.” In otheritwords, the particular includes in itself both the universal and the individual, and constitutes the middle term of the formal syllogism. What the Romantics then introduced—namely, the celebration of language, organicism, nation, and the like—can be seen logically as an orientation of “particularity.” And Georg Lukács criticized Kant for not overcoming segregation between individuality universality, between the sensibility and understanding. Followingand Hegel, who, for http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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him, went beyond Kant’s distinction, Lukács accounts for particularity in the following way: Because in theoretical recognition the movement in both directions oscillates from one extreme to the other, and the middle, the particular, plays a mediating role in either case, in the case of artistic reflection, the middle becomes literally the center, the focal point, where the movements center themselves. Therefore, herein exist both a movement from particularity to universality (and back) as well as a movement from particularity toward singularity (and back), whereas in both cases the movement towards particularity is the determinant one. Particularity now achieves a non-resolvable fixation [unaufhebbare Fixierung ]: and upon this, the world of forms of art works constructs itself. The mutual overturn [Umschlagen ] and fusion [In- einanderübergehen ] of categories are changing: singularity as well as universality appear always resolved [aufgehoben ] in particularity.32

But it was not Hegel who had first proposed this recognition of particularity. It had been well nurtured by the Romantics. Already Johann Gottfried Herder’s concept of language had entailed the particularity that synthesizes sensibility and understanding, individuality and universality. From the start, however, the syllogism linking individuality-particularity-universality (or, in the concrete, individualrace-genus) was not necessarily developed as a property specific to language. For one thing, ‘nation’ has always been considered the middle term (particularity) between individuality and humanity. Furthermore, in between the natural and the spiritual—nature and freedom in Kant’s terms—was posited organism (qua life) as particularity. In fact, for Herder, language was always inseparable from the notion of nation qua organism. Wilhelm von Humboldt’s idea that language is an organism was also derived from Herder. For the Romantics, the idea of nation came to be privileged because of a grounding logic according to which particularity synthesizes, even originates, individuality and universality. Within this logic, it is only particularity that assumes the concrete. This idea is most typically expressed in the famous words of Joseph Marie Compte de Maistre: “there is no such thing as man in the world. In the course of my life I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians etc.; I know, too, thanks to Montesquieu, that one can be a Persian . But as for man , I declare that I have never met him in my life; if he exists, he is unknown to me.”33 http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The individual becomes an individual person primarily within one’s own national language (and nation). The universality of the human being—a human in general—is abstract and empty when the particularity is absent. Hence, the concept ‘cosmopolitan’ has always been scorned, and still is. Yet, for his part, as we now know, Kant never thought of the “world-civil-society” as substance. He never denied that everyone always belongs to a certain community. He simply urged that individuals behave as cosmopolitans in thinking and action. In actuality, being cosmopolitan would be impossible were it not for the struggle of individuals (through enlightenment) within and against their own communities. In the history of philosophy, German Romanticism is customarily categorized as ‘post-Kantian’—after all, it was a movement that came after Kant. But individual thinkers such as Herder and Fichte were in fact Kant’s contemporaries, and often criticized by him.34 Notably, Kant’s “world-civil-society” was a concept coined as a critique of the Romantics’ concept of ‘nation’. Although in Critique of Pure Reason , Kant seems to criticize the metaphysics of the past, his true and more crucial target was the metaphysical drive of reason, as it was being resuscitated in his own time in the form of the nation. Kant maintained that sensibility and understanding are synthesized by the power of imagination [ Einbildungskraft ], which is to say that, from the reverse perspective, the synthesis is just imaginary . Inverting Lukács’s view that Kant could not get beyond the dichotomous crack, we have seen that Kant deliberately rendered a crack in an imaginary synthesis that had long existed. This, to repeat, is the very crux of the Kantian transcendental critique. Now I return to the distinctions between individuality-generality and singularity-universality. In Kant’s terminology, the former pair is empirical, while the latter is transcendental. The pair singularityuniversality reveals the fact that the synthesis by individuality-generality is merely an imaginary construct. After Hegel, Kierkegaard and Max Stirner introduced the concept of “singularity,” each in his own manner. For Hegel, God is anthropomorphized in Christ because a human is already God, which, in Feuerbach’s terms, is to say that individuals “generic essence,”and or “species beings.” It wasare inoriginally order to beings negateofsuch an uncritical dangerous synthesis that Kierkegaard invoked his own concept of ‘singularity’ http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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by seeking to introduce the circuit of singularity-universality in opposition to the circuit of individuality-generality. Singularity is often associated with existentialism, of course, but this is a simpleminded view. In much the same climate as Kierkegaard, Stirner posed the concept of the “single man” or “single ego [der Einzige ]” to criticize Feuerbach, who, despite his materialist overturning of Hegel, had remained within the Hegelian framework. For Stirner, this I is singular, containing no generic essence or species being. Refuting both the Hegelian Geist and the Feuerbachian Wesen as ghosts, Stirner advocated a form of communism as a free “social” association of single men or egos [ Einzigen ]. In The German Ideology , Marx and Engels attempted of course to make Stirner publicly risible, christening him “Saint Max.” But their earlier private correspondence clearly shows Stirner’s importance as a protoform of communism.35 Extending this line of argument, for the Marxian turn to occur, what was required—far beyond any materialist overturning of Hegel—was also the circuit of singularity-universality that severs the double circuit of individual-genus and individuality-generality. (And I return to this later.) It was in the context of his critique of Feuerbach that Marx began to use the adjective ‘social [sozial ]’ as a key concept. It goes without saying that Marx’s ‘social’ is employed in contrast to the traditional community (Gemeinschaft ), but more importantly, it is distinct from civil society (Gesellschaft ), too. In Capital , Marx stressed time and again that the economic exchange begins in the interstice between communities. He reserved the term ‘social’ for the exchange between communities, which is quite distinct from the kinds of exchange based upon the reciprocities of division of labor and gift-giving within a community. It was when the trade with outside worlds was internalized within Gemeinschaft that Gesellschaft was formed. Nevertheless, the latter also came to share the aspects of a community that is shaped around a certain, same set of rules. The ‘social relations’ in the true Marxian sense are the relations with others to which we are tied, though typically without being conscious of the constraint. Men do not therefore bring the products of their labor into relation with each other as values because they see these objects merely as the material integuments of homogeneous human labor. The reverse is true: by equating http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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their different products to each other in exchange as values, they equate their different kinds of labor as human labor. They do this without being aware of it.36

For classical economics, exchange value is internalized within individual commodities. But for Marx, as I have already begun to note, particularly the Marx of Capital , commodities do not have exchange value or even use value if they are not sold (exchanged); if not, they are simply discarded. Marx called the jump of commodity into money “the fatal leap [salto mortale ] of the commodity.” When he speaks, then, of the “sociality” of the commodity or of the labor that produces it, he unequivocally refers to the fatal leap and the inevitable blindness of ours that accompanies it. The synthesis of the two aspects of commodity—use value and exchange value—is akin to Kierkegaard’s “synthesis of finite and infinite.” Losing the rela37 tionship with the to other, the unsold like “the self desperately wanting be himself.” Incommodity this sense, isMarx’s dialectics is not a simple overturning of Hegel but is instead closer to the Kierkegaardian qualitative dialectics. What is crucial to consider at this point is the fact that, radically inscribed in Marx’s sociality, is the moment of singularity—notwithstanding the fact that he re jected Stirner’s “single ego and his own [der Einzige und sein Eigen-

tum as quintessential bourgeois individualism. In]”his , Richard Rorty categorizes Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity

thinkers from the past as two basic types: those who deal with indi viduality and those who deal with sociality. He puts Marx squarely in the latter group.38 However, as I have pointed out, things are not nearly so simple, not after having learned that for Marx sociality is inseparable from singularity. Rorty fails to distinguish community— athe communication network society—communication (or exchange) among those who differshare same set of rules—and between ent systems. Singularity, as exemplified by the Cartesian cogito, is the way of existing in social space; hence it is far from being private or introverted, as has been long claimed. With the term ‘social’, Marx pointed to the way in which individuals belonging to different systems/communities are connected by exchange without their being aware of it. This is same critical space Kant identified with his term “world-civil-society.” And it is the space of transcritique. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Yet we cannot speak directly of singularity. Why not? Because it is the nature of language to pull the circuit of singularity-universality back to the circuit of individuality-generality. No matter how precisely we may try to describe this thing or this I, the description can be no more than a specification of a general concept. We feel that this thing or this I is singular, but, as soon as we speak in the deictic, our discourse results in the limitation of general concept. Hegel criticizes the attitude to persist in the singularity that language cannot grasp: The ‘I’ is merely universal like ‘Now’, ‘Here’, or ‘This’ in general; I do indeed mean a single ‘I’, but I can no more say what I mean in the case of ‘I’ than I can in the case of ‘Now’ and ‘Here’. When I say ‘this Here’, ‘this Now’, or a ‘single item’, I am saying all Thises, Heres, and Nows, all single items. Similarly, when I say ‘I’, this singular ‘I’, I say in general all ‘Is’ (. . .).39

By the same token, for Hegel, the universal is equal to the general . He continues: Consequently, what is called the unutterable is nothing else than the untrue, the irrational, what is merely meant [but is not actually expressed]. If nothing more is said of something than that it is ‘an actual thing’, an ‘external object’, its description is only the most abstract of generalities and in fact expresses its sameness with everything rather than its distinctiveness. When I say: of ‘a view, singlefor thing’, I am really saying whatand it islikewise from a wholly uni versal point everything is a single thing; ‘this thing’ is anything you like. If we describe it more exactly as ‘this bit of paper’, then I have only uttered the universal all the time. But if I want to help out language—which has the divine nature of directly reversing the meaning of what is said, of making it into something else, and thus not letting what is meant get into words at all—by pointing out this bit of paper, experience teaches me what the truth of sense-certainty in fact is: I point it out as a 40 in its own self a ‘simple together‘Here’, whichHeres’; is Herei.e., of other or is ness of many it is a Heres, universal.

What Hegel appears to be trying to say here is this: that the individuality of the Here and Now, inasmuch as it is ‘expressed in language’, already belongs to generality; that any individuality that is not generality is “merely meant”; and that even the ineffable is constituted by language. In other words, singularity exists only as a divine nature of language. The political implication of this statement is that http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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cosmopolites as well as world-civil-society are only imagined constructs from the point of view of nation-states; and the individuality that is contradictory to the public is “merely meant” as a phantasm. And in this precise manner, Hegel himself ended up caging the circuit of singularity-universality—precisely the circuit Kant had once opened up—within the circuit of individuality-generality. In the introduction to the Japanese translation of Why Does Lan- guage Matter to Philosophy? Ian Hacking argues that it was Hegel who considered language to be public property—as opposed to the Kant who, in Hacking’s view, was trapped in the philosophy of subjectivity. This Hegel is said to have initiated an important shift of emphasis when he stated that language is a self-consciousness as being-for-theother, and that language is an externalized substance. When one recognizes that language is external, public, and social, one at the same time experiences a radical shift also concerning ego and identity.41 Hacking also points out that it was J. G. Hamann, the friend and critic of Kant (who also influenced Herder), who first conceived this idea. There is, however, a distinct vagueness both in Hacking’s use of the term “public” and in his distinction between community and society. For this reason, Hacking cannot distinguish between Herder’s and Hegel’s accounts of language as being public and Wittgenstein’s critique of “private language.”42 The Kantian transcendental critique, as I have already said, was in actuality dealing with the matter of language. So it is wrong to assume that a ‘new’ linguistic turn would clear away the problematic of ego, especially when the ego equals the doubting existence. In the problematic of language, there is a knotty obstacle that cannot be subsumed into the circuit of individuality-generality: proper names. Since and ancient times, philosophers have that beensubstance strugglingexists over individuality generality. Realists maintain as a general concept, whereas individuality is only its contingent appearance. For instance, a dog is a contingent appearance of the concept canis . Taking the opposite tack, nominalists hold that only the individual exists as substance, whereas generality is merely a concept attained from the former. On this view, the concept canis is an empirical abstraction from a multitude of dogs. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Now, it is to be expected that realists think lightly of proper names; but, surprisingly, nominalists, too, dislike proper names, even though they do take into account that the individual qua substance is named by a proper name. This is because proper names are socially given and, after all, do not precisely indicate individuality. In Greece today, for instance, many men are still named Socrates. For this reason, nominalists came to neglect proper names on technical terms—for their being contingent and secondary—even though they considered them to be theoretically necessary. The last nominalist to presume the individual to be substance and yet still sought to abolish proper names was Bertrand Russell. He thought that proper names could be reduced to a bundle of descriptions. Following this logic, for instance, Mt. Fuji can be transposed into the description: “the highest mountain in Japan.” Insisting that only deictic markers such as this and that can be a subject or substance, Lord Russell dubbed them “logically proper names.” For instance, with respect to the expression, “X exists, and X is Mt. Fuji,” Russell considers X a proper name. But Russell’s theory of description conflates singularity and indi viduality. Suppose there is a dog. On the axis of individuality, ‘this dog’ is one of the genus canis , and is defined by various characteristics, say, white, long-eared, sleek. Seen from the axis of singularity, however, this dog is no-other-than-this dog, and irreplaceable by any other dog. The same is true with this I. I feel that this I is singular. Which does not mean in the least that I am (or is) superior or extraordinary. Rather, in this case, this this (i.e., this haecceity) is not to be equated with, or reduced to, the this that indicates something, or some thing. One cannot describe this I or this dog, namely, this singularity. No description can grasp this ness—except to say that it accrues a bundle descriptions or a“no-other-than-this,” bundle of sets. In contrast, I or this dog quaofsingularity means which is this the same as saying: “This is so in reality, though it could have been other wise.” For this reason, to tackle singularity I have to introduce the problematic of modality . Saul Kripke criticizes Russell by introducing the concept of modality into his theory of possible worlds. A possible world is something like a world that could exist if certain matters were different: “‘Possible http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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worlds’ are total ‘ways the world might have been,’ or states or histories of the entire world.”43 But in our context, we have to be cautious about two things: first, that possible worlds are thought only from the vantage point of the existing real world or the world that has existed; and, second, that possible worlds are not worlds very far removed from this world. According to Russell, the proper name ‘Mt. Fuji’ can be transposed to the description “the highest mountain in Japan.” But let us imagine a world in which Mt. Fuji is not the highest mountain in Japan. (And, in historical fact, Mt. Fuji was not the highest mountain in the former Japanese Empire, which had annexed Taiwan.) In this case, while we could say that Mt. Fuji is not the highest mountain in Japan, we cannot say that ‘the highest mountain in Japan’ is not ‘the highest mountain in Japan’. Thinking of the real world through possible worlds in this manner, the difference between “proper names” (Kripke’s) and “definite descriptions” (Russell’s) becomes clear. Kripke calls the proper name a “rigid designator” because it is adequate to and in all possible worlds. He negates, most of all, the idea that ‘the individual’, no matter what it might designate, is no more than a set of characteristics. This is to say that the proper name is unrelated to the description of an indi vidual’s characteristics, but indicates instead the individuality of an individual in a direct way. Seen from our point of view, Kripke criticizes Russell for reducing the world with proper names to the circuit of generality-individuality. To Kripke, even names of species, which are deemed general nouns, are ultimately proper names. In this one can see his design to reconsider natural science as “natural history”—contrary to Russell, who sought to reduce natural science to logic. In a different sense from Russell, Hegel, too, had reduced history of philosophy into a logic without proper names. Properthe names presuppose a singularity that cannot dissolve into generality. History itself is no longer history if not for proper names. But, at just this point, we have to approach the problematic with another of our concerns—society-community. Kripke stresses that rigid designation by proper name cannot be a private matter; naming is done by the community and by a chain of historical transmission. When the sense, term ‘community’, however, the transmission mustKripke be, inuses a strict the one that http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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occurs between communities, that is, a social transmission. In fact, however, proper names can never be translated into other languages, traveling through different languages as they do; they are the very indicators of social intercourse. The fact that linguists tend to omit proper names from their disciplines can be explained by the inherent untranslatability of proper names. This is not so much due to the fact that the proper name is the source of the misconception that language is connected directly to referents, but because the proper name prevents us from grasping language as an enclosed differential relational system (langue ). The proper name makes possible the rigid designation of a referent because it intervenes in manifold systems. And proper names exist at once within and without langue . Hegel was correct in saying that singularity cannot be expressed in language. Which does not mean, however, that it does not exist. It reveals itself to us only in a detoured manner. Language has a resistance that cannot be subsumed into the circuit of individualitygenerality, which appears in the paradox of proper names. It is in this instance that we find out in the negative way that singularity is concerned with the social. It is now clear why claims about language being public and social cannot lead immediately to the superseding of either Descartes or Kant. The enduring question is what the term ‘public’ (or ‘social’) implies. Most important for us here is the distinction between the circuit of singularity-universality, which opens itself to society, and the circuit of individuality-generality, which belongs to community. Altering the definition of words does not solve real problems, but at least it can help avoid unnecessary confusion. When Marx stressed that people become individuals in society, he did so But in order to seek beyond the binary opposition: individualsocial. the implication of a statement changes according to what ‘society’ means. Should it mean community , then the individual (e.g., Marx himself) would mean ‘he who attempts to be universal, counter to community in his subjective fantasy.’ But should it mean society —the space between communities—it would imply that people become singular in universality . The proper name isthe alsoproper often associated with private property. For this reason, attacking name appears to be antibourgeois. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In the context of textual theory, it is argued that a text is appropriated by an author with a proper name, or is authorized by the name of the author. To take a seminal example, Roland Barthes insisted on denying authorship and on giving the text back to its imagined intertextual heterogeneity. But this move cannot be achieved by reducing a text to the world where there are no proper names, or a general structure. Rather, this entire argument should remind one of the fact that, when a text cannot be reduced to the being of an author due to the excess of signification, one has no option but to call the singularity of the excess by a certain proper name. Throughout this text, I have been using the name ‘Kant’—which however is not the author; neither is it the philosopher who has been appropriated by Germany or the West. The text of Kant is public to the world-civil-society. And it is this possibility that transcritique calls ‘Kant’. 3.4

Nature and Freedom

I have waited to deal with Kantian ethics until now, the last chapter of the section. But I have been tacitly talking about it—especially via the problematic of the other. The transcendental position that began with the pronounced parallax between my stance and the others’ stance persistently entails the problematic of alterity. In this sense, the transcendental attitude is thoroughly ethical. Speaking of ethics as a specific genre often blinds us to that aspect. For instance, art is customarily defined as a mediator between nature and freedom, namely, between scientific knowledge and morality. Yet scientific recognition involves as its premise both the activity of understanding (or setsthat up hypotheses ofthe theuniversality natural world andimagination-power) the existence of thethat others would make of the hypotheses possible. That is, it contains elements common to both art and morality. If so, what Kant thought with the terms freedom, nature, and the mediator do not aptly correspond to the officially existing objective domains of morality, scientific recognition, and art. His concepts were not confined to them. And such openness must beabout true in domains history and economy that he did notalso write as such critique . In his as book on Nietzsche, Deleuze http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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said that what Nietzsche had sought to do was write the fourth critique that Kant had not completed.44 For that matter, what Marx sought to do in his critique of political economy would be another critique in the series. Now let me begin with Kant’s theory of art (or aesthetics). PreKantian classicists thought that the essence of the aesthetic experience existed in the objective form, while post-Kantian romanticists maintained that it existed in subjective emotion. Though Kant is often deemed a predecessor of romanticism, his thinking in fact operated in critical oscillation between romanticism and classicism, assuming the same transcritical stance that he took, in a different dimension, between empiricists and rationalists. He certainly did not compromise between the dichotomies or contexts. Instead, he questioned the ground that makes art art, in the same way that he questioned the ground that makes cognition cognition. A certain object is received as artwork only thanks to the operation of bracketing other interests projected onto the object. Be it a natural object, a mechanical reproduction, or a daily utensil, the nature of the object in and of itself does not matter directly. Seeing an object by bracketing daily interests, or the change in attitude itself, makes the object an artwork. The common saying that Kant’s aesthetics is subjective is correct to a certain extent, with the proviso that the Kantian subjectivity is totally different from the romanticist one. Kant’s subjectivity is the will to execute transcendental bracketing. It is for this reason that the Kantian critique is still suggestive while classicist and romanticist aesthetics became obsolete long ago.45 When Marcel Duchamp submitted the urinal on a pedestal, signed “R Mutt” andArtists titled “Fountain,” exhibition of The what Society of Independent in New Yorktointhe 1917, he questioned makes art art as a conceptual and institutional analysis. What he shed light on in this peculiar manner was very much one of the Kantian problematics, namely, to see things by bracketing daily interests.46 And another crucial point Kant proposed is of course that there is no universality in aesthetic judgment, though it is required; that when based one considers a certain thing to be universal, it is alwaysis,merely upon historically engendered common sense. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Although these two points were made vis-à-vis aesthetic judgment and written as the third Critique , they had already existed prior to his accounts on cognition and ethics. The above two points raised in the context of aesthetic experience persist in all domains, beyond aesthetic concerns. I said “all domains,” but for that matter, one of Kant’s most crucial propositions is that domains themselves come into existence by way of transcendental reduction (bracketing). On the one hand, Kant doubted the idea that an essence of art exists objectively, while on the other he questioned the idea that it exists only in subjectivity (i.e., emotion). Kantian subjectivity appears with this precise doubt, and it takes art out of the constant canonization of this or that school, and back to its arché , where certain experiences or objects are made into art. Kant is consistent in questioning the idea that the aesthetic domain, be it objective or subjective, exists in and of itself. Modern science was established by bracketing moral and aesthetic judgments. Only at this moment did the “object” appear. But this was not limited to natural science. Machiavelli came to be known as the father of modern political science precisely because he discovered the domain of politics by bracketing morality. Importantly, with the domain of morality the same can be said. The moral domain does not exist in and of itself. When we confront the world, we have at least three kinds of judgment at the same time: cognitive judgment of true or false, ethical judgment of good or bad, and aesthetic judgment of pleasure or displeasure.47 In real life, they are intermixed and hard to distinguish. Scientists make observations by bracketing ethical and aesthetic judgments: Only by this act can the objects of cognition come into existence. In aesthetic judgment, the aspects of true and false and good and come bad are at the precise moment that artistic objects intobracketed, existence.only These operations are emphatically not done naturally. Rather one is always ordered to bracket by the external situation.48 And being accustomed to it, one forgets that one brackets, and think that the objects— scientific or artistic or moral—exist by themselves. Morality appears to exist objectively. At least that is the way we are taught. the morality considered in thisTherein mannermoral is unequivocally one thatBut belongs to community’s codes. norms are http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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transcendent to individuals. Then comes another view of morals, conceptualized from the vantage point of an individual’s happiness and profits. One might say that the former is rationalist, while the latter is empiricist. But both are heteronomous and not autonomous. Kant again intervenes to oscillate between them, and transcendentally questions what makes morals moral. In other words, he extracts a moral domain by bracketing a community’s codes as well as personal emotion and interests. Kant maintains that the moral domain cannot be grounded by feelings of pleasure/displeasure or by happiness, indicating that, from the beginning, Kant’s moral world is attained by bracketing them. Just for the sake of confirmation, I would like to stress that this account is not to deny the fact that morality accompanies feelings of pleasure/displeasure; and it is not to say that morality itself opposes feelings. Bracketing is not the same as negation. Rather Kant himself rebuked those stern moralists who sacrificed other dimensions for the sake of moral correctness. For Kant, morality is finally a matter of freedom rather than goodness or badness. If not for freedom, there is no good and bad. Freedom is synonymous to being causa sui , self-motivated, subjective, and autonomous. But, is there such a freedom? In Critique of Pure Reason , Kant proposes the following antinomy as the “third conflict of the transcendental ideas”: Thesis—The causality according to laws of nature is not the only one from which all the appearances of the world can be derived. It is also necessary to assume another causality through freedom in order to explain them. Antithesis—There is no freedom, but everything in the world happens solely in accordance with laws of nature.49

This antithesis should be read not from the standpoint of the causality of modern science, but of Spinozian determinism. According to Spinoza, everything in the world is determined necessarily, but the causality is so complicated that there is no other choice for us but to assume freedom and contingency. Kant approves this antithesis, namely, the fact that what we consider as a determination of free will is always already that by the complex of causalities. I am never free at the point of time in which I act. Indeed, even if I assume that my whole existence is independent from any alien cause (such as http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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God), so that the determining grounds of my causality and even of my whole existence are not outside me, this would not in the least transform that natural necessity into freedom. For, at every point of time I still stand under the necessity of being determined to action by that which is not within my control , and the series of events infinite a parte priori which I can only continue in accordance with a predetermined order would never begin of itself: it would be a continuous natural chain, and therefore my causality would never be freedom.50

On other however, he acknowledges elsewhere the thesis thatthe speaks to hand, the freedom of human acts, and says: In order to clarify the regulative principle of reason through an example of its empirical use—not in order to confirm it (for such proofs are unknowable for transcendental propositions)—one may take a voluntary action, e.g. a malicious lie, through which a person has brought about a certain confusion in society; and one may first investigate its moving causes, through which it arose, judging on that basis how the lie and its consequences could be imputed to the person. With this first intent one goes into the sources of the person’s empirical character, seeking them in a bad upbringing, bad company, and also finding them in the wickedness of a natural temper insensitive to shame, partly in carelessness and thoughtlessness; in so doing one does not leave out of account the occasioning causes. In all this one proceeds as with any investigation in the series of determining causes for a given natural effect. Now even if one believes the action to be determined by these causes, one nonetheless blames the agent, and not on account of his unhappy natural temper, not on account of the circumstances influencing him, not even on account of the life he has led previously; for one presupposes that it can be entirely set aside how that life was constituted, and that the series of conditions that transpired might not have been, but rather that this deed could be regarded as entirely conditioned in regard to the previous state, as though with that act the agent has started a series of consequences entirely from himself. This blame is grounded on the law of reason, which regards reason as a cause that, regardless of all the empirical conditions just named, could have and ought to have determined the conduct of the person to be other than it is.51

What is noteworthy here is that Kant locates the freedom of action only ex post facto, not ex ante facto. There is no freedom as such ex ante facto. Kant’s universal imperative of duty is: “act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.”52 This drewimportance the criticismtothat was subjectivist, andact that it attached theKant’s purityethics of motive of the moral but http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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ignored its result.53 One must not forget, however, that he sustained, at the same time, the antithesis: “I am never free at the point of time in which I act.” To repeat, he certainly said: “act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.” But the fact of the matter is that the intention and the result of action are different things, as Wittgenstein said: “And to think one is obeying the rule is not to obey a rule.” 54 We do things differently from our intentions, and it is extremely rare that what we intend is actually realized. The most crucial point here is that of responsibility, the responsibility for the result. Only when we are considered free agents, though we are not at all in reality, do we become responsible. Kant’s phrase, “this deed could be regarded as entirely conditioned in regard to the previous state, as though with that act the agent has started a series of consequences entirely from himself,” means just that. When we have done something wrong without knowing that it would be harmful (or sinful), are we still responsible even if we did not know it? Those who have the potency to know that it was harmful are said to be responsible. While in the first conflict of transcendental ideas, the thesis—the world has a beginning in time and in space it is also enclosed in boundaries —and antithesis—the world has no beginning and no bounds in space, but is infinite with regard to both time and space 55—are both

proven to be false by antinomy, in the third conflict of transcendental ideas, both thesis and antithesis can be established. Why? Because the thesis signifies the stance of seeing human action by bracketing natural causality, while the antithesis signifies the stance of seeing the causality of human action by bracketing people’s assumption of freedom. As long as they are bracketing different domains, they can stand together. Let me call the former a practical stance, and theand latter a theoretical stance. And, as evident now, the theoretical practical domains do not exist in and of themselves; they exist only when one subjectively takes theoretical and practical stances. Critique of Pure Reason is aimed at refuting the metaphysical argumentations that seek to prove self, subject, and freedom as substance. On the other hand, Critique of Practical Reason queries the ways which self, of subject, freedom can exist in the phase wherebythe necessity natureand [Naturnotwendigkeit ] is bracketed. In http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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reality, we can have various choices, and without knowing to what extent the choices are compelled by the necessity of nature. As a result, we come to acknowledge, to a certain degree, decisions determined by causality and, to a certain degree, those determined by free will. Suppose there is a criminal. There are many causes for his crime, personal as well as social. If one named every possible cause, it would turn out that he had no free subject, and thus no responsibility. Upset by such a defense and vindication, people would claim that he must have also had freedom of choice. Therefore, common sense would be to accept that humans are determined by various causalities, while acknowledging their free will. Kant, however, re jected this kind of middling solution. First we should think that there is no such thing as free will. When we think we do something by our free will, we do so only because of our unawareness of its being determined by external causes. After realizing this, it is finally possible to ask how freedom is possible. From the beginning, neither freedom nor responsibility emerges out of the theoretical stance that queries the cause. According to Kant, the criminal’s responsibility arises when the causality is bracketed, that is, when he is a free agent . In reality, he does not have freedom sensu stricto. But, he has to be deemed free in order for him to be responsible. Such is the practical standpoint. Kant thought that freedom lay in the duty to obey (or command). This is a tricky point where logic tends to falter, because obeying commands seems to be the opposite of freedom. (As I return to later, many accusations concentrate on this point.) But it is clear that Kant did not identify duty with that which is imposed by the community’s code. If the command of duty is of community, to obey it is akind heteronomous act,does and one not have free. to In obey? order That to be isfree, then, what of command no other than the command: “be free!” There is no contradiction here. Neither is there any enigma in Kant’s word: “he can do something because he is aware that he ought to do it,”56 which simply means that freedom can spring only from the imperative of being free. Where does this imperative come from? It comes neither from community nor from which God; it entails originates Kant’s transcendental attitude itself—that thefrom imperative: “bracket it!” http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Returning to “R Mutt,” Duchamp is not commanding viewers to see the urinal as an artwork by bracketing their daily concerns; instead, the context—being installed in an exhibition—is itself commanding viewers to see it as artwork, though most viewers are not aware of it. Likewise, the fact that the transcendental stance itself contains the imperative is forgotten, and finally the fact that the transcendental stance is spurred by an imperative is forgotten. Where does the transcendental stance spring from? It is spurred on by the existence of the others. In this sense, it can be said that the transcendental standpoint is ethical. This imperative “be free!” ultimately contains the imperative to treat others as free agents. Kant’s moral law is little more than the command: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”57 And it is only thanks to the imperative that the personalities of the others come into existence. Within the theoretical stance, neither my personality nor that of any other can exist. Only in the practical domain do they appear. Thus Kant’s laws of morality are synonymous to being practical. Now to interpret the causality of the necessity of nature from a wider perspective. Remember that the causes of the criminal case come not only from personal feelings but also from social relations. If so, then, how can we assess those social relations? Marx wrote about this with respect to his methodological stance in Capital : To prevent possible misunderstanding, let me say this. I do not by any means depict the capitalist and the landowner in rosy colors. But individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, the bearers [Träger ] of particular class-relations and interests. My standpoint, from which the development of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he remains, socially speaking, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.58

This stance insists on seeing the social structure as a necessity of nature, thereby forestalling any attribution of responsibility. But I contend that Marx attained this gaze from the natural historical stance, namely, by bracketing responsibility.59 When he saw social http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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relations as a natural historical process, it could be said, he took a theoretical position—with which to execute the bracketing of sub jectivity and responsibility—but not to negate them. Marx could have spoken moralistically like Proudhon, who insisted, “La Propriété, c’est le Vol,” but he did not. The Marx in Capital persisted in the bracketing. And this was driven by his ethical will. If so, there is no need of searching for Marxian ethics outside Capital . For his part, Kant’s ethics cannot be sought only in his accounts of morality. Being theoretical at the same time as being practical—the transcendental stance is itself ethical. I now take up the three main currents of thinking in postwar France: existentialism, structuralism, and poststructuralism. The existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre, stressed freedom, while admitting the structural determinedness of humans. His vantage point might be defined as practical. On the other hand, when the structuralists questioned the concept of subject as a substance and saw it merely as an effect of structure, they took a theoretical stance. In this context it is quite understandable that they returned to Spinoza. As I mentioned earlier, the thesis of Kant’s third antinomy results in Spinoza’s position—that everything is determined by causes, but people think they act freely because the causes are so complex. Free will as well as anthropomorphized God—things that supposedly go beyond the necessity of nature—are imaginary constructs that are themselves determined naturally and socially. In fact, what one calls causes are retrospective constructs of the effects. Louis Althusser coined the concepts of “structural causality” and “overdetermination” in reference to Spinoza—and they, too, are a kind of determinism in a broad sense. One They should be overly excited these theoretical achievements. arenot nothing but shifts of by stance that occur because of the bracketing operation that is inherent in the theoretical stance. There is nothing new about the series of problematics that was presented in the dichotomy of existentialism vs. structuralism or subject vs. structure; it is little more than a variation of what Kant presented as the third antinomy. It is meaningless to oppose subject against the stance, or by to seek the subject Because, from the structuralist beginning, it is only bracketing the therein. subject that structural http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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determinism is attained. Conversely, only when structural determination is bracketed can the dimension of subject and responsibility return. Later, when poststructuralism sought to reintroduce morality— it was simply as a matter of course.60 So in this sense, none of them was necessarily new. Being swayed by a spectacular succession of new trends, one tends to overlook the aspect that they were alterations of theoretical and practical stances. Meanwhile, the lesson of the Kantian transcendental critique is to keep both stances at the same time. One has to know how to bracket and unbracket at the same time. In Critique of Practical Reason , Kant’s harshest target was eudemonism (or utilitarianism). He rejected it because happiness is governed by physical causes, namely, because it is heteronomous. Freedom, on the other hand, is metaphysical . Kant’s reconstruction of metaphysics is nothing if not involving this. But eudemonism was not the only thing Kant considered heteronomous. So was the morality that belongs to the community. In Encyclopedia Logic , Hegel first praised Kant for having criticized eudemonism, but then quickly criticized him for remaining in indi vidualism. What was dominant at that time was the conventional moralism imposed by family, community, and church; and eudemonism (or individualism) of English origin was rather accused of endangering this kind of moralism. Along this line, Hegel acknowledged Kant’s critique of eudemonism, but attacked him by advocating the primacy of objective ethics [Sittlichkeit ]. The intention was to recover the authority of family, community, and nation-state. Against such a position, Kant would rather support eudemonism. From eudemonism, however, one can never induce universal moral law. The principle of happiness can indeed furnish maxims, but never such as would be fit for laws of the will, even if universal happiness were made the object. For, because cognition of this rests on sheer data of experience, each judgment about it depending very much upon the opinion of each which is itself very changeable, it can indeed give general rules but never universal rules.61

We must pay attention to this distinction between “general” and “universal.” Kant did not extract moral law from existing various morals. He certainly formalized morality, but not in order to extract http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the general of morals. For him, the moral domain exists only in the imperative (or duty): “be free!” What the moral law is telling us is nothing other than to be free and to treat others as free agents. As I have mentioned before, that Kant saw freedom in obeying duty caused many misunderstandings. It is easily mistaken for obeying the duties imposed by community and nation-state. Nonetheless Kant’s point was to grasp morality not in ‘good and evil’ but in ‘freedom.’ In the (theoretical) dimension where we are mainly tossed about by natural/social causalities, there is no good and evil. In actuality, there is nothing like freedom ( causa sui ) sensu stricto; all acts are determined by causes. Yet if freedom as such (as a regulative idea of reason) intervenes at all, it is only at the moment when we consider ourselves as the cause of all of our acts. The imperative ‘be free’ is equal to the imperative of bracketing natural causes. Nietzsche, who accused Kant of dividing the world between phenomenon (read nature) and thing-in-itself (read freedom), stated as follows: My new path to a “Yes” —Philosophy, as I have hitherto understood and lived it, is a voluntary quest for even the most detested and notorious sides of existence. From the long experience I gained from such a wandering through ice and wilderness, I learned to view differently all that had hitherto philosophized: the hidden history of philosophy, the psychology of its great names, came to light for me. “How much truth can a spirit endure , how much truth does a spirit dare ?”—this became for me the real standard of value. Error is cowardice —every achievement of knowledge is a consequence of courage, of severity toward oneself, of cleanliness toward oneself—Such an experimental philosophy as I live anticipates experimentally even the possibilities of the most fundamental nihilism; but this does not mean that it must halt at a negation, a No, a will to negation. It wants rather to cross over to the opposite of this—to a Dionysian affirmation of the world as it is, without subtraction, exception, or selection—it wants the eternal circulation:—the same things, the same logic and illogic of entanglements. The highest state a philosopher can attain: to stand in a Dionysian relationship to existence—my formula for this is amor fati .62

In On the Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil , Nietzsche rebuked morals as the resentment of the weak. We must be careful to interpret the word weak, however. In the most straightforward interpretation, Nietzsche himself, who failed as a scholar and suffered http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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from syphilis, was nothing but “the weak.” But the case is not so simple. To him, “the strong” or the überman is the one who accepts such a miserable life as one’s own creation in the place of attributing it to someone else or to given conditions. That is his formula of amor fati . The überman is not an exceptional human. And amor fati is the stance to accept one’s destiny determined by external causes (nature) as if it were derivative of one’s free will (consistent with the principle of causa sui ), in Kantian terms. This is a practical stance par excellence. Nietzsche scrutinized the way of being a free subject in the practical sense. His thoughts have nothing to do with affirmation of the status quo. And his “will to power” is attained by bracketing the determination of causality; nevertheless what he forgot was the need to see the world by unbracketing it now and then. That is, while attacking the resentment of the weak, Nietzsche did not dare to see the real relations that necessarily produce it. He ignored the view that individuals are finally the products of social relations, no matter how much they think they are beyond them. Theodor Adorno read Kant’s moral imperative as a social norm and criticized this point in reference to Freud. According to Adorno, Kant excluded the genetic moment from moral philosophy, and in recompense, attributed to it a noumenal characteristic. No Kant interpretation that would object to his formalism and undertake to have the substance demonstrate the empirical moral relativity which Kant eliminated with the help of that formalism—no such interpretation would reach for enough. The law, even in its most abstract form, has come to be; its painful abstractness is sedimented substance, dominion reduced to its normal form of identity. Psychology has now concretely caught up with something which in Kant’s day was not known as yet, and to which he therefore did not need to pay specific attention; with the empirical genesis of what, unanalyzed, was glorified by him as timelessly intelligible. The Freudian school in its heroic period, agreeing on this point with the other Kant, the Kant of the Enlightenment, used to call for ruthless criticism of the super-ego as something truly heterogeneous and alien to the ego. The super-ego was recognized, then, as blindly, unconsciously internalized social coercion.63

This interpretation is a typical misreading. For Freud himself, after 64

Beyond the Pleasure Principle , amended his idea of the superego. While he did not deny, in principle, his previous stance that superego was http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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rooted in the social norm, at the same time, he came to conceive that superego was formed by an introversion of the death drive or aggression drive (the extroverted death drive). Here Freud assumed an autonomy : namely, the superego that derives from the destructive drive controls the destructive drive itself. And, as Freud himself had to admit, the death drive is a metaphysical concept. But isn’t Adorno himself, in the following passage, metaphysical? Perennial suffering has as much as a Auschwitz tortured man to scream; hence it may have been right wrongtotoexpression say that after you has could no longer write poems. But it is not wrong to raise the less cultural question whether after Auschwitz you can go on living—especially whether one who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on living. His mere survival calls for the coldness, the basic principle of bourgeois subjectivity, without which there could have been no Auschwitz; this is the drastic guilt of him who was spared. By way of atonement he will be plagued by dreams such that he isexistence no longersince livinghas at all, that he was sent to the ovens in 1944 andashis whole been imaginary, an 65 emanation of the insane wish of a man killed twenty years earlier.

Karl Jaspers would call this “metaphysical guilt” in contrast to “moral guilt.”66 That is to say that while moral responsibility is generated in committing certain vices (even indirectly), metaphysical responsibility could arrive without committing anything. But if Adorno and Jasper had thought they went beyond Kant’s theory of morality by these accounts, they would have been wrong. To Kant, morality is consistently metaphysical, and in contrast, the morality (good/evil) of a community is physical (or natural). Therefore, Adorno’s statement above actually crossed the point where Kant conceptualized his morality. I said earlier that, in Kant, the moral domain comes into existence only after the imperative “be free!” But, who is doing the commanding? Not the community. Not the nation-state. Not the religion. Neither is it from the inside. It must come from outside. Jacques Derrida reflected upon responsibility from the vantage point of re- spondability .67 Responsibility appears only as a response to the other. The necessity to respond to others pushes us into the dimension of freedom. In the case of Adorno, it is a response to those who died in Auschwitz; those whose thoughts are nevertheless never knowable. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In reality he had no guilt; he himself was a victim. Adorno felt responsibility toward the dead, however, because he felt he survived on the shoulders of the dead. This responsibility is the kind that comes into existence only when, in the terms of Kant, one follows the imperative: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” Adorno’s feeling of responsibility toward the dead appears to have come from inside; but after all, it comes from outside, that is, the other. When one says the other, it does not have to mean existing others. The others—those who do not share a common set of rules—are not only those in outside communities, but also include those who do not exist in the here and now—future humans as well as the dead. Rather, with respect to otherness, they should be the model. Generally speaking, ethics takes only living beings in consideration, while Kantian ethics, that sees the others as the thing-initself, takes hold of the others who have been and who will be . Anglo-American philosophy negated the Kantian position and sought to construct ethics by returning to utilitarian concerns. On the other hand, Jürgen Habermas conceived that Kantian ethics could be surpassed by public consensus or inter-subjectivity. Both of them limit their definition of the others to those who are present here and now, or worse still, to those who share the same set of rules. The dead—those who lived in the past—as well as the yet-tobe-born—those who will live in the future—are out of their range of concern. Today, those ethicists who have negated the Kantian position and proposed utilitarian moral law are increasingly facing an aporia vis-à-vis environmental problems: take, for instance, the tremendous industrial wasteto produced for the sakeAofpubour comfortable amount lives thatofwill be charged future generations. lic consensus among adults living today might be established—albeit restricted to advanced Western and non-Western nations—while dialogue and consensus with future people are impossible. Also impossible is communication with past people . They won’t say anything. Why, then, does one feel responsible to them? (In fact there are many people whowhen do not feel any ‘moralists’ it comes to responsibility—especially state and community.) those who are http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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This sense of responsibility is different from the residue of duty’s call to community that has endured since the primitive stage of human history. It appears only in correspondence to the imperatives “be free!” and “treat others as free agents!” Notwithstanding that Kant called this the inner moral law, it does not exist internally . It exists vis-à-vis the others who cannot be internalized. One must note that Kantian others are always posited in asymmetric relationships, and they are distinct from Hegel’s and Sartre’s “another selfconsciousness,” namely, those who share the same set of rules and desires. The others are rather uninterested in me. When speaking of ‘the others’, people call to mind only those others living today. But the otherness of the other appears most strikingly in the dead. Thus, in Kierkegaard: the most frightful of all is that one dead gives no hint at all. Beware, therefore, the dead!beware Bewareofofhis hispride! cunning; of hishim, definiteness, beware of hisofstrength; Butbeware if you love then remember him lovingly, and learn from him, precisely as one who is dead, learn the kindness in thought, the definiteness in expression, the strength in unchangeableness, the pride in life which you would not be able to learn as well from any human being, even the most gifted. One who is dead does not change; there is not the slightest possibility of excuse by putting the blame on him; he is faithful. Yes, it is true. But he is nothing actual, he does nothingtakes at all,place to hold on to you, except thatand he therefore is unchanged. If, nothing, then, a change between one living and one dead, it is very clear that it must be the one living who has changed.68

One cannot project one’s empathy onto the dead. Neither can one represent their will. They never talk; they never show their interest. Those who speak for the sake of the dead are just speaking for themselves. Those who mourn for the dead do it in order to forget them. By mourning, the dead won’t change; it is we who change. By not changing at all, they reveal our changes. Thus they are cunning. They are the others in this very sense. Seeing the others as the thingin-itself, as Kant did, is equal to seeing the others as someone from whom one can never evoke mutual consent, onto whom one can never project a representation, and of whom one can never speak as a representative. They are, however, different from Levinas’s http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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“absolute Other.” They are the relative others who are around one everyday. What is absolute is not the others themselves but our relationship with the relative others. I have pointed out that the inclination toward universality in Kant’s epistemology and aesthetics premises the future other. In the same way, in order for moral law to be universal, not only does it have to be formal, but it also has to presume the future other. And in the final analysis, the future other implies the past other—the dead—because for the future other, one is dead. One must not forget one’s destined position in history. In this precise sense, the Kantian critique essentially involves the problematic of history. At the end of his career, Kant began to tackle the problems of history head-on. Yet this was not a change of attitude, because his stance, both theoretical and practical , persisted. Theoretically speaking, history has no end; it has only a complex of causality. (Those who pursue the causality of history must persist in it without the assumption of any finality.) But, from the beginning, the meaning and end of history do not exist in the same dimension as theoretical scrutiny; they are practical problems par excellence. Kant approached history with the same stance as the one he took in Critique of Judgment: Although there is no end in natural history, a certain finality may be presumed. Although there is no end in human history, it can be seen as if it had a finality. According to him, “We should be content with providence and with the course of human affairs as a whole, which does not begin with good and then proceed to evil, but develops gradually from the worse to the better; and each individual is for his own part called upon by nature itself to contribute towards this progress to the best of his ability.” 69 It is easy to refute this teleological position theoretically Being is equal to seeing things by bracketing ends.70 In. the firsttheoretical place, Kant himself considered such an idea of history as transcendental illusion. What is more important, however, is that Kant located a “puzzle” in the relationship between generations—that which appears to assume an end in human history. Yet nature does not seem to have been concerned with seeing that man should live agreeably, but with seeing that he should work his way onwards http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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to make himself by his own conduct worthy of life and well-being. What remains disconcerting about all this is firstly, that the earlier generations seem to perform their laborious tasks only for the sake of the later ones, so as to prepare for them a further stage from which they can raise still higher the structure intended by nature; and secondly, that only the later generations will in fact have the good fortune to inhabit the building on which a whole series of their forefathers (admittedly, without any conscious intention) had worked without themselves being able to share in the happiness they were preparing. But no matter how puzzling this may be, it will appear as necessary as it is puzzling if we simply assume that one animal species was intended to have reason, and that, as a class of rational beings who are mortal as individuals but immortal as a species, it was still meant to develop its capacities completely.71

That one cannot “share in the happiness [one was] preparing” implies that even though an individual intends to struggle and die for future generations, future generations will neither acknowledge nor thank that individual for such sacrifice. One does the same vis-à-vis one’s ancestors. Of course, within communities and nation-states, certain people are thanked and praised emblematically after their deaths. But community worship is another story entirely. As Walter Benjamin claimed, history belongs to the victors. But most of one’s efforts will be ignored by the future others. What Kant stressed was precisely that we have to endure this “disconcerting absurdity.” For whatever we do for the future others, our acts are motivated by our own problems. For freedom has nothing to do with happiness. Freedom is not the same as the negation of happiness, yet the imperative “be free!” is often cruel. Kant’s theory of morals is historical in essence because, as I have tried to show, it implicates the requirement that the moral law be realized historically: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” At the same time, however, he never ignored the natural historical process. As Hermann Cohen once reminded us, it is important that Kant stressed here “never merely as.”72 With this, Kant also took as a premise the “production and the relation of production”—the domain that Marx scrutinized in Capi- tal . To Kant, the use of others’ humanity as a means was already an inevitability in the “production and the relation of production” in http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the commodity economy. Any account of human relations that overlooks this concern is merely a ‘monastery’ or ‘dormitory’ daydream, from the hotbeds of those who use the humanity of the ‘faithful’ and ‘parents’ merely as a means. Kantian ethics tends to be degraded only because it is read as if speaking to ‘an end but not means’ in the place of “an end, never merely as a means.” The kingdom of the end exists upon a material and economic basis, and the ‘personalism’, when the base matters are not taken into consideration, cannot help but becoming a priestly sermon. Taking this aspect of Kant into consideration, Cohen called him “the true originator of German socialism.”73 Communist society, for that matter, must be a society where others are treated as an end at the same time as a means ; and communism is possible only by reorganizing the social system where people are treated merely as a means. In other words, here apodictically arrives the regulative idea of superseding capitalism. The dominant trend in contemporary ethics is the utilitarianism rebuked by Kant. This considers good as if it were calculable like interest . Along this line, ethics is reduced to economics, not to mention that it was coined from the standpoint of capitalist development. As opposed to this tendency, John Rawls (b. 1921) insisted on social justice by invoking Kant. His idea was to dissolve social inequality by redistributing wealth relying on cumulative taxation. This was the same as the idea of a welfare society or social democracy. It lacked motivation toward a society where others are treated as an end at the same time as a means . But something happened in the 1980s when he began to pose “Kantian constructivism.” He began to advocate the democratic system of possessions as an alternative to capitalism. His idea of liberal socialism is no longer identical to the democracy based upon the redistribution of wealth within thesocial confinement of capitalism. His idea of the 1980s is very close to communism qua associationism in the sense of Proudhon and Marx. Though his idea still lacks practical orientation, the fact that he came to pose this idea is an encouraging example: inasmuch as one thinks about ethics not from the vantage point of good/bad and happiness/interest but Kantian it is apodictic to induce communism qua associationism. freedom, If so, how could the communists of the mid-nineteenth http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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century be unconcerned with Kantian ethics? From its fountainhead, communism was an ethico-economic problematic. Marx’s communism cannot be considered merely as a necessity of natural history, but also as an ethical intervention. Young Marx wrote about the “categorical imperative” of communism: “The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest being for man , hence with the categorical imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being.”74 This drew a response from Ernst Bloch, who had criticized the Marburg School as a Kantian revisionism of Marxian doctrine and still stressed as follows: “This material ‘categorical imperative’ is by no means, as alleged by the bisectors of Marx, confined to the young Marx. No part of it was suppressed when Marx transferred what he had formerly termed ‘real humanism’ into the materialist philosophy of history.”75 It must be said that lurking behind this “categorical imperative” is a thread of Kantian thinking. Communism as practice is neither merely economic nor merely moral. To adapt Kant’s rhetoric, communism without economic basis is empty , while communism without moral basis is blind .


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II Marx


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4 Transposition and Critique

4.1

Transposition

Marx left a massive amount of work. But fragmentary as it is, it is impossible to induce Marx’s philosophy or political economy or communism out of the corpus. It was Engels who, after Marx’s death, first sought to make it into a system. He constructed an edifice of Marxism in conformity with the Hegelian system: dialectic materialism (vis-à-vis logic), natural dialectics (vis-à-vis the philosophy of nature), historical materialism (vis-à-vis the philosophy of history), political economy and state theory (vis-à-vis the philosophy of right), and so on. Since then, Marxism has striven to perfect this system, including theories of literature and art (qua aesthetics). Yet these projects have become increasingly far-fetched. It appears to me that Marx never intended to systematize his thought, not because he could not, but because he chose not to. To understand Marx’s intervention, one philosophy, has to bracket the conventional categories of political economy, and political philosophy. It is necessary to observe Marx’s footwork, regardless of the targeted object. And in so doing, there is one clear thing that stands out—Marx’s thought existed as nothing other than a critique of pre vious thought. Capital , the book written systematically—though left incomplete—is subtitled Kritik der politischen Ökonomie [Critique of National Economy]: book of critique.toBut this critique is farpositive from a condemnation. Marxa never intended construct a certain http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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doctrine upon the denial of his predecessors, that is, Ricardo or Hegel or any one else. Neither was he an epigone of any of them. It is crucial to read Marx’s corpus as critique . I believe that his critique will never lose its significance, even as the historical contexts in which it appeared become obsolete. Thus my objective is to recover the function and significance of his critique and recognize what kind of epistemological light it sheds on the coming ages. Marx once told his daughters to “doubt everything” on principle. But this doubt of ‘everything’ should be distinguished from unprincipled skepticism. To Marx, doubting was not separate from living. What kind of life was it? Marx persisted in doubting the subject qua the substantial center, and saw it as a product of relational structure. Where, then, does the doubting subject exist? This is the question that was omitted by the major trend of thought that fabricated the false dichotomy of Marxism and existentialism, and so on. This line of thought ignored the very existence of Marx. In the first place I disagree with the common framework that opposes Marx to Descartes and/or Kant. As I have mentioned, cogito, the doubting subject, appears in between systems, in between communities. And this interstice is a space of sheer difference; finally, it is insubstantial and amorphous. It cannot be spoken of positively; no sooner than it is, its function is lost. It is a transcendental topos —a space for transcritique . Yet at the same time, to approach this space, one must begin with a reference to concrete space, and for that one can turn to some cities where radical intercourse occurred, like Amsterdam, Königsberg, and London. Descartes wrote about Amsterdam, where he lived in exile, as a place where “in the crowd of a great, active people, and of one more concerned with its own affairs than curious those of others, I have able,most without lacking any of theabout conveniences that there arebeen in the frequented towns, to live as solitarily and retired as in the most remote deserts.”1 Cartesian cogito, the subject of radical skepticism, cannot be grasped if separated from this kind of space. Later in his life, Descartes lost the critical aspect of cogito and his thinking resulted in the thinking subject (transcendental ego), parallel, it seems, to his return Paris, where he became an authoritarian figure—the founder of to Cartesianism. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Kant, for his part, rarely left Königsberg during his lifetime. Among philosophers, Kant was perhaps the least inclined to travel. But Königsberg, though geographically remote, was not in the least a rustic, provincial town. It was one of the commercial centers of the Baltic Sea, then the site of the most active Northern European trade. It was a city where various kinds of information intersected. Kant wrote about it: A city like Königsberg on the river Pregel, the capital of a state, where the representative National Assembly of the government resides, a city with a university (for the cultivation of the sciences), a city also favored by its location for maritime commerce, and which, by way of rivers, has the advantages of commerce both with the interior of the country as well as with neighboring countries of different languages and customs, can well be taken as an appropriate place for enlarging one’s knowledge of people as well as of the world at large, where such knowledge can be acquired even 2

without travel.

Because of the sea traffic, it was in a sense closer to London, the capital of the British Empire, than Berlin was. Königsberg, having once belonged to East Prussia, was later occupied by Russia and has been a part of it ever since. Kant’s cosmopolitanism is inseparable from the atmosphere of the city—which, one can say, he chose . Like Hegel and Fichte, Kant was invited to teach at the state academy in Berlin; unlike the others, he rejected the invitation. Had he accepted, he would have been compelled to think from the standpoint of the ‘state’. Hence, Kant’s refusal was in a sense a transposition, and an ‘exile’ lacking physical movement. And Marx. When considering him, too, one is drawn into thinking about transposition and its significance in the formation of thought. But one cannot simplemindedly emphasize Marx the refugee. For the fact is that Marx was deported and exiled to Britain, but he was later pardoned and returned home for a brief period in the 1850s. He then chose to return to England and London, because this nation—the most advanced in capitalist development—and its capital were ideal for his analysis of capitalism. Therefore, he cannot plainly be considered a political refugee. He chose to live in London. The point to be stressed is that Marx also thought in the interstice—the transcritical space—where one has to confront http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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different languages, thoughts, and value systems; and from which it is impossible to induce a certain positive doctrine. When he was in exile in Paris in 1843, Marx wrote Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts . Those reflections—often identified as early Marx—epitomize an application of the Feuerbachian theory of selfalienation to the political economy, an approach similar to the one Moses Hess had already rendered. In this sense, it is possible to say that Marx at that time was still within the problematic consciousness of the Young Hegelians. Soon after, he wrote Holy Family ; and two years later, in 1845, he was expelled from France and moved to Brussels. There he wrote Theses on Feuerbach and, in collaboration with Engels, The German Ideology . Louis Althusser famously considered Marx’s turn in this period crucial, calling it an “epistemological break”3 and implying that Marx not only overturned Hegel’s philosophy materialistically, but also realized a discontinuous transformation of, or development from, the Hegelian framework itself. This is certainly a radical turn. Meanwhile, my transcritical position observes that it is not the only radical turn that occurred in Marx.4 In reference to Kant’s Copernican turn, I remarked earlier that it is commonly understood as a remarkable revolution from geocentrism to heliocentrism, but that such an idea had existed since long before Copernicus. It was finally constituted as a theory by Copernicus—only thanks to his shift from the position that the sub ject passively perceives the objective world to the position that ob jects are composed by the form of the active subject. It was the latter that Kant appeared to consider important. But when, in consequence, post-Kantian idealism was established around this position and flourished, more destination turn—that one another, is thrown intoultimate the world, instead ofofthe theKantian world being of one’s own composition—was forgotten. At that point Kant quickly intervened to refute those idealists who had grown under his influence. In the history of science, the event of the Copernican turn happened only once. But in Kant, the Copernican turn occurred more than once. For the Kantian critique involved incessant transposition transcritique . and was not rooted in a static positionality. I call this http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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It is also possible to propose a “Marxian turn” as such. The early Marx, who was one of the Young Hegelians, was faithful to Feuerbach’s materialist overturning of Hegelian idealism. Feuerbach’s critique of religion argued that God is a self-alienation of the generic essence (or the species-being) of humans, and that individuals as sensuous beings should recover their generic essence. The early Marx basically relied upon this critique, except that he transposed and extended the account of ‘self-alienation’ to the domains of the monetary economy and the state. In this context, Marx observed: “The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion , religion does not make man. Religion is the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being encamped outside the world. Man is the world of man , the state, society. This state, this society, produce religion, an inverted world-consciousness , because they are an inverted world .”5 What is noteworthy here is that Marx goes on to liken this overturn to the Copernican turn: The criticism of religion disillusions man to make him think and act and shape his reality like a man who has been disillusioned and has come to reason, so that he will revolve round himself and therefore round his true sun. Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves round man as long as he does not revolve around himself. The task of history , therefore, once the world beyond the truth has disappeared, is to establish the truth of this world . The immediate task of philosophy , which is at the service of history, once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked, is to unmask human self-estrangement in its unholy forms . Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics .6

This materialist overturn may appear to be decisive, but it is still incomplete. The true Copernican turn of Marx later expressed itself when he criticized this materialism and affirmed an active moment, conversely, in the idealism: “The chief defect of all previous materialism—that of Feuerbach included—is that the object [Gegen- stand ], reality, and sensuousness are conceived only in the form of the object , or of contemplation , but not as human sensuous activity, practice , and not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in contradiction to materialism, was set forth by idealism—but only http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such.”7 Marx’s Copernican turn, too, occurred more than once; and the discursive transpositions were always accompanied by travel between real existing places. The German Ideology was written from such an interstice: If we wish to rate at its true value this philosophic charlatanry, which awakens evenifin breast of the German citizen glow of patriotic feeling, wethe wish to bring outrighteous clearly the pettiness, the aparochial narrowness of this whole Young-Hegelian movement and in particular the tragicomic contrast between the illusions of these heroes about their achievements and the actual achievements themselves, we must look at the whole spectacle from a standpoint beyond the frontiers of Germany.8

The standpoint that locates itself as “beyond the frontiers of Germany” is not simply a real place like France or England. This is the difference, as it were, between German discourse and French/English discourse. As a point of fact, Marx’s attempt, in collaboration with Arnold Ruge, to establish the German-French Annual Journal [ Deutsche-Französische Jahrbücher ], namely, to combine German philosophy and French political movements editorially, was contemptuously ignored by French activists. There was no possible way for the French haddeduced maturedmerely through real political experiences, toSocialists, accept a who theory from philosophy. It was not national antagonism that prevented the easy acceptance of such a project but actual experience. Young Marx, who had abundant self-confidence, had to learn the hard lesson that German philosophy turned to be irrelevant or odd “beyond the frontiers of Germany,” and that there was a ‘reality’ developing far away from the theory. In contrast, for Engels there was no such repercussion from be yond the German frontiers, for he had long been exposed to the realities of capitalism in Britain, and in confronting classical economics. In many ways, he was much more mature than Marx. On the occasion of publishing part of The German Ideology in 1888, years after it was written, Engels stressed that historical materialism was first formulated in that book, and by Marx. Concerning this, in the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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early 1960s, the Japanese philosopher Wataru Hiromatsu presented evidence that challenged that assertion. Hiromatsu conducted an elaborate text critique of The German Ideology , and showed that the text on Feuerbach was mostly written by Engels; Marx’s participation was limited to some crucial revisions here and there; and furthermore, comparing the earlier writings of both, he proved that Engels had conceptualized historical materialism first.9 What Hiromatsu wanted to say was that Engels was, at that point, theoretically more advanced than Marx, who was still in the paradigm of the Young Hegelians. Why, then, didn’t Engels simply spell out his advanced position? I believe it was not because of any humility, but rather because it was his intention to construct ‘Marxism’ after Marx’s death . Marx himself did not use the words, ‘historical materialism’, but seems to have persisted in so-called economic determinism: that economic infrastructure determines superstructure. This manner of seeing things is correct if and only if one is deliberately engaged in an ex post facto analysis of history from a long perspective—and that is the only case. In his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , Max Weber stressed the importance of the role played by the Religious Reformation qua superstructure in the development of industrial capitalism. But the Religious Reformation itself could not have come into existence if not for the social transformation that had accompanied the osmosis of the commodity economy in the first place. Hence Weber’s observation cannot wholly surpass the general thesis: economic infrastructure determines superstructure. When observing historical events, however, one has to take into consideration various causalities (reciprocal causality) at the same time. In The German , Marx and Engels were extra-cautious this aspect. TheyIdeology insisted on seeing history rather from an about empiricist standpoint.10 But in Britain such was not a new or innovative stance, but rather common at that time. For instance, at the end of The The- ory of Moral Sentiments , Adam Smith announced his future research project, which was never realized. In reading his idea, one discerns the kind of empiricism that could have developed into historical 11

materialism. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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140 Marx

The historical materialism completed by Engels was therefore a view of history that had appeared thanks to the establishment of industrial capitalism. That is to say that industrial capitalism made the materialist view of seeing the historical past possible, while the view—historical materialism—cannot elucidate capitalism. The commodity economy under capitalism has itself a potency to organize the world, and this potency is in a sense an ideational power par excellence. So it is that the capitalist economy is not infrastructure per se. Yet neither is it superstructure per se. In order to take the capitalist economy into account, one has to, once and for all, discard historical materialism’s framework of infra/superstructures. The movement of capitalism, as perverted a form as it may be, has an active aspect. As Marx pointed out in his “Theses on Feuerbach,” it was Hegel, rather than positivist historians, who understood it clearly. For this reason, Marx returned to Hegel as soon as he began his critique of political economy work in the 1850s. In any event, it is true that Marx came after Engels in terms of historical materialism. This delay was due to his engagement in the critique of religion. He was seeking to grasp state and money as a sort of religion. And he never abandoned this project; Capital was written as a development of his earlier concerns. Therefore, what makes The German Ideology so important is not its new view of history, but Marx’s parallax caused by his ‘delay’. Engles wrote, “It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.”12 Then, what about Marx, who had been within the circle of German philosophy up until the moment his life in exile began? It had not occurred to him, either. This awareness that must havetotally finallydifferent occurred to him, reading the passage, must have been from the while flat and static scheme of historical materialism (similar as it may seem): namely, that German philosophy (qua superstructure) is determined by German material circumstances. What finally struck Marx outside Germany was the pronounced parallax. Then, in 1844 in Paris, Marx wrote in The Holy Family : The maitre d’ecole describes correctly the condition to which isolation from the outer world reduces a man. For one to whom the sensuously perceptible


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world becomes a mere idea , for him mere ideas are transformed into sensuously perceptible beings . The figments of his brain assume corporeal form. A world of tangible, palpable ghosts is begotten within his mind. That is the secret of all pious visions and at the same time it is the general form of insanity.13

German Idealism was established at the point that the moment of sensibility qua passivity (in Kant’s conceptualization) was discarded, and, as Marx criticized, what it created was little more than a world of “pious visions” or “insanity.” But what Marx stresses here is be yond the matter of the philosophical stance per se. To this transcritical Marx, the positionality—whether or not materialist, radical, concerned with exteriority, and so on—makes little difference if it is caught within an enclosed discursive system. All in all, what isolates thinkers, including Marx himself, from the outer world is neither national frontier nor psychosis, but each’s own discursive system. And this fact strikes them only when they are dislocated and out of the system . This outside is not another positionality, however. Marx is not criticizing the idealism from a certain new positionality. For Marx’s transcritical materialism exists only in the “parallax” between idealism and empiricism. If the parallax is lost, that is, if it turns out to be a positionality, even materialism will be another “optical illusion,” to use Kant’s term. Marx continues: “Whilst in ordinary life every shopkeeper is very well able to distinguish between what somebody professes to be and what he really is, our historiography has not yet won even this trivial insight. It takes every epoch at its word and believes that everything it says and imagines about itself is true.”14 The Marxian transcritique appears only in the awareness of the gap between what one thinks (understanding) and what one really is (sensibility). Marx, who had seen Germany from the outside, several years later came to see France from the outside. In contrast to the German scene, the discourses in France were not produced only within philosophers’ fantasies, but in relationship with real political struggles. But here, too, “it has not occurred to any one of [these revolutionaries] to inquire into the connection of [French] philosophy with [French] reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.” They could notthe distinguish “between the illusions about their achievements and actual achievements http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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themselves.” In this sense, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte was written in the manner of “The French Ideology,” as it were. 4.2

The System of Representation: Darstellung and Vertretung

As Marx’s transcritical stance revealed, German ideologues thought and spoke under the design of Hegelian philosophy. Things were not the same, however, vis-à-vis French ideologues. Expressing themselves as representatives of political parties, they were less speculative than practical. And yet, in the minds of everyone—participants and observers alike—the process of the real political events dating from February 24, 1848 to December 2, 1851, appeared as an incomprehensible, uncanny dream. To Marx, it was self-evident that at the substratum of the series of events, the drama, were the social classes and their struggles. But what he sought in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte was not to point out the base structure, but to illuminate the way the political process was formed by a dreamlike metamorphosis . The primary characteristic of the affair was that the dramatic personae were dressed in the linguistic costume of the first French Revolution (1789–1799), and further that the whole event came to be resolved along the plot lines of the past affair. In order to decode the new affair—that notoriously resulted in the inauguration of Louis Bonaparte as emperor—simply pointing out the ‘infrastructure’ was obviously insufficient. Thus Marx employed the process of the first French Revolution as an a priori form, so to speak, that constituted the process of events. Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly given weighs and transmitted from the The tradition of all theencountered, dead generations like a nightmare onpast. the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionizing themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honored disguise and his borrowed language. Thus Luther donned the alternately mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789 to 1814 draped itself as the Roman republic and the Roman empire, and http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793 to 1795. 15

It was the ghosts and ideas from the past that were ruling the parties of the time: they could understand what they were doing only in terms of the past; that is, they were dominated by the historical words and phrases—language. If so, it was isomorphic to what Marx pointed out with respect to the German philosophers: that they were too eager tothis fiddle withdetail Hegelian criticize by expanding or that of theproblems Hegelianand system, but Hegel that they were finally little more than an undersized representation, a farce, of Hegel himself. While Hegel at least posed a system of thought outright, the Young Hegelians, merely as his chorus, were obsessed with arguments, ostensibly grandiose, but in actuality empty and fruitless. For the German philosophers, the Hegelian system as “the tradition of allbrain.” the dead weigh[ed] like a nightmare on the[ir living] Thegenerations Eighteenth Brumaire thus performed a dexterous satire of Hegel’s Philosophy of History . In the process of the political drama of 1848 to 1851, Louis, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte (who was, for Hegel, the very epitome of a world historical individual [weltgeschichtliches Individuum ]) came to hold the seat of power by resorting to that very same illusion of the world historical individual; and this notwithstanding that he had no ideal nor assignment to be realized other than his given role—to repress, as long as possible, the contradictions inherent in the capitalist economy by way of state intervention. In this manner, Louis Bonaparte became the enduring prototype for all counterrevolutionaries, including twentieth-century fascists. What Marx paid attention to most in this text was the aspect that this particular process of events came into existence within the parliamentary system (the system of representatives) as a given. The revolution of February 1848 delivered universal suffrage for the first time, and this was accomplished under the republicanism that had abolished the monarchy. The process that was brought to a close by the installment of petit Louis the Emperor could have occurred only under the bourgeois parliamentary system. Marx pointed out the existence of the real social classes behind the representation. Later http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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144 Marx

Engels again attributed to Marx the discovery that behind the ideological (i.e., political, religious, philosophical) representations [ Darstellung ] there exists the economic class structure, and that the struggle between classes is driven by the ‘law of history’. Reading the text closely, however, what Marx discovered in the series of events was quite the reverse: The conjunctures developed independent of, or even contrary to, the economic class structure. What he sought to elucidate were the autonomous “operations” of events as such. And the agent of the operations was obviously the institution of the representative system [Vertretung ] itself. In the parliamentary system based upon universal suffrage, the representative system is thoroughly “fictitious” as compared to Ständeversammlung —an assembly of different castes/professions from preindustrial Europe, as Hans Kelsen later claimed.16 That is to say that there is no apodictic rapport between the representer and the represented in the institution of representatives. The point Marx stressed here was that the acts and discourses of political parties were independent of the real classes. Or to use Kenneth Burke’s expression in The Grammar of Motives , the real classes are little more than “class unconsciousness”17 which can come into consciousness as classes only in the discursive arena of political parties. In the following passage, Marx explains the arbitrariness of the relation between representer and represented: Just as little must one imagine that the democratic representatives are indeed all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shopkeepers. In their education and individual position they may be as far apart as heaven from earth. What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter in practice. This is, in general, the relationship between the political and literary representatives of a class and the class they represent. 18

And elsewhere, he says: The parliamentary party was not only dissolved into its two great factions, each of these factions was not only split up within itself, but the party of outside parliaOrder in parliament outofwith party of Order ment. The spokesmenhad andfallen scribes the the bourgeoisie, its platform and its http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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press, in short, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie itself, the representatives and the represented,19were alienated from one another and no longer understood each another.

Only because the relationship between the representative and the represented is arbitrary was it possible that the industrial bourgeoisie as well as other classes, could abandon their representatives and choose Louis Bonaparte. At the point in time of February 24, 1848, parties existed as representatives of classes, namely, they appeared as difference in the discursive arena. In only three years, however, Bonaparte somehow seized power as the representative of all. Marx refused to ascribe this to the person of Bonaparte: his ideals, politics, psychology, or character. No matter what kind of scope one employs, it is impossible to decode the enigma of Bonaparte, who was a nobody (except for being Napoleon’s nephew) three years before, whosays came to seize, itthe throne of Emperor. As Marx in Capital is easy to see that money is a commodity, but the challenge is to figure out how a commodity becomes money; it is the same conundrum that Marx observed vis-à-vis Bonaparte. As opposed to Victor Hugo, who “confines himself to bitter and witty invective against the responsible publisher of the coup d’Etat,” Marx declares he would “demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances relationships that20made possible a grotesque mediocrityand to play a hero’s part.” To beitcertain, nofor matter how many times one repeats criticism like Hugo’s (precisely like repeating that money is simply a piece of paper), it does not amount to a criticism of anything. Nonetheless, neither can Marx’s enigma— how it is possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part—be elucidated by resorting to the ‘class struggle’. That the representative (qua discursive) system exists autonomously; that classes come into consciousness only via this system; and that the system is porous— here exists the enigma that made Bonaparte Emperor. According to Engels, “It was precisely Marx who had first discovered the great law of motion of history, the law according to which all historical struggles, whether they proceed in political, religious, philosophical or some other ideological domain, are in fact only the 21

more or less clear expression of struggles of social classes.” But, as Wataru Hiromatsu observed, as far as such a stance is concerned, it http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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should have been Engels’s before Marx’s.22 The crucial point here is that social classes can appear as they are only by way of the discourses (of their representatives), and not in the least according to “the great law of motion of history.” But Marx also points to the existence of a class which, without representatives, without discourses that speak for their class interest, has to be represented by someone totally unrelated to them. In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. In so far as there is merely a local interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no community, no national bond and no political organization among them, they do not form a class. They are consequently incapable of enforcing their class interest in their own name, whether through a parliament or through convention. They cannot themselves, they as must bemasrepresented.a Their representative mustrepresent at the same time appear their ter, as an authority over them, as an unlimited governmental power that protects them against the other classes and sends them rain and sunshine from above. The political influence of the small-holding peasants, therefore, finds its final expression in the executive power subordinating society to itself.23

The fact was that the small-holding peasants who first appeared on the political stage supported Bonaparte. But they welcomed him not as their representative but as their Emperor. We have seen that, especially from the twentieth century onward, this class has welcomed and supported Fascism most fervently. But more crucially, it was the system of representative democracy that gave them this role in the political theatre.24 For instance, Hitler’s regime came into existence from within the ideal representative system of the Weimar Republic. A fact unknown to the West and often ignored is that the Emperor [Tenno] Fascism of Japan appeared only after the realization of uni versal suffrage in 1928. In the 1930s in Europe, Marxists considered Hitler simply as an agent for the bourgeois economy—seeking to save it from crisis—and thought it would be enough to reveal that ‘infra-structural’ fact. Like the Nazis, Marxists also found the Weimar congress deceitful. But the tomasses gradually chose toThis be represented by Nazism, as opposed Marxists’ expectations. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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cannot be explained merely by the effects of Nazis’ shrewd manipulation of passion and violence combined. From the beginning, the communist party was also one of the representatives which could not claim any apodictic connection with the represented, the proletariat. With the experiences of the failure of the revolution after World War I and the resulting fascism, ‘the relative autonomy of superstructure’ became one of the Marxists’ key concepts. In criticizing the Marxists of the time, Wilhelm Reich used psychoanalytic theory to find the cause of Germans being drawn to Nazism. It was there he discovered the “authoritarian family ideology” and its sexual repression.25 Later, the Frankfurt School introduced psychoanalysis into the analysis of the mechanism of Fascism, too. In this context, psychoanalysis definitely became a new tool for analyzing superstructure. In order to tackle Fascism, however, one should rather return first to The Eighteenth Brumaire . In this text, Marx almost preempted the Freudian stance of The Interpretation of Dreams . He analyzes the series of dreamlike events that occurred during the period of time, emphasizing not the “dream thoughts,” that is, expressions of real class relations, but the “dream work [Traumarbeit ]”: how class unconscious is condensed and transferred . For that matter—to the favor of our transcritical view—Freud himself used the metaphor of the representative system in his New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis : The dream is seen to be an abbreviated selection from the associations, a selection made, it is true, according to rules that we have not yet understood: the elements of the dream are like representatives chosen by election from a mass of people. There can be no doubt that by our technique we have got hold of something for which the dream is a substitute and in which lies the dream’s psychical value, but which no longer exhibits its puzzling peculiarities, its strangeness and its confusion. 26

Freud himself likens dream work to a congress elected by universal suffrage. If so, instead of introducing psychoanalysis into an analysis of Marx’s text, we should rather read psychoanalysis from the standpoint of The Eighteenth Brumaire . Thus fascism qua Bonapartism is revealed in its most crucial dynamism—a collapse of representation as the solution to the unrepresentable. Louis Althusser made an effort to explain the relative autonomy of superstructure with the concept of “overdetermination,” borrowed http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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from Lacanian theory, as opposed to the conventional economic determinism. In my opinion, this is a general theoretical reinterpretation of historical materialism, and thereby lacks the moment to analyze concrete facts and situations. In contrast, Marx’s analytical device in The Eighteenth Brumaire is much more specific and intricate. What he is pointing to is the duplicity of the representational system itself: on the one hand there is congress qua legislative power, and on the other there is presidency qua administrative power. The latter is chosen by the direct vote of the people. (In fact, Louis Bonaparte advocated universal suffrage in opposition to the Republican Party, which sought to limit voters. As a result, he became popular as the “representative of the nation.” Thereafter he appealed repeatedly to national referendums, precisely as Hitler did.) But the difference between a congress and presidency lies not merely in the way they are elected. As Carl Schmitt explained, the parliamentary system is liberalistic in the sense that it governs through discussion, while the presidency is democratic in the sense that it represents the “general will” (i.e., in the sense of Diderot and Rousseau). Schmitt further states that dictatorship contradicts liberalism but not necessarily democracy. “Bolshevism and Fascism by contrast are, like all dictatorships, certainly antiliberal but not necessarily antidemocratic. . . . The will of the people can be expressed just as well and perhaps better through acclamation, through something taken for granted, an obvious and unchallenged presence, than through the statistical apparatus that has been constructed with such meticulousness in the last fifty years.”27 This problematic consciousness had already been explicit in Rousseau, who had derisively criticized the British Parliament, a representative system as follows: “Mythe argument, that sovereignty, being nothing other than exercise then, of theisgeneral will, can never be alienated; and that the sovereign, which is simply a collective being, cannot be represented by anyone but itself—power may be delegated, but the will cannot be. . . . If a people promises simply and solely to obey, it dissolves itself by that very pledge; it ceases to be a people; for once there is a master, there is no longer a 28

sovereign, and theofbody politics therefore annihilated.” Following the example Greek directisdemocracy, Rousseau disparaged http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the representative system. This position would result either in the Hegelian stance that saw the general will not in the parliament but in another administrative power—the bureaucrat—or in the urge to replace the parliamentary representative system with the directness of a national referendum. (It goes without saying that the direct national referendum is nevertheless nothing but another form of representative system.) Furthermore, the problematic of the political representative system corresponds to the larger problematic of representation. The difference between parliament and presidency as representational forms corresponds to that of epistemological representations. That is, on one hand, there is the Cartesian position—that truth can be deduced from a priori clear evidence—and on the other hand, there is the position common in Anglo-American philosophy—that truth can exist only as a tentative hypothesis attained by agreement among others. In the political context, the former is equal to the idea that the general will is represented by Being beyond conflicting individuals and classes, while the latter is equal to the idea that the general will must consistently be determined by agreement through discussion. What is clear is that, as with Heidegger’s discontent, both are modernist thoughts— seeking truth not directly but only via representation. Heidegger radically criticized both positions. And politically, he denied both presidency and parliament. To him, truth had to be disclosed (erschlissen ) directly by Being via a poet-thinker—the führer. In such a context, Heidegger insisted that the national referendum Hitler organized should not be an election to choose representatives29—but a direct revelation ( Erschlossenheit ). But, in my context, this is another form of representation, and perhaps its ultimate collapse: an imaginary and Heidegger aesthetic synthesis thethat splitthe of the contradicting classes. What insisted ofwas führer be an emperor to whom the nation pays obeisance as their master, rather than its representative elected via a national referendum. In the story of Bonaparte’s victory, one sees precisely the first instance of the crisis of representation and the imaginary sublation of the contradictions therein. In this sense, The Eighteenth Brumaire takes in advance thereappeared. essential elements of political crises that thereafter appeared and http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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150 Marx

Then, what does an emperor who is neither parliament nor president embody? Nothing other than the state . The bourgeois state is constituted by overthrowing the absolutist monarchy. Its nature is that by exhibiting constitutionalism and the representative system, it conceals the substantive ingredients of the state—including its bureaucratic and military organizations. “The executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its extensive and artificial state machinery, with a host of officials numbering half a million, besides an army of another half million, this appalling parasitic body, which enmeshes the body of French society like a net and chokes all its pores, sprang up in the days of the absolute monarchy, with the decay of feudal system, which it helped to hasten.”30 Precisely as money is deemed the means to represent commodity’s value, in the bourgeois state, bureaucracy and the army appear to belong to the organ that represents the will of the nation. At moments of crises, however, the ‘state-in-itself’ appears, precisely as, in economic crises, ‘money-in-itself’ appears. Marx continues: “Only under the second Bonaparte does the state seem to have made itself completely independent. As against civil society, the state machine has consolidated its position so thoroughly . . .” 31 That is to say that when the bourgeois economy reaches a deadlock, the state organ intervenes under the name of the emperor. In Capital , Marx registered only three classes: capitalists, landowners, and wage workers. These are sheer aliases of the economic categories: capital, ground rent, and labor power commodity; and the real formations of the social hierarchy are much more complex than this triad. Even in Britain, which Marx selected for his model, there was no such tripartite division; rather various classes, including “all the dead existed reality. Inthose France, worse still, called there were few generations,” industrial laborers inin1848. And whom Marx ‘proletariat’ in The Eighteenth Brumaire were very much those craftsmen who turned radical, having been deprived of their jobs by the osmosis of British industrial capital. This is why they too ended up supporting Louis Bonaparte, the Saint-Simonist on horseback, whose slogans were state-led economic development and social welfare. What Marx sought to present in Capital waslead notto thethe prospect thatclass the development of industrial capital would tripartite http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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division, but the principles of the capitalist economy that are overlooked under the complex formation of the real social hierarchy. This division, therefore, should not be mechanically employed as a scheme for actual historical development. By scrutinizing the French experience in The Eighteenth Brumaire , Marx grasps class and class struggle as difference forming a polymorphous complex, and politics as a matter of discursive and representative apparati. He also, however, offers a principal reflection upon the relationship between state and capital, taking France as a model. In his Socialism: Utopian and Scientific , Engels stated that Marx’s thought consisted of German philosophy, French socialism, and English political economy. I would rather say that it really exists in his transcritique between them. Written in a journalistic style, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte yet offers a principal reflection, different from yet certainly as important as the one in Capital—the critique of nation-state (polis) economics [Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie ]. It should be read as the critique of national politics , as it were. To conclude this chapter on political representation, I would like to touch upon what ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’ meant to Marx, because it is certainly not irrelevant to his ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. It is crucial to note that Marx saw a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in universal suffrage, the backdrop of the coup of the Eighteenth Brumaire, rather than a direct violent means of rule. It is a system wherein people of all classes participate in the elections. But that is not all—at the same time, and inversely, in this system, all individuals are, for the first time, separated in principle from all class relations and relations of production. The representative assembly had already existed in the feudal system as well as in the absolutist monarchy; but itwere was atintroduced the point when universal suffrage and then secret balloting that the representative assembly turned into the unequivocal bourgeois parliament. Hiding who votes who for whom, secret voting liberates people from their relations; at the same time, however, it erases the traces of their relations. Thus the relationship between representative and represented is radically severed once, and becomes arbitrary. So it is that the representative chosen by secret balloting is no longercan controlled represented. In other words, the representative behave asbyif the he http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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represented everyone, even though that is not the case. That is the nature of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It is not quite the same as the bourgeois class running society by occupying the parliament. Rather it is a mechanism that erases class relations or the relations of domination by temporarily ‘reducing’ people into ‘free and equal individuals’—and this mechanism itself functions as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. In elections, the freedom of individuals is guaranteed, but this exists only at the moment that the hierarchical relations in the real relations of production are suspended. So it is that there is no democracy sensu stricto in capitalist enterprises, outside elections. That is to say, managers are not elected by employees, and furthermore not by their secret voting. And it is impossible that state bureaucrats are elected by people’s direct voting. People’s freedom exists only to the extent that they can choose their representatives in political elections. And, in reality, universal suffrage is just an elaborate ritual to give a public consensus to what has already been determined by the state apparati (military and bureaucracy). 4.3

The Economic Crisis as a Parallax

Now living in exile in England and dealing with British discourse, Marx could no longer rely on his previous approaches. He had to shift his stance once more. In confronting German and French ideologues, it was significant and even imperative to invoke the economic class structure that was repressed in their discourses, whereas in British discourse, the very empiricist stance that he had posed against German philosophers and the very economic problematic that he had introduced against French ideologues were dominant. There is no the tradition. economicBut problematic was the infrastructuredoubt in thethat idealist it was not veiled inveiled the English context; class struggles over economic interests were especially manifest in the climate of the mid to late nineteenth century. Both classical economists and Ricardian socialists had been approaching the problematics of society and history via the explicitly economic standpoint. In fact the issue concerning the exploitation of surplus-value (qua surplus-labor)—the very notion that believed have been coined by Marx—had already been posed by theis Ricardian socialists. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The most crucial problem Marx encountered in England was the potential for crisis inherent in the capitalist society. In classical economics, there is no crisis in principle; if it were acknowledged, it would only signify misfortune or a failure of economic policy. Classical economists disclaimed the fetishism of money inherent in their predecessor, mercantilism. To them, money was merely a denominator of the value of commodity, that is, of the labor objectified in the commodity or the social labor time. Ricardo writes: “Productions are always bought by productions, or by services; money is only the medium by which the exchange is effected.”32 The enlightenment of the political economy in this sense had been accomplished long before Marx. And it is precisely the real occasions of economic crisis that derided such enlightenment thinking. Marx described the nature of crisis: Such a crisis occurs only where the ongoing chain of payments has been fully developed, along with an artificial system for setting them. Whenever there is a general disturbance of the mechanism, no matter what its cause, money suddenly and immediately changes over from its merely nominal shape, money of account, into hard cash. Profane commodities can no longer replace it. The use-value of commodities becomes valueless, and their value vanishes in the face of their own form of value. The bourgeois, drunk with prosperity and arrogantly certain of himself, has just declared that money is a purely imaginary creation. ‘Commodities alone are money’, he said. But now the opposite cry resounds over the markets of the world: only money is a commodity. As the heart pants after fresh water, so pants his soul after money, the only wealth. In a crisis, the antithesis between commodities and their value-form, money, is raised to the level of an absolute contradiction. Hence money’s form of appearance is here also a matter of indifference. The monetary famine remains whether payments have to be made in gold or in credit-money, such as bank-notes.33

Taking such a phenomenon in consideration, one can no longer criticize the illusion of the capitalist economy or the illusion of money by invoking ‘substance’—such as products or labor. For, at the very moment of crisis, the moment the fantasy collapses, it is money to which people throng. The “magic of money” that Ricardo was thought to have liquidated, here returns. The first of the crises (that thereafter recurred in ten-year cycles) hit in 1819, soon after Ricardo published The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation in http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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1817. The crisis hit precisely as the most radical critique of his economic theory. Although money had been at work in reality in the capitalist economy, it was theoretically cremated. In his critique of classical economics, Marx thus ‘reintroduced’ the money they had eliminated in their enlightenment. Money was thoroughly absent from the perspective of classical economics. Adam Smith was well aware that the developments of commodity exchange and division of labor transform society, but he overlooked the fact that both are rendered only by money, and furthermore, only as a movement of capital. Smith wrongly believed that the worldwide division of labor—constantly being organized and reorganized by merchant capital—had existed since the very onset of economic history, and it followed that money was deemed by him a mere barometer or medium. The classical economists’ labor theory of value negated the dimension proper to commodity exchange and conceptually reduced the source of value to production in general. It cast a perspective by which to see precapitalist societies from the vantage point of production and relation of production, namely, from the viewpoint of historical materialism, thereby overlooking the dimension proper to the capitalist economy. Capital is a kind of self-increasing, self-reproductive money. Marx’s first formulation of this is M-C-M. It represents the activity of merchant capital, with which usurers’ capital, M-M is made possible. According to Marx, merchants’ capital and usurers’ capital are “antediluvian” forms of capital. The formulation of merchants’ capital is nevertheless also consistent with industrial capital; the main point of difference is that in industrial capital the content of C is a 



complex entity, is, equation, C mp (means of production) L (laborpower); thus, in that Marx’s the movement of industrial capital is M-{mp  L}-M. At the stage at which industrial capital became dominant, a divergence occurred: merchants’ capital came to be merely commercial capital, while usurers’ capital became bank or financial capital. But, in order to consider capital in the full sense, one should always start from the consideration of the process M-C-M , for capital is equal to the whole process of the “transubstantiation” or “metamorphosis.” http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Seen from a different angle, this process is also the process of circulation: C-M and M-C, the domain where it appears that only commodity exchange via money is taking place. So much so that money is merely a measure of value albeit a means of purchase and payment. What Adam Smith and David Ricardo both sought to elucidate was a mechanism that equilibrates and adjusts the division of labor and exchange. This theoretical inclination was shared by both classical and neoclassical economists. What they omitted was the fact that expansions of division of labor and exchange happen only as the self-reproductive movement of capital/money. Whether classical or neoclassical, economists tend to give primary importance to the production of wealth by division of labor and the exchange of wealth—things which are merely the tail end of capital’s movement. To Adam Smith, that people pursue their own profits is consequently beneficial to the whole; he attributed it to the auto-adjustment mechanism—“the invisible hands (of God)”—in the marketplace. On the other hand, Marx located a salto mortale in M-C-M , at the moment C-M is realized or not, that is, the moment when it is determined whether or not the commodity is sold. In order to escape the critical moment and continue its self-reproductive movement, capital has to create an artificial pact of presuming that the commodity has already been sold. This is so-called credit. Crisis is not caused merely by an accumulation of the discouraging outcome of commodities not being sold, but very much by a forced revelation—at the moment of final liquidation—that commodities that are supposed to have been sold have not been sold in reality. Crisis is caused by the overheating of credit. And this phenomenon has existed since before the advent of industrial capitalism.34 



England, German Idealism was scorning mainly despised. Before he came to In England, Marx himself had been the speculative philosophy that began with Fichte—that considered Ego and Spirit as autopoetically creating the world—as a case of insanity isolated from the outer world. But, ironically, in England there was an uncanny coincidence between the real and the ideatic. There money-dealing capital was autonomous—precisely like the Ego and Spirit—as a self-increasing 

entity (M-M from ). Thetheir investors thought matter of from coursetheir thatstock they got interest savings as wellitasa dividends http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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investments. That is to say that speculative philosophy turned into a daily event, as it were. The drive for expansion without production and circulation is like the drive for ‘metaphysics’ in Kantian philosophy, namely, the expansion of cognition without synthetic judgment. The motive drive of usurers’ capital (or interest-bearing capital) is precisely such. Marx spoke of interest-bearing capital (expressed as M-M ) as follows: The formula M-M “further expresses the fact that it is the exchange-value, not the use-value, that is the decisive inherent purpose of the movement. It is precisely because the money form of value is its independent and palpable form of appearance that the circulation form M-M -M” . . ., which starts and finishes with actual money, expresses money-making, the driving motive of capitalist production, most palpably. The production process appears simply as an unavoidable middle term, a necessary evil for the purpose of moneymaking. (This explains why all nations characterized by the capitalist mode of production are periodically seized by fits of giddiness in which they try to accomplish the money-making without the mediation of the production process.)”35 Credit and speculation appear to be frivolous, secondary things. However, it is they that regulate the production process in reality. Occasions of crisis reveal that. But classical economists and their followers turned a blind eye to the parallax that crises deliver. It was Marx who intervened to tackle the truth of capitalism vis-à-vis the parallax. The “truth” I mean is nevertheless nothing like the socalled evils (exploitation and alienation) of capitalism, which others had pointed out long before Marx. Adam Smith was well aware that the capitalist economy rendered a class division between the haves and have-nots. Therefore, he proposed a sort of welfare economics 





based sympathy egoism (moral of sentiments), the same time as affirmingupon the inevitable individuals.atHegel, as well, pointed out the evil effects of civil society (based upon the market economy) and insisted that they be solved by the power of state. Meanwhile, socialists like Robert Owen and Pierre Joseph Prouhdon more radically stated that the capitalist economy could exist thanks to the exploitation of surplus-labor (theft), however, their recognition of the capitalist economy was not far from that of the classical economists whom they attacked. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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For that matter, even Marx himself was, up until the mid-1850s, not much better than these others. He had believed that crisis would utimately collapse the capitalist society. But it was after this ‘hopingfor-the-day theory’ failed that his understanding of capitalism deepened. Up until then, Marx had thought that crises would occur due to the anarchic impetus of capitalist production: that the crises would break down the capitalist economy and then a revolution would take place to finally expunge the crises as illness. From this derived Engels and Lenin’s idea to solve the crises by way of a planned economy. As we all know now, even though the planned economy might succeed in avoiding crisis, it would inevitably cause another illness. Crisis is a chronic disease inherent in the capitalist economy, yet also a solution to its internal defects. In other words, capitalism makes temporary repairs to its innate problem by crises, thus it will never collapse because of it. It can be compared with hysteria, the springboard of Freudian psychoanalysis. For an ill patient, hysteria is itself a solution, thanks to which the patient’s stability is secured for the time being. But, for Freud, what was more crucial than hysteria was the mechanism of unconscious that would cause it—which exists in a person whether or not he or she is ill. In the same way, for Marx, crisis was no longer the terminator of capitalist economy. It became important only because it would reveal the truth of the capitalist economy that is invisible in the everyday economy. Thus Marx’s stance on seeing the capitalist economy by way of the pronounced parallax provoked by the crisis. Marx wrote Capital in conformity with Hegelian Logic, wherein the status of capital is very similar to that of Spirit (Geist ). Capital is nevertheless a materialistic of the in Hegelian system. In hisnothing attempt like to grasp crisis as aninversion innate element capitalism, it required Marx take a completely non-Hegelian viewpoint. This was, I insist, the transcendental standpoint. In Kantian philosophy, crisis would function like a critique of capital Geist that seeks to self-expand over its boundaries. Thus for Marx to elucidate the drive of capitalism what was required was a kind of transcenden

tal retrospection. In this aspect, Marxian critique comes close to psychoanalysis. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In his Philosophy of Spirit of The Encyclopedia Logic , Hegel sees illness as a symptom of clinging to a lower stage in spirit’s development. In a sense, Freud’s account of psychosis is subsumed in this position. But Freud’s method was not simply to conduct a retrospective or belated search into the lower stage (i.e., infancy); he also presented how ‘normal development’ is achieved by a forgetting of the trauma of having encountered ‘crisis’. In a similar framework, Marx comments on classical economics: The unceasing fight of modern economists against the monetary and mercantile systems is mainly provoked by the fact that the secret of bourgeois production, i.e., that it is dominated by exchange value, is divulged in a naively brutal way by these systems . . . Political economy errs in its critique of the monetary and mercantile systems when it assails them as mere illusions, as utterly wrong theories, and fails to notice that they contain in a primitive form its own basic presuppositions.36

In the well-advanced industrial capitalism, the “naively brutal way” is oppressed, except when, in crises, a “return of the repressed” occurs. The ideology of what economists refer to as the “healthy market economy” denies the previously existing “naively brutal ways,” but it sits on top of them. Hence, in the style of Hegelian Logic, Marx describes the ‘development’ of industrial capitalism, from commodity to money, from money to merchant from merchant to industrial capital. Nevertheless, whencapital, one reads it, one shouldcapital do so backward. In his description, the development is not a sublation of contradictions, as commonly believed, but the development as a repression of contradictions. Our task vis-à-vis Capital is thus to elucidate what is erased in the most advanced stage and appears only in crises, by conducting a retrospective/belated search into the archaic form of capital. What is at stake is not thealready historical origin.capitalist It is the economy. arché as a37form whose traceshere remain in the complete In England, where classical economics and empiricist historiography were dominant, Marx rediscovered Hegel. It was in such a context that Marx professed himself to be Hegel’s disciple. Paradoxically, however, it was in this period that Marx was criticizing Hegel most radically, much more than during the period he was technically criticizing various details of Hegelian philosophy. In fact, the book entitled Capital: The Critique of National Economics could have http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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been entitled Capital: The Critique of Hegelian Philosophy of Right . People refer back to Hegelian philosophy in order to approach Capital , because it is written in the framework of Hegelian Logic. But Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right , for instance, has its own historical limit: it was an attempt to ground, from the vantage point of exchange and contract, the trinity of Capital-Nation-State when the capitalist economy came to organize the greater part of modern Western society, namely, the trinity was completed ( the end of history in a sense) therein. Within such a historicity, Hegel saw the market economy (civil society) as a system of wants. That is to say, he could not see the market economy as formed by a perverted drive of capitalism. In this sense, he was within the same confinement as the classical economists. Meanwhile, Marx’s insight was that the capitalist economy is a system of illusion, that it is driven by the movement M-C-M’, and that at its fountainhead is the drive to accumulate money (qua the right to exchange-ability)—in distinction from the wants and desire to achieve wealth. To achieve this objective, he returned to “value form.” Therefore, Capital ’s similarity to the Hegelian system should not confuse us. After writing Grundrisse , Marx commented in retrospect on his own doctoral dissertation in a letter to Ferdinand Lassalle: 

During this time of tribulation I carefully perused your Heraclitus . Your reconstruction of the system from the scattered fragments I regard as brilliant, nor was I any less impressed by the perspicacity of your polemic. . . . I am all the more aware of the difficulties you had to surmount in this work in that about 18 years ago I myself attempted a similar work on a far easier philosopher, Epicurus—namely the portrayal of a complete system from fragments, a system which I am convinced, by the by, was—as with Heraclitus— only implicitly present in his work, not consciously as a system. Even in the case of philosophers who give systematic form to their work, Spinoza for instance, the true inner structure of the system is quite unlike the form in which it was conciously presented by him.38

But, arrestingly, the same mechanism can be observed in Marx’s own work. The true inner structure of the system in Capital is “quite unlike the form in which it was consciously presented by him.” Here exists the very moment when the transcendental critique of reason-capital intervenes. Capital should be read as such. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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One of the most acclaimed impressions about Capital is that it is historical and at the same time logical . But rather this proves it to be neither. The history that Capital grasps is distinct from the history that historical materialism grasps. Marx’s objective, unlike that of Engels and others, did not exist in explaining the historical whole via the so-called economic infrastructure. What he sought to grasp was history insofar as it is organized by the monetary economy. He discovered thus that the capitalist market economy transformed the whole world, and that the source of its power was the self-reproductive drive of capital (the fetishism of money). History in this sense is logical, because it is that which is organized by the economic category. But at the same time, the economic category in Capital never does logically self-realize like the Hegelian concept; its development is al ways preceded by real historical events. Before dealing with industrial capitalism, Marx gives a long positivist reflection on “primitive accumulation.” The transformation from merchant capital to industrial capital is formally that from M-C-M to M-{mp  L}-M. But for this to happen, the separation between the means of production (mp) and the laborer (L), namely, the commodification of laborpower, must have taken place. This transformation, once seen as an economic category, appears to be quite smooth and clear, nevertheless for this ‘formal development’ to occur (or to be grasped as occurring), the real historical process has to be taken into consideration as a sine qua non. Marx never belittled the historical/contingent given, except that he employed the category of the capitalist economy as that which offers form to the contents (the givens). Only to this extent can it be said that he brackets the givens. The real capitalist economy primarily existseconomy; encompassed within states; it economy is states that framealong the commodity but the commodity coexists with various productions and classes that are not formally subsumed in its category. Marx brackets noncapitalist production as well as state intervention, namely, he treats them as if they were already internalized, because they ultimately have to follow the principles of the capitalist economy; because the capitalist economy has the potency to constantly involve its externality it intoeconomy. its internal given. Such is the autonomous potency ofand the turn capitalist And it is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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never identifiable as ‘infrastructure’. Marx’s lifelong assignment was to shed light on the secret of this potency. 4.4

The Micro Difference

There have been many disputes over assessments of early and late Marx. One was a tendency to appreciate the alienation theory of early Marx as opposed to the economic determinism of later Marx. Counter to this, Althusser stressed the epistemological break that occurred in the period of The German Ideology . There is an important aspect of Marx that both of the tendencies overlooked, that is, the critique of Marx, or Marx as a critic. As I have been pointing out, Marx’s thought could not have been formed if not for the incessant transpositions and turns. And it is wrong to induce some essential ‘philosophy’ out of it. In his doctoral dissertation, “Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature in General,” written before his “Economic and Philosophical Manuscript,” Marx had already presented his critical (and more crucially, transcritical) stance. In this, Marx sees the difference between Democritus and Epicurus in terms of their “philosophies of nature.” It is commonsense that there are large differences in their philosophies; yet in their philosophies of nature they were very similar. Epicurus modified Democritus’ mechanical determinism by introducing the concept of the swerve of the atom away from the straight line. This had been considered as a diversion, rather than a serious development. Marx, on the other hand, sought to prove that the difference between their philosophical systems derived precisely from this micro difference. The uniqueness of Marx’s method in his dissertation lies in it almost speaks of the difference between Democritus and Epicurus inthat their identical philosophies of nature rather than the whole of their philosophies. Indeed, on the one hand it is an old and entrenched prejudice to identify Democritean and Epicurean physics, so that Epicurus’ modifications are seen as only arbitrary vagaries. On the other hand I am forced to go into what seem to because be microscopic examinations as as farthe as details concerned. But precisely this prejudice is as old history are of philosophy, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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because the differences are so concealed that they can be discovered as it were only with a microscope, it will be all the more important if, despite the interdependence of Democritean and Epicurean physics, an essential difference extending to the smallest details can be demonstrated. What can be demonstrated in the small can even more easily be shown where the relations are considered in larger dimensions, while conversely very general considerations leave doubt whether the result will hold when applied to details.39

Marx intended to break down the Epicurus’ prejudice—“as old as theashistory of philosophy”—that determined modifications “arbitrary vagaries”; or more to the point, he challenged the topos of identification itself that erased their differences. A similar method might be observed in our reading of his own Capital . When writing the book, Marx inherited so many thoughts from classical economics that neoclassical economists customarily regard Capital as a variation of Ricardo’s work. This claim is not totally incorrect as far as his work up until Grundrisse is concerned. But Capital renders an element radically different from before. The theory of value form in the opening of Capital is initiated by Marx’s serious consideration of Bailey’s critique of Ricardo’s labor theory of value. Hence Capital should be read not only in its difference from Ricardo but also from Bailey, the true (yet often unacknowledged) originator of neoclassical economics. This interstice between them was one of the most significant stages for Marx’s transcritique. When contrasting Democritus and Epicurus, Marx was also keeping in mind another philosopher, Aristotle. On one pole Marx placed Democritus, who was a sensationalist, mechanical determinist, and also a skeptic as a result, while on the opposite pole he posited Aristotle, a teleologist and rationalist. The intermundia was traversed by Epicurus, a proto-transcritic insisting upon the “swerve” or “declination [clinamen ]” of the atom.40 According to Marx, it is this declination of the atom that renders a transmutation (or development) that is beyond being just mechanistic. (But this came to be grasped by Aristotle teleologically from the standpoint of predetermined harmony). For Marx, Epicurus is thus the one who criticizes both teleology and mechanical determinism by way of gazing into the swerve of the atomic movement. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In the age when dissertations had to be written strictly about the classics, it was only natural that contemporary problematic concerns were superimposed therein. There is no doubt that Marx was really problematizing his contemporary materialism and idealism. Moreover, his Epicurus is reminiscent of Kant, who criticized both Hume and Leibnitz from their intermundia . In this phase Marx was Kantian par excellence.41 But this was not because Marx consciously followed Kant. Rather the opposite. It was his own engagement that brought him close to Kant. (Although Marx was literally Kantian in his early study of the philosophy of law, I am not alluding to this correspondence.) It was because Marx himself lived transcritique . One observes the same gaze in his “Preface to the First Edition” of Capital : The value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form, is very simple and slight in content. Nevertheless, the human mind has sought in vain for more than to an getapproximation to the bottom to of ait,successful while on analysis the other hand there has2,000 been years at least of forms which are much richer in content and more complex. Why? Because the complete body is easier to study than its cells. Moreover, in the analysis of economic forms neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of assistance. The power of abstraction must replace both. But for bourgeois society, the commodity-form of the product of labor, or the value-form of the commodity, is the economic cell-form. To the superficial observer, the analysis of these forms seems to turn upon minutiae. It does in fact deal with minutiae, but so similarly does microscopic anatomy.42

What distinguishes Capital from previous work lies in the introduction of the microscopic view vis-à-vis the theory of value-form. This had not existed in Grundrisse of the 1850s or in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy of the early 1860s. One should read the micro difference between Capital and these previous works, because “[w]hat can be demonstrated in the small can even more easily be shown where the relations are considered in larger dimensions.” The conviction that Marx’s important break occurred only once has made us overlook how crucial this shift was. Here is another example concerning the movement of Marx’s thinking, written in 1843, before Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts : In overlook investigating situation concerning the state one all explain too easily tempted to the aobjective nature of the circumstances andis to everything http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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by the will of the persons concerned. However, there are circumstances which determine the actions of private persons and individual authorities, and which are as independent of them as the method of breathing. If from the outset we adopt this objective standpoint, we shall not assume good or evil will, exclusively on one side or the other, but we shall see the effect of circumstances where at first glance only individuals seem to be acting. Once it is proved that a phenomenon is made necessary by circumstances, it will no longer be difficult to ascertain the external circumstances in which it must actually be produced and those in which it could not be produced, although the need for it already existed. This can be established with approximately the same certainty with which the chemist determines the external conditions under which substances having affinity are bound to form a compound.43

This position already prefigures the preface to Capital , where Marx explains his intention to regard both capitalist and landowner as “personifications” of economic categories, and thus not to question their subjective will and moral responsibility. Herein his “natural historical standpoint” is clearly present, and it is totally irrelevant to the ‘influence of Feuerbach’ and the ‘residue of Hegelian thought’—no matter how crucial they were to Marx. But what I want to say is not that Marx was consistent from early on. To the contrary, I believe, Marx’s thinking should be read in reference to the “micro differences” within similarities and proximities. Finally, Capital is undoubtedly the most important achievement of Marx’s lifelong work, but one should not consider it his ‘ultimate position’. This is not merely because the book is unfinished, but more important because Marx persisted in criticizing dominant discourses within systems, from an external footing , constantly transposing and turning. Yet the external position is not something that exists substantively. This footing is the difference or the interstice between discourses which abrogates any standpoint. What is crucial here is Marx’s transcritical footwork that opposes historical heterogeneity to idealism, while counterposing the autonomous power of category that constitutes reality to empiricism. This prompt transposition ultimately exceeds any selfsame system of thought that can be attributed to him (and because what he says is often inverted according to contexts, one can induce any thought one likes from him). It is counterproductive to look for a doctrine in his work; his thought http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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and practice lie in his transcritique. Finally, Marx was less a scholar of philosophy and political economy than a journalistic critic. 4.5

Marx and Anarchists

Another aspect of Marx’s ambiguity is his relation with the three anarchists: Bakunin, Proudhon, and Stirner. Bakunin incisively branded Marx as an authoritarian and dictatorial thinker, which became an established reputation among later anarchists. By contrast, Marxists formulated Marx as a thinker who entirely negated anarchism. But both overlooked the “subtle difference” in the Marxian critique of anarchism. For instance, Bakunin attacked Marx along with Lassallians. “That was Lassalle’s program, and it is also the program of the Social-Democratic Party. Strictly speaking, it belongs not to Lassalle but to Marx, who expressed it fully in the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party , which he and Engels published in 1848 . . . Is it not clear that Lassalle’s program is in no way different from that of Marx, whom he acknowledged as his teacher?”44 It must have been a big misunderstanding, if not outright slander; Bakunin ignores the deployment of Marx’s thought during the 1860s and 1870s. Marx was critical of the idea (i.e., of Lassalle’s Gotha Programme) to have the state protect and foster cooperative production. Marx was clear: “That the workers desire to establish the conditions for cooperative production on a social scale, and first of all on a national scale, in their own country, only means that they are working to transform the present conditions of production, and it has nothing in common with the foundation of co-operative societies with state aid. But as far as the present co-operative societies are concerned, they are of value as they areofthethe independent of the workers and only notinsofar protégés either governmentcreations or of the bourgeois.”45 In other words, Marx is stressing that the association of cooperatives itself must take place of the state, instead of state-led cooperative movements, whereby capital and state are to wither away. And this kind of proposition of principle aside, Marx never said anything in particular about future prospects. Marx extolled the Paris Commune mainly “If achieved Proudhonists, and found it “possible communism”: unitedbyco-operative societies are in to http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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regulate national production upon a common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of Capitalist production—what else, gentlemen, would it be but Communism, ‘possible’ Communism?”46 This sort of association must be fundamentally different both from a traditional community and a state-centrist organization. It must correspond to what Marx called “the social,” that is, the form in which those who have once gotten out of communities are reassembled on a different level. In this sense, communism is a project in attempt to shift the social relation that is formed as a result of capital’s accumulative movement into the association of free and equal producers , and furthermore, into a global association of associations. In the third volume of Capital , Marx highly evaluated cooperatives side by side with stock company. He saw stock companies as “the abolition of capital as private property within the confines of the capitalist mode of production itself.”47 This is because stock companies abolished the previous integrity of capitalists by the separation of capital and management. Yet this is only a passive abolition of the capitalist system. The positive abolition (sublation) is discovered by Marx in the producers’ cooperative of which stockholders are workers themselves. In this context, Marx spoke of a new phase of “individual property” as opposed to “private property.” The capitalist mode of appropriation, which springs from the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of its proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a natural process, its own negation. This is the negation of negation. It does not reestablish private property, but it does indeed establish individual property on the basis of the achievements of the capitalist era: namely, co-operation and the possession in common of the land and the means of production produced by labor itself.48

What does this distinction between “private property” and “individual property” mean? Precisely because modern private ownership was that which was awarded by the absolutist state in exchange for paying taxes, private ownership is equal to state ownership. So it is a total fallacy to abolish private property by means of state ownership. The abolition of private property must be an abolition of the state http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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itself. To Marx, communism came to signify the establishment of a new kind of individual property , and this was because he considered communism as being equal to an association of producers’ cooperatives. Such a view is obviously based upon Proudhon, whose book Qu’est-ce que la propriété ? that young Marx praised, is famous for its unhesitant vocation, “la propriété, c’est le vol.” Yet Proudhon did not deny property in general. What he denied was earning income without working. So he distinguished between possession and property, and insisted on abolishing property. He believed that this revision would change every aspect of social institutions: law, politics, and economy. In addition, he never identified unearned profit with feudal plundering. What he calls unearned profit is rather intrinsic to the capitalist mode of production. For instance, each individual worker is paid wages for their work, but not for their joint work or increased production by their “collective power,” which goes to the capitalist. Adam Smith regarded this as a legitimate source of profit, but Proudhon regarded it as theft. Meanwhile, the Left Ricardians in Britain had called it the exploitation of surplus value. While it moti vated a vehement political labor movement there, in France Proudhon was rather against political activity, advocating workers partnerships where there could no longer be “theft,” at the same time as advocating a rise in productivity by cooperative work. He believed that the expansion of such an ethico-economic exchange system would replace capital and the state. In this light, it turns out that Marx never abandoned the basic ideas he had learned from Proudhon since his youth. What he called “individual property” in contrast to private property is no other than but whattheir Proudhon “possession.” Marx did the criticize Proudhon, relationcalled should not be viewed from later opposition between Marxism and Anarchism, since between them was an intricate mutual reciprocity. In order to understand this situation, we should take into consideration the fissure between discursive systems in Britain, France, and Germany, and actual societies therein (precisely as Marx presented in The German Ideology ). In the movement began in nineteenth Britain; thiscentury, under the the labor influence of the and Leftcooperatives Ricardians, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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who drew the idea of surplus value from Ricardo’s labor value theory long before Proudhon drew the idea of “profit-theft” from Smith: exemplary works include Thomas Hodgskin’s Political Economy (1827), and William Thompson’s An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth (1824). These led to the Chartist movement. Another reason Proudhon believed it possible to dissolve capital and the state through workers’ association without workers’ political struggle was that, in 1830s France, industrial capitalism was underdeveloped and there were very few industrial workers. Saint-Simonism, which was then predominant, advocated development of industry and redistribution of wealth to the workers: It was the precursor of corporatism. In fact, the large industrial revolution in France took place at the time of Louis Bonaparte, a Saint-Simonist, by whom the socialists were coopted. In contrast, Proudhon was unswervingly opposed to such state-socialism. It was just like the way Marx had objected to Lasserl’s state socialism, which conformed to Bismarck’s state capitalism. Meanwhile, there was neither industrial capitalism nor socialist movement in the Germany of the 1830s. They existed only as ideas, to the extent that an introductory book by Lorenz von Stein, Socialism and Communism in France Today ,49 had a large influence. Left Hegelians were, in a word, little more than a movement of those philosophers who were impacted by French socialism and communism. The movement appeared most importantly and crucially as a critique of Hegel. Hegelian philosophy was a dominant state ideology, and furthermore, Hegel himself was well informed about classical economics and even criticized it philosophically in his system, with the stance that the state qua reason would transcend the contradiction and disruption caused by the civil society as the system of wants. All Left Hegelians, headed bycalled Feuerbach, the critical stance against Hegel. Feuerbach himselfassumed a communist, seeking to practice the German philosophical interpretation of French communism. However, other young philosophers, motivated by him, began to extend the Feuerbachian critique to the sociopolitical sphere. For instance, Marx criticized Hegel’s Philosophy of Right by applying the Feuerbachian critique of Christianity. Feuerbach asserted that man, essence) a sensualinbeing, had alienated its own being (communal the phantasm of God and species’ should http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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retrieve it. Likewise, Marx considered that human beings are speciesessential beings only in the political state (parliamentary democracy) qua communal fantasy, while in civil society (the social state), they actually pursue their own interests, resulting in inequality and repression. He considered this gap as self-alienation. But, to abandon such a fantasy and realize the communal being in reality, we would have to change the civil society and abandon the capitalist economy. What should be stressed here is the fact that Marx did not agree with the idea of abolishing the capitalist economy by way of the state. It derived from Hegel’s position which then, in later times, grounded state capitalism as well as state socialism. Meanwhile, Marx’s goal was to abolish the political state itself, and for this purpose precisely, it was necessary to recompose the civil society taken over by the capitalist economy into a social state. This was basically the same as the anarchist idea, which Marx never left behind. Around this time, however, Marx did not have any concrete or practical scope toward the realization; his thinking was still revolving around the concept of species’ being, and did not necessarily exceed Feuerbach philosophically. It is not surprising that, for Max Stirner, Marx up to this point appeared to be a follower of Feuerbach. Furthermore, Marx was at the time an admirer of Proudhon. Without considering this context, we would not understand why Stirner (in The Ego and Its Own ) criticized not only Feuerbach but also Proudhon. Stirner claimed that what Feuerbach called Man was a version in disguise of God or Spirit, where this myself (deicitic) was fatally missing. He made a similar remark on Proudhon. So Feuerbach instructs us that, ‘if one only inverts speculative philosophy, always makes the predicate the subject, and so makes the subject the object, and principle, one has the undraped truth, pure and clean’. With this, to be sure, we lost the narrow religious standpoint, lost the God , who from this standpoint is subject; but we take in exchange for it the other side of religious standpoint, the moral standpoint. Thus we no longer say ‘God is love’, but ‘love is divine’.50

Furthermore, Piety has for a century received so many blows, and had to hear its superhuman essence reviled as an ‘inhuman’ one so often, that one cannot feel http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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tempted to draw the sword against it again. And yet it has almost always been only moral opponents that have appeared in the arena, to assail the supreme essence in favor of—another supreme essence. So Proudhon, unabashed, says: ‘Man is destined to live without religion, but the moral law ( la loi moral ) is eternal and absolute. Who would dare today to attack morality?’51

Stirner maintains that in Proudhon the state is negated, but only to be replaced by society, the general, where this I is disregarded, while the I—qua a member of the society only—is acknowledged. He termed this I as “my own,” which sounds like “my property,” a setback. However, it should be noted that this was strictly uttered as his response to Proudhon’s What Is Property? In fact, it has nothing to do with “property:” “‘freedom’ is and remains a longing , a romantic plaint, a Christian hope for unearthliness and futurity; ‘ownness’ is a reality, which of itself removes just so much unfreedom as by barring your own way hinders you. . . . The own man (der Eigene ) is the free- born , the man free to begin with; the free man, on the contrary, is only the eleutheromantic, the dreamer and enthusiast.”52 That is to say that to Stirner freedom is not something to be owned. Elsewhere he calls it “nothingness.” What he calls uniqueness signifies a mere singularity, the fact that each one is oneself in one’s own way, and not a particular talent as such.53 Stirner claims he is an egoist. At the same time, he insists that socalled egoists are not egoists sensu stricto, because they are possessed by their desires and interests, that is to say, they are not their own. Therefore, it is not contradictory for him to seek the association, while maintaining egoism. He would rather say that only egoists can form associations and that associations should be as such. Stirner sensed the smell of the ‘church’ and ‘community’ in Proudhon’s association, and he denied the morals imposed by the church, community or state; with this critical bias, he proposed the new ethics. He argues that, so far, individuals have been acknowledged only as members of the same family, the same ethnic group, the same nation, the same human species; that is, individuals have been acknowledged only via the higher being, but never simply as themselves. Only for the sake of a higher essence has any one been honored from of old, only as a ghost has he been regarded in the light of a hollowed, a protected and recognized person. If I cherish you because I hold you dear, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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because in you my heart finds nourishment, my need satisfaction, then it is not done for the sake of a higher essence whose hallowed body you are, not on account of my beholding in you a ghost, an appearing spirit, but from egoistic pleasure; you yourself with your essence are valuable to me, for your essence is not a higher one, is not higher and more general than you, is unique [einzig ] like you yourself, because it is you. 54

Stirner came up with the kind of ethics that treats other individuals who are actually in front of us as free humans, without the mediation by any55 higher being such as family, community, ethnicity, state, or society. This ethics leads to the egoists’ association —his socialism. Otherwise, socialism would result in the predominance of the society over individuals. Thus Stirner criticized Proudhon’s association as the community that subordinates individuals. Nevertheless, Proudhon was different from the kind of communism that Stirner criticized. He denied the association in this sense. It should be said that his socialism was rather an egoists’ association, as is clear in his later work, The Principle of Federation . “The social contract par excellence is a federal contract, which define as follows: a bilateral and commutative contract concerning one or more specific objects, having as its necessary condition that the contracting parties retain more sovereignty and a greater scope of action than they give up.” 56 Yet, at that point of time in the 1840s, it had not yet been clear to him. Meanwhile, the significance that Stirner’s critique of Feuerbach had in Germany was more philosophical. Indeed, young Hegelians reversed Hegel’s idealism, but they never doubted Hegelian thinking that saw the individual as a member of a category of higher being. Rejecting the substantiation of the general notion (qua Geist ), they yet posited it as being internalized within the individual. In this manner, the higher being (qua the general) remained. In contrast, Stirner regarded the individual as real, and the general notion as a specter. This sounds pretty much like the nominalist assertion that only the individual is the substance, while the general is a mere notion. But it is different. In fact, he refuted not only realism but also nominalism. How, then, is his stance different from that of nominalism? In this respect, Stirner’s “my own (property)” is suggestive. For instance, nominalists saw the individuality of the individual in the proper name, namely, property. Nonetheless, the proper http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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name exceeds the logic of individual genus (individuality-generality). The problematization of the proper name goes beyond individuality-generality, and unequivocally touches the dimension of singularity-universality (qua sociality). All in all, it was not only that Stirner posited the individual as the only substance, but furthermore, that he refused to think of the individual in terms of individualgenus (generality). Therefore, when he grasped the ego as singularity, it could result in the association of egoists.57 “You bring into a union (association) your whole power, your competence, and power; in a society you are employed , with your working power; in the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, that is, religiously, as a member in the body of this Lord.”58 It is well known that Marx mockingly criticized Stirner in The German Ideology , but the book was not published contemporaneously. Stirner was rapidly forgotten, not due to Marx’s criticism, but because of the revolution in 1848. When Stirner was reevaluated in the late nineteenth century, Marx’s criticism of Stirner also drew attention. However, since it was read within the scheme of Marxist Anarchist opposition, the relationship between the two was not sufficiently considered. It is apparent that Stirner’s critique of Feuerbach played a decisive role in Marx’s getting out of the enclosure of Hegelian discourse. In fact, it brought Marx what Althusser called the “epistemological break.” Marx wrote in 1845 after Ego and Its Own came out: “Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of man. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.”59 This ‘man’ is what Stirner called a specter. Marx wrote with Engels as responding to Stirner: “The premises from which we which begin are notif arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions of their life, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity.”60 Now Marx starts with individuals, located in the social relations. We are located in multiple relations such as gender, family, class, ethnicity,I am andanationality, which often other. For example, parent to my child, andcontradict a child to each my parent. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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I am a teacher and a student. I employ others and am employed by others, and so on. The essence of me, namely, what I am is defined only by the ensemble of those relations, while the imaginary notion such as man qua essence effaces those relations. Yet, at the same time, I am an existence that is different from the essence determined by those social relations. My existence is, after all, nothing, in the sense that it owns no positive contents. 61 However, it is this nothingness—owning nothing—that enables us to dissent the given relatedness. That was what Stirner called my ownness. Should I still oppose Marx to Stirner? 62 If I do, I too fall into the problematic of Marxism vs. existentialism. I should do otherwise, that is, see something that passed from Stirner to Marx. What counts here is to see that just as Stirner took up the absoluteness of this (deictic) I by bracketing all the relations, Marx took up the absoluteness of the relations that cannot be effaced by one’s will or one’s idea, particularly the idea of Man. Marx persisted in this recognition in Capital , that is, his thoroughgoing natural historical viewpoint that sees individuals as located in the terms of relational structures. Marx criticized Stirner in The German Ideology (1847) and Proudhon in The Poverty of Philosophy (1848). But this chronological order tends to overlook the fact that both Stirner and Marx learned from and targeted Proudhon. Like other young Hegelians, Marx had been approaching and criticizing British economics by way of Proudhon’s socialism. When Marx wrote The Poverty of Philosophy , Proudhon was rather negative toward the idea of political revolution wherein the working class seizes power, and he contended that the expansion of a free associative exchange system—say, producers’ cooperatives and exchange banks without interest—would replace the state and capitalist argued so long as classes and class oppositioneconomy. last, it is Marx impossible to that reduce politics to economy; the liberation of the working class should be made through political revolution. However, one cannot understand the whole of Proudhon and Marx’s relation from considerations of this period alone. Before long their positions came, in a way, to be reversed. In 1848, Proudhon participated in the political revolution. In the meantime, after 1848, Marx began towhere find hope in thepolitical noncapitalist cooperative production in Britain, workers’ movements (the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Chartist movement et al.) reached their peak in 1848 and turned apolitical. One should not distinguish these two directions as political revolution and social revolution, as has been done. I propose reconsidering and redefining them as the struggle remaining within the capitalist economy and the struggle that seeks to ex-scendent the capitalist economy. They are both indispensable to the abolition of the capitalist economy, and we have to see how they can relate to each other. For this purpose, it is necessary to elucidate the capitalist economy theoretically. It is clear that Proudhon did not have this problematic consciousness, but neither did Marx at that point. Marx was not negative of Proudhon’s associationism; but he recognized that it could only be a partial and complementary movement under the strain of capital and state. Proudhon took the capitalist economy too lightly. Following the labor theory of value, English classical economics grasped money only as a means of designating labor value. In a similar way, Proudhon took money lightly and had the naïve objective of abolishing money and creating an organization of mutual exchange with the spirit of give and take by establishing a currency without interest. In The Poverty of Philosophy , Marx began to appreciate the bourgeois economist Ricardo, of whom he had been negative under the influence of Proudhon. The book expresses Marx’s appreciation of Ricardo’s project of analyzing the system of the capitalist economy by the labor theory of value. Ricardo shows us the real movement of bourgeois production, which constitutes value. M. Proudhon, leaving this real movement out of account, “fumes and frets” in order to invent new processes and to achieve the reorganization of the world on a would-be new formula, which formula is no more than the theoretical expression of the real movement which exists and which is so well described by Ricardo. Ricardo takes present-day society as his starting point to demonstrate to us how it constitutes value— M. Proudhon takes constituted value as his starting point to constitute a new social world with the aid of this value. . . . The determination of value by labor time is, for Ricardo, the law of exchange value; for M. Proudhon, it is the synthesis of use value and exchange value. Ricardo’s theory of values is the scientific interpretation of actual economic like; M. Proudhon’s theory of values is the Utopian interpretation of Ricardo’s theory. Ricardo establishes the truth of his formula by deriving it from all economic relations, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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and by explaining in this way all phenomena, even those like rent, accumulation of capital and63the relation of wages to profits, which at first sight seem to contradict it.

Marx is not necessarily upgrading Ricardo by degrading Proudhon. It just occurred to him that, in order to overcome the capitalist economy, it was necessary to grasp it as a system first. In this sense, The Poverty of Philosophy initiates Marx’s path to Capital . To Marx, Proudhon was blind to the dynamic force of capitalism that incessantly transforms social relations, because he took for granted the “free individuals” as such who were themselves products of the capitalist market economy. For instance, Proudhon’s concepts of the “masses” or “people” do not involve socioeconomic relations. After having been exiled to Belgium in 1858, Proudhon published The Principle of Feder- ation (in 1863) in order to criticize the former socialists who were falling nationalism andauthority centralism. worktopointed out theinto antinomy between andAlthough liberty, itthis failed understand why people supported the Emperor Bonaparte. Proudhon saw it as the nature of people themselves. The organization of liberal or democratic government is more complicated and more sophisticated, its practice more laborious and less dramatic than that of monarchical government; consequently, it is less popular. Almost al ways the masses have regarded forms of free Hence government as aristocratic, and they have preferred absolute monarchy. that vicious circle in which progressives are trapped, and which will trap them still for many years to come. Naturally, it is in order to improve the lot of the masses that republicans demand liberties and securities; it is, therefore, upon the people that they must rely. But it is always the people who, through their distrust of or indifference to democratic forms, stand in the way of liberty. 64

In this there is a recognition that Bakunin could not have had. Yet it is rather odd that, after Marx’s intricate analysis of the social relations and the parliamentary system in The Eighteenth Brumaire , Proudhon ascribed the whole issue to the nature of people. He is explaining the reason why Bonaparte became the Emperor merely by the inclination of people to love authority. When Proudhon published this, Marx was writing the corpus that was later edited and Capital , striving published thestate thirdendure volumesooftenaciously. to understand why the capitalasand Nevertheless, this does http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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not mean in the least that Marx denied Proudhon’s associationism. This does not mean that Proudhon’s ideas of cooperative and exchange bank were obsolete. At the same time he approved these ideas, or precisely because of his approval, Marx criticized Proudhon. Marx’s critique stressed the point in his “Instructions for Delegates to the Geneva Congress”: It is the business of the International Working Men’s Association to combine and generalize the spontaneous movements the working but not to indicate or impose any doctrinaire systemofwhatever. Theclasses, Congress should, therefore, proclaim no special system of cooperation, but limit itself to the enunciation of a few general principles. (a) We are acknowledged the cooperative movement as one of the transforming forces of the present society based upon class antagonism. Its great merit is to practically show, that the present pauperizing and despotic system of the subordination of labor to capital can be superseded by the republican and beneficent system of the association of free and equal producers . (b) Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which individual wage slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts, the cooperative system will never transform capitalistic society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and cooperative labor, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society , never to be realized save by the transfer of the organized forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves. (c) We recommend to the working men to embark in cooperative production rather than in cooperative stores . The latter touch but the surface of the present economical system, the former attacks its groundwork. (d) We recommend to all cooperative societies to convert one part of their joint income into a fund for propagating their principles by examples as well as by precept, in other words, by promoting the establishment of new cooperative fabrics, as well as by teaching and preaching. (e) In order to prevent cooperative societies from degenerating into ordinary middle-class joint-stock companies ( société par actions ), all workmen employed, whether shareholders or not, ought to share alike. As a mere temporary expedient, we are willing to allow shareholders a low rate of interest.65

Marxists who have believed that the first step toward communism is the planned, state-owned economy have neglected both producers’ cooperatives (or cooperative production) and consumers’ cooperatives (or cooperative stores). Originally conceptualized by Utopians since Robert Owen, cooperative movements gained popularity in http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the 1860s in England after innumerable setbacks. Not only did Marx never deny them, but he saw “possible communism” in the association of free and equal producers . At the same time, Marx pointed out the limit of the cooperative movements; they are constantly placed in se vere competition with capital. Their options would be either to remain partially in the area of production where capitalist mode is hardly developed, to become a stock company itself, or to be defeated in the competition and go bankrupt. Therefore, “to convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and cooperative labor, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society , never to be realized save by the transfer of the organized forces of society, namely, the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves.” Needless to say, as is clear in his critique of Lassalle, it is not to foster cooperative societies with state aid. To transfer state power to the producers does not mean that they seize it, but that they abolish it. “Association of associations” should take the place of the state. As I mentioned before, Bakunin thought that Lassalle’s idea derived from Marx. But nothing is so alien to Marx than resorting to state power, as Lassalle did. Nonetheless, Marx was also different from Bakunin in the very aspect that Marx assumed a center for integrating the multiple associations, while refusing the center of the state power. Is it his authoritarianism? According to Proudhon, anarchism is not anarchic (chaotic), but orderly: it is still a sort of government. While acknowledging that the phrase “anarchic government” involves a kind of contradiction and sounds absurd, Proudhon insists that anarchy is a form of government, that is, self-government or autonomy. Also he defined anarchism as the idea of reducing po66 order arises litical functions to industrial functions; and that a social that forms nothing but transactions and exchanges. In this light, Marx’s idea of converting social production into one large and harmonious system of free and cooperative labor is not contradictory to Proudhon’s idea; it has nothing to do with state control. It is worth noting that Proudhon regarded authority and liberty as not merely contradictory but as antinomy. Which means that

to be the two opposite propositions valid; thesis is: there the center . The antithesis is: thereare ought notthe to be a center . Forought instance, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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178 Marx

anarchists defy any authority, but if this stance only brings about chaos, it would end up helping authority to reassert itself. Proudhon believed he found the principle to overcome this antinomy in the association (he called it “federation” in his late years). “It [the idea of federation] resolves all the problems posed by the need to reconcile liberty and authority. Thanks to this idea we need no longer fear being overwhelmed by the antinomies of rule.” 67 It would be a new system that solves the antinomy of freedom and authority. Earlier in the same book he said: To balance two forces (authority and liberty) is to submit them to a law which, obliging each to respect the other brings them into agreement. What will supply us with this new element, superior to both authority and liberty, and acquiring pre-eminence with the consent of both?—the contract, whose terms establish right , and bear equally upon two contending forces.68

Therefore, when Marx criticized Bakunin, he did it not as an authoritarian. Rather he took the antinomy that Proudhon pointed out much more seriously than Bakunin did. What is more, Marx praised the Paris Commune, carried out mainly by Proudhonists, in which he found the vision of “possible communism.” Marx was seeking a method of achieving the liberty that neither falls into chaos nor into state authority. Marx’s manuscript for the third volume of Capital reads as follows: Wird gesagt, daß nicht allgemeine Ueberproduction, sondern Disproportion innerhalb der verschiednen Produktionszweige stattfinde, so heißt das weiter nichts als daß innerhalb der kapitalistischen Productionszweige die Proportionalität darstelt, indem hier der Zusammenhang der Produktion als blindes Gasetz auf die Productionsagenten wirkt, sie nicht als assozierter 69

Verstand ihn ihrer gemeinsamen Controlle unterworfen haben.

This translates to the following: If it is said that there is no general overproduction, but simply a disproportion between the different branches of production, this again means nothing more than that, within capitalist production, the proportionality of the particular branches of production presents itself as a process of passing constantly out of and into disproportionality, since here the interconnection of production as a whole functions on the agents of production as http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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179 Transposition and Critique a blind law, and they do not bring the productive process under their common control as their associated understanding [assozierter Verstand ].

As Japanese philosopher Minoru Tabata pointed out, Engels made an alteration to the passage while editing Capital: Wird gesagt, daß nicht allegemeine Überproduktion, sondern Disproportion innerhalb der verscheidnen Produktionszweige stattfinde, so heißt dies weiter nichts, als daß innerhalb der kapitalistischen Produktion die Proportionalität der einzelnen Produktionszweige sich als Prozeß der aus der Disproportionalität darstellt, indem hier derbeständiger Zusammenhang gesamten Produktion als blindes Gesetz den Productionsagenten sich aufzwingt, nicht als von ihrem assozüerten Verstand begriffners und damit beherrschtes Gesetz den Produktionsprozeß ihrer gemeinsamen Kontrolle unterworfen hat.70

This is the same as the version available in English today: If it is said that there is no general overproduction, but simply a disproportion between the various branches of production, this again means nothing more than that, within capitalist production, the proportionality of the particular branches of production presents itself as a process of passing constantly out of and into disproportionality, since the interconnection of production as a whole here forces itself on the agents of production as a blind law, and not as a law which, being grasped and therefore mastered by their combined reason [assozierter Verstand ], brings the productive process under their common control.71

Engel’s interpolation is almost criminal. With his insistence on the “law,” he shifted Marx’s regulative idea to the constitutive idea of the Kantian problematic. Obviously, Engels’s position is that rule by the cognition of objective law is equal to freedom. In this context, assozierter Verstand is no more than Hegelian reason, that is, “combined reason.” Thiscontrol inexorably leadsprocess. to the Therefore faith that we party-state bureaucrats-reason economic can say that from Engels sprang the idea of communism qua state centrism. In contrast, Marx never suggested that assozierter Verstand be established in one decisive coup.72 “They [the working class] know that the superseding of the economical conditions of the slavery of labor by the conditions of free and associated labor can only be the pro73

gressive work of time.” http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The term assozierter Verstand sounds rather strange. There is an issue of translation: whether it be translated as “associated understanding” (in the Kantian manner) or “combined reason” (in the Hegelian manner). The first case is understandable when compared with, for example, Habermas’s attempt to reinterpret reason as public consensus by communication. But it involves more intricate and significant issues. The fact that Marx intentionally used the terms of classical German philosophy here shows that the problematic is linked to the past philosophical problems concerning sensuality and reason, or empiricism and rationalism. For instance, ‘association’ in the theory of political organization could be likened to Hume’s concept of association of ideas—the source of Hume’s skeptical conclusion that there is no self-same, consistent, single ego. This might be the model of organization totally without a center. Counter to this account, Kant claimed that although there is no substantial ego as Descartes claimed, still existing is the “transcendental apperception X” that integrates the manifold associations. Kant stood critically in between Descartes and Hume. If we can apply it to the theory of political organization, state centrism is likened to the rule by Cartesian subject, while anarchism assumes Hume-ian “association” that defies all identical substance; and the function of Kantian transcendental apperception corresponds to Marx’s “associated understanding” [assozierter Verstand ].74 In Marx’s idea, association has something like the transcendental apperception X—that which should not be considered as a substantial center, like state or party. In this sense, standing in between archism (Lassalle) and anarchism (Bakunin), Marx sought to transcriticize both at the same time. It is for this reason that Marx sometimes appears to be anarchist and this for ambiguity or even ambivalence should not be sometimes forced intoarchist; a synthesis, it is in this constant shift that Marx’s transcritique lives. And this must be something that would solve the antinomy of freedom and authority. An anarchist such as Bakunin denies all power and center.75 This idea takes for granted the tacit assumption that the masses liberated from oppression create an autonomous order by free association. But, as Proudhon warned, wouldmuscular not happen thatFurthermore, way. Such a process would rather invite ita more power. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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there is no guarantee that differences between individual abilities and the love of power would disappear in free associations. Instead, we should first assume that these would inexorably remain, and conceptualize a system where these would not found a static power and class system. Marx did not write about this. But when he highly appreciated the Paris Commune realized by the leadership of Proudhonists, he saw a step toward a possible communism.76 This was consistent with his earlier thinking. Early Marx began his critical intervention with the critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right . What he grasped therein were the separations between civil society and political state, private person and public person, that occurred in the modern state. There, while individuals are treated equally as public persons, they belong to the class relation of production intrinsic to the capitalist economy. Individuals as public persons can have only legislative rights or the right to vote, but they have no administrative rights whatsoever. The so-called people’s sovereignty is real only in that they can vote. Look at the so-called democratic nation-states; there is no democracy whatsoever in companies and governmental offices. Marx thought that, by changing civil society (social state), it would be possible to abolish the political state. From a more concrete viewpoint, it is by establishing a system where the social state is never alienated by the political state, where a static power system is never congealed out of the social state (qua commune). What Marx discerned in Paris Commune was a concrete form of this, which he called the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” On the other hand, Lenin’s concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” resulted in the dictatorship of reason-party, the dictatorship of a bureaucratic system. Consequently, today’s Marxists seem to swerve of away ignore,But discard, deny the concept of the dictatorship thefrom, proletariat. if thisornew tendency of Marxism results in the parliamentary democracy and is satisfied by certain reformations within it, it is futile. One may not need to cling to such a misleading concept as ‘dictatorship’ any longer, yet one should not forget that historical failure contains crucial lessons. Marx’s “dictatorship of the proletariat” is, needless to say, the conceptual opposite of the of the bourgeoisie,” signifies the parliamentary “dictatorship democracy. Historically speaking,which the parliamentary democracy http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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that came into existence by overthrowing the absolutist monarchy is the quintessential form of bourgeois dictatorship. So it is that a Marxian proletariat dictatorship would not assume anything similar to the form of rules extant before the bourgeois dictatorship: feudal dictatorship or absolutist dictatorship. The bourgeois state invented devices by means of which to prevent the recurrence of dictatorship: the separation of legal, administrative, and judicial powers and the secret ballot. The separation, however, is only nominal. It is just the ‘principle’ advocated in order to make sense of the duality of civil society and political state. In contrast, the dictatorship of the proletariat is, far from the dictatorship of anything, that which aims at the abolition (sublation) of state power itself. Thus it should be supersensitive to the fixation of any power structure. The Paris Commune assumed both a legislative organ and an administrative organ; in this sense, it was the sublation of the duality— civil society/political state—generic in the modern state. But even in such a social state where the division/duality of public persons and private persons was sublated, the separation of legal, administrative, and judicial powers remained. In order to support the participatory democracy persistently, it had to be sensitive to the separation of three powers (in a different sense from that of Montesquieu). The Paris Commune had these three departments of power. That is, it also had the representative and bureaucratic systems. It had the institution to elect and ostracize judicial and administrative officers. But would this extent be sufficient to prevent all possible fixation of legal, administrative, and judicial powers, namely, bureaucratization? As Max Weber said in his Politik als Beruf (1919), the bureaucratic system is inevitable and necessary in those societies where the division of labor is developed; and it that cannot beassociation discardednecessitates simplemindedly. Accordingly, we have to admit even representative and bureaucratic systems, and that the difference of individual abilities and the will to power remains. Except that we should prevent them from resulting in any fixation of the power system. There is one crucial thing we can learn from Athenian democracy in this respect. The ancient democracy was established by overthrowing equipped a meticulous deviceof forAthenian preventing tyranny tyrannyand from reviving.itself Thewith salient characteristic http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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democracy is not a direct participation of everyone in the assembly, as always claimed, but a systematic control of the administrative power. The crux was the system of lottery: to elect public servants by lottery and to surveil the deeds of public servants by means of a group of jurors who are also elected by lottery. Interestingly, Perikles, who executed political reformation implementing this idea, later fell from power by the same system. My point is that the core of the system in vented to stop the fixation of power in Athenian Democracy lay not in the election itself, but in the lottery. Lottery functions to introduce contingency into the magnetic power center. The point is to shake up the positions where power tends to be concentrated; entrenchment of power in administrative positions can be avoided by a sudden attack of contingency. It is only the lottery that actualizes the separation of the three powers. If universal suffrage by secret ballot, namely, parliamentary democracy, is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the introduction of a lottery should be deemed the dictatorship of the proletariat. The association of associations or assozierter Verstand inexorably entails a center; yet the center is constantly replaced by the contingency; the centrality of the center is displaced in this manner. The center exists and does not exist at the same time . That is to say, it is the concrete form of the Kantian transcendental apperception X. Proudhon learned much from Athenian democracy, but he criticized the bourgeois system of universal suffrage, referring to it as “just like a lottery.” Notwithstanding the derogatory nuances attached to the term lottery, lottery is not in the least obstructive to the electoral system, but a sine qua non to maximize its function. In any kind of representative vote—even of a commune—the representative and the represented are split in fixation. The same group of people arerepresentatives always chosen,byand factional strife transpires. Canrealwe choose all lottery in all elections? That is not istic; the system itself would be too arbitrary to gain the trust of the people. In Athens, the generals were not elected by lottery, but they were replaced every day; thereby a fixation of power was avoided. Speaking of the use of lottery in institutions today, it is used only for posts anyone can do, but no one wants to do, such as jurors. In other words, lottery used in the where theofcandidates’ abilities are equal orisdo not only matter. Forcase us, the point using it is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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184 Marx

the opposite. We would use it in order to save the elections from corruption and choose relatively talented leaders. Considering these examples, what is preferable to us would be to choose the most crucial post by lottery: namely, first choosing three candidates by secret vote (three in one choice) and then finally electing one by lottery. Because the last and most crucial stage is determined by contingency, factional disputes or conflicts over successors would not make sense. As a result, a relatively superior, if not the best, representative would take up the post. Furthermore, the one who is chosen could not parade his or her superiority and power, while those who are not chosen have no reason to refuse collaboration. This kind of political technique would be functional and would go beyond the cliché, “all the power will fall.” Employed in such manner, the lottery would be an ideal method to free the power center from fixation in the long run and choose able managers and leaders when necessary. To repeat, we should not assume that the human nature of loving power ever changes, or that the difference and heterogeneity of individual abilities ever disappears. Even in the production systems or cooperatives managed by workers, these elements are sustained. Especially when the extracapitalist production systems have to compete with capitalist enterprises, they are forced either to adopt the organizational principle of corporations for the sake of improving production or lose and disappear. Our ideal organization should assume the existence of hierarchy from the beginning, except that it introduces the election and lottery to escape the stagnation of the power structure.77 Organization for any counteraction against state and capitalism must introduce within itself the device of introducing contingency in the magnetic power center. If as not, it willofbefact, likevarious the thing intends to counter. But unfortunately, a point civilitacts that have begun to negate power-centralist hierarchical organization remain scattered and have yet to gather themselves for a collective intervention. They tend to offer the most reliable source of votes for relatively progressive parties. They are incapable of executing real counteractions to capital and state. Meanwhile, if and only if we introduce the political technique outlined earlier will we not have to fear the dangers of centralization. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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5 The Crisis of Synthesis

5.1 The Form of Value qua Synthetic Judgment: Ex Ante Facto and Ex Post Facto Capital is a book of political economy. So it is that the majority of Marxists tacitly swerved their attention to other writings in order to find Marx’s philosophy or political ideas. In other words, they sought to interpret Capital by way of the philosophy found else where. I am not necessarily of the opinion that Marx’s non-Capital work can be ignored; yet still I insist that Marx’s philosophy as well as his idea of revolution should be found in Capital . Generally speaking, political economy is a science that cannot acknowledge the being of enigma in human exchange (economic activity). It takes for granted that the economic activity is sachlich and clear, though there may be bizarre and complex enigmas, outside, in other domains. Political economists rather believe that they can elucidate

these enigmas by other relyinghand, on the objective knowledge ofthat the ispolitical economy. On the there is no human activity not an exchange (communication). The state, nation, and even religion are forms of exchange. In this sense, it is possible to see all human activities as economic . Seen in this way, the domain of political economy is not necessarily more simple, practical, and objective than others. The world of political economy, the world organized by money or credit is, precisely likepowerful the world godsand and faith, totally phantasmagoric, yet in organized its ability tobybind trample our beings. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Classical economists had sought to approach the issue of commodity’s value from the vantage point of labor; they had seen money merely as the index of labor-value. To them there was no enigma of money. Based upon the experience of observing the newly appeared industrial capitalism, they had been inclined to defy the previous forms of capital: merchant capital and interest-bearing capital. Then, Marx intervened; he sought to reconsider capital from the vantage point of merchant capital and interest-bearing capital. He presented the accumulation of capital using the formula M-C-M . Marx especially paid attention to interest-bearing capital, that is, the “antideluvian form of capital.” 

We have seen how merchant’s capital and interest-bearing capital are the oldest forms of capital. But it lies in the very nature of the matter that interest-bearing capital should appear to the popular mind as the form of capital par excellence . In merchant’s capital we have a mediating activity, whether this is considered as fraud, labor or whatever. In interest-bearing capital, on the other hand, the self-reproducing character of capital, self-valorizing value, the production of surplus-value, appears as a purely occult quality.1

The retrospection to “the oldest form of capital” is not due to any historical concern. It derived from his keen awareness that the formula of merchant capital and interest-bearing capital was presently at work, and transforming the world.to Hedisclose returned the oldof form, precisely because it was imperative theto notion the ‘market economy’ as an ideology of industrial capital, he did this by a retrospection. 

The formula [M-M ] itself expresses that the money is not spent here as money, but is only advanced, and is thus simply the money form of capital, money capital. It further expresses the fact that it is the exchange-value, not the use-value, that is the decisive inherent purpose of the movement. It is precisely because the money form of value is its independent and palpable form of appearance that the circulation form M . . . M , which starts and finishes with actual money, expresses money-making, the driving motive of capitalist production, most palpably. The production process appears simply as an unavoidable middle term, a necessary evil for the purpose of money-making. (This explains why all nations characterized by the capitalist mode of production are periodically seized by fits of giddiness in which 

they try to process.) accomplish the money-making without the mediation of the 2 production http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Therefore, the domain of economic activity cannot be limited to the exchange of products and services among people. The young Marx shifted his problematic from the critique of religion to the critique of political economy. And in Capital , he discovered that the economic world was the ultimate religious world: “A commodity appears at the first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” 3 That is to say that in the simple commodity lurks the essential problem of metaphysics and theology.4 By way of speaking of the economic problematic, the Marx of Capital was actually wrestling with the issues of metaphysics and theology more than any other work. Adam Smith maintained that commodity consisted of use-value and exchange-value. But for such a synthesis to be established, first of all the commodity must be exchanged with another commodity (an equivalent). Smith obviously thought of commodity in an ex post facto manner. For him, exchange value is equal to purchasing power, namely, money-power, or, in other words, every commodity is already and tacitly money, and currency is just a denominator of the value. And the exchange value is determined by the amount of labor-time expended on the production. Smith and Ricardo both erased money, as it were, by first considering it as inherent in each commodity. This is isomorphic to the humanism (of Feuerbach, for instance) that denies God by first internalizing God (qua common species-being) in the individual. Like classical economists, Marx, too, claimed that commodity was use-value and value at the same time; the difference was that he grasped it as a synthesis that might happen in the future. He saw it ex facto.isSeen in thisWhat way, does therethis is no guarantee as see to whether theante synthesis realized. difference—to ex post facto and ex ante facto—really mean? We should scrutinize this by returning to Kant. In Critique of Judgment , Kant distinguishes “determinative judgments,” which categorize concrete individual facts by established laws, from “reflective judgments,” which pursue a new universality that subsumes theThe exceptional that are not yet categorized by established laws. difficultyfacts of synthetic judgment is obviously http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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188 Marx

concerned with the latter. The assumption that reflective judgment proceed smoothly is only made possible by “doctrinal faiths [doktri- nalen Glauben ].” But once verified by some way, a reflective judgment turns into a determinative judgment. Here it is possible to see the distinction between reflective and determinative as analogous to that between ex ante facto and ex post facto. For instance, Critique of Pure Reason presents an ex post facto inquiry into transcendental conditions upon which synthetic judgments are established, tentatively assuming that they have already been established. This definitely takes an ex post facto position. Nevertheless, this is not to say that synthetic judgments can easily be established. Synthetic judgments are essentially speculative, containing a certain leap, and it is precisely because of this risk and ungroundedness that they are expansive. On the other hand, Kant acknowledges a difficulty in synthetic judgments when he sees things from an ex ante facto stance, as it were. It is not too much exaggeration to say that Kant sought to think in the ex ante facto stance, except for his transcendental reflections. Seen from this perspective, it is obvious that Leibnitz spoke from an ex post facto stance when he considered proposition of fact as analytic proposition, that is, “crossed the Rubicon” is contained in the subject Caesar. The same is true of Hegel when he insisted on “becoming of essence as a result [Wirkung ].” Hegel dismissed Kant’s distinction between phenomenon and thing-in-itself, claiming that it was just the distinction between “already-recognized” and “not-yetrecognized.” The absolute spirit qua the absolute after-the-fact-ness (or the end) allowed him to omit the thing-in-itself. In this manner, every becoming is realized teleologically as a self-realization of the Spirit. speculativeonly philosophy meant all attemptsTo to Kant, provemetaphysics what could and be constituted as synthetic judgment by way of analytic judgment . But this critique can be applied, in principle, to all ex post facto thought. If so, it might be said, metaphysics is all thought that projects what was already achieved as a result (or ex post facto) onto future (or ex ante facto) events. Hence Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics took the form of a genealogy: a belated scrutinity as to how an exKant’s post facto recognition critique is formed as a perversion of perspective. But transcendental had http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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already been genealogical in the sense that it sought to reveal that the points of departure of empiricists and rationalists—sensibility and concepts—were already and always end-results of the mediation by certain ‘symbolic forms’ (Cassirer). Now we have Kierkegaard and Marx as the most radical critics of Hegelian ex post facto synthesis. In their respective contexts, both stressed the salto mortale as apodictically contained in synthetic judgments. Kierkegaard said that speculation is backward-looking, while ethics is forward-looking. The former is ex post facto, while the latter is ex ante facto. To Kierkegaard, acknowledging Jesus as Christ is equal to the synthetic judgment, “a man called Jesus is God.” For Hegel, Jesus-as-Christ was proven by the historical fact that Christianity expanded, while Kierkegaard questioned whether we could know it “contemporaneously,” namely, ex ante facto. It is only the faith as salto mortale that allows us see the man Jesus appearing “in all of his lowliness” as God. Kierkegaard saw man as a synthesis of finity (sensibility) and infinity (understanding). But whether or not the synthesis is established cannot be determined by the ego-self; this requires the intervention of the other (qua Christ). That is to say that in order to realize the ego as a synthesis, the salto mortale is sine qua non. Kierkegaard called this synthesis the “qualitative dialectic.” And what I want to say here is that the same critical dialectic is found in Capital , though Marx is often considered to be antagonistic to Kierkegaard. Marx’s dialectic is not a materialist version of the Hegelian dialectic, as consistently claimed, but a qualitative dialectic, which consciously in volves the critical fissure (qua crisis) of synthetic judgment (qua capital). The approaches of Kierkegaard and Marx point to a universal differences after-the-fact-ness of domains, namely, art, problematic—beyond political economy—concerning andreligion, beforethe-fact-ness in synthetic judgment.5 Considering commodity to be use-value and value assumes a synthesis of sensuous and suprasensuous, finite and infinite; and the synthesis is not possible if not for a leap. Herein Marx saw an antinomy. All commodities are non-use-values for their owners, and use-values for their non-owners. Consequently, they must all change hands. But changing of hands constitutes their exchange, and their exchange puts them in relation http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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with each other as values and realizes them as values. Hence commodities must be realized as values before they can be realized as use-values. On the other hand, they must stand the test as use-values before they can be realized as values. For the labor expended on them only counts in so far as it is expended in a form which is useful for others. However, only the act of exchange can prove whether that labor is useful for others, and its product consequently capable of satisfying the needs of others. 6

Elsewhere, Marx said: “C-M. First metamorphosis of the commodity, or sale . The leap taken by value from the body of the commodity into the body of gold is the commodity’s salto mortale , as I have called it

elsewhere. If the leap falls short, it is not the commodity which is defrauded but rather its owner.”7 In the strict sense, the unsold and discarded commodity is defrauded, too. Whether or not the commodity is valuable is determined only after the salto mortale of the exchange. The commodity that is not sold is entrapped in the form of “wanting in despair to be oneself” or in “sickness unto death” from Kierkegaard. Commodity may be seen as a synthesis of use-value and exchange-value only inasmuch as seen from the ex post facto stance, while such a synthesis does not exist ex ante facto. The value of a commodity can come into existence only after it is exchanged with another commodity, an equivalent. What Marx sought to grasp as “value form” is the situation in which a commodity can attain value only by being exchanged by another commodity. This is to say that Marx attached importance to use-value. Since classical economics started from the result of commodities already being placed in equivalency, it did not have to worry about the phase in which whether a commodity has use-value (utility) or not to others is crucial. Taking for granted the equivalence, it posited the expended labor as the common essence included in every commodity. Seen from the ex ante facto stance, on the other hand, no matter how much labor is expended on production, a commodity’s use-value to others has to be questioned. Rejecting Smith and Ricardo’s labor theory of value as metaphysics, neoclassical economists premised the perspective of utility for buyers. For them, Marx was just an epigone of classical economics. In a reverse of their understanding, however, Marx, of Capital in particular, started from the point that a commodity has to have use-value to http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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others in order for it to have value. “Finally, nothing can be a value without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labor contained in it; the labor does not count as labor, and therefore creates no value.”8 Since before Capital , Marx had criticized various aspects of classical economics. For instance, taking the idea that the substance of value is labor time, Marx had stressed that it is social labor time. In other words, he was well aware that it was realized only by the regulations of exchange via money. But classical economics, too, had seen labor-value from the vantage point of social equilibrium; and Marx’s stress of social characteristics had not really been an overcoming of it. It could be said that the pre-Capital Marx had sought to explain the monetary economy, taking for granted the social division of labor—the very result of the organization of the monetary economy. This after the fact inquiry was basically the same as that of classical economics. He had not thought much as to why the exchange of commodities had to be done via money. Marx had assumed that the “social characteristic” of labor realizes itself via money, rather than the reverse. Or finally let us take communal labor in its naturally evolved form as we find it among all civilized nations at the dawn of their history. In this case the socialassuming characterthe of abstract labor is evidently not mediated labor of assumthe individual form of universal labor by or the his product ing the form of a universal equivalent. The communal system on which [this mode of] production is based prevents the labor of an individual from becoming private labor and his product the private product of a separate individual; it causes individual labor to appear rather as the direct function of a member of the social organization. Labor which manifests itself in exchange value appears to be the labor of an isolated individual. It becomes social labor. labor by assuming the form of its direct opposite, of abstract universal Lastly, it is a characteristic feature of labor which posits exchange value that it causes the social relations of individuals to appear in the per verted form of a social relation between things. The labor of different persons is equated and treated as universal labor only by bringing one use value into relation with another one in the guise of exchange value. Although it is thus correct to say that exchange value is a relation between persons, it is however necessary to add that it is a relation hidden by a material veil.9 http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Marx made the point that the social relations of individuals appear in a perverted form of a social relation between things—this is known as alienation theory. Lukács later attached primary importance to this and raised it to the thesis of “reification.” But, in fact it is based upon the same concept as Marx’s earlier alienation theory. They both take the form of projecting what is discovered ex post facto as ex ante facto. From an ex post facto stance, the social division of labor formed by the commodity economy looks precisely the same as the division of labor formed in an enclosed space of community or factory. While the division of labor in the latter (community) is consciously organized and transparently apprehensible, the way humans and their labors are interconnected in the former (society) is unknowable. Suppose I buy a melon with the royalties I earn from writing this book. The melon is perhaps grown by a farmer in Florida. He can never know that his labor is placed in equivalency with my labor. Furthermore, between the farmer and me lies capital. If we can detect a division of labor between us, it would be only from an ex post facto position, from which everything becomes transparent. Certainly Capital , too, contains this ex post facto view. Yet Marx opposes the idea that different commodities become equivalent because they contain the same amount of labor. Men do not therefore bring the products of their labor into relation with each other as values because they see these objects merely as the material integuments of homogeneous human labor. The reverse is true: by equating their different products to each other in exchange as values, they equate their different kinds of labor as human labor. They do this without being aware of it. Value, therefore, does not have its description branded on its forehead; it rather transforms every product of labor into a social hieroglyphic. Later on, men try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of their own social product: for the characteristic which objects of utility have of being values is as much men’s social product as is their language. The belated scientific discovery that the products of labor, in so far as they are values, are merely the material expressions of the human labor expended to produce them, marks an epoch in the history of mankind’s de velopment, but by no means banishes the semblance of objectivity possessed by the social characteristics of labor.10

Only afteressence, being posited equivalency can commodities attain a common and not in vice versa. Abstract labor or social labor http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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time is discovered only ex post facto by the exchange (placing in equivalency). Therefore, “social relation” should be defined as an unconscious relation. Marx never denied the labor theory of value, because it is correct from an ex post facto stance, and because labor value was actually imposed upon all products via prices by money, beginning in the stage of industrial capitalism. In reality, world economic competition is taking place over the shortening of labor time for production or productivity of labor. Which does not mean, however, that the vantage point of labor value explains the enigma of the capitalist economy: The labor theory of value has forgotten money, that is, it has forgotten capitalism. 5.2

The Form of Value

What distinguishes Capital from previous economic works such as A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy or Grundrisse is the appearance of the theory of value form. “It is one of the chief failings of classical political economy that it has never succeeded, by means of its analysis of commodities, and in particular of their value, in discovering the form of value which in fact turns value into exchange-value. Even its best representatives, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, treat the form of value as something of indifference, something external to the nature of the commodity itself.”11 This is true of the pre-Capital Marx himself, who was, even if radically critical, within the frame of Ricardian thought. But, then, there was a radical “epistemological break”—much more than that in The German Ideology , as Althusser claimed—between Grundrisse and Capital , which was rendered by the theory of value form. We have to take its significance into deep consideration.12 What to analyze value form was Samuel Bailey’s critique of inspired Ricardo. Marx To Ricardo, all commodities have immanent values determined by expended labor; in this case, money is gold and its value is determined by the labor time expended for its production. Bailey disagreed and insisted that the value of a commodity is expressed only relatively by the use-value of another commodity, and that there is no absolute measure of value beyond the relation. Value denotes consequently nothing positive or intrinsic, but merely the relation in which two objects stand to each other as exchangeable commodities. . . . http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In the circumstance, that it denotes a relation between two objects, but merely the relation in which two objects stand to each other as exchangeable commodities. . . . It is from this circumstance of constant reference to other commodities, or to money, when we are speaking of the relation between any two commodities, that the notion of value, as something intrinsic and absolute, has arisen.13

While Ricardo maintained that every commodity contains value (qua labor time) within, Bailey insisted that the value of a commodity exists only in its relation with other commodities: thus it is only customary. Marx’s theory of value form was formed transcritically between these poles. To Bailey, values of things are little more than their relationship with other things (including gold); there is no immanent value substance. Values of things produce a chain of relations, either without a center or with innumerable centers. In reality, the incessant fluctuation of value proves the inherent centerlessness. Ricardo also saw the difficulty of the labor input theory of value therein. In fact, in the beginning of the section on value form in Capital , Marx, too, deployed an account of the fluctuation of the labor time necessary for production and its influence over relative value form. 14 The point being that, if the value of a commodity were determined merely by its value relation with all other commodities, the whole system would be affected by the change of a single item. Bailey’s comment on the subject is especially crucial: “Value is a relation between contemporary commodities, because such only admit of being exchanged for each other; and if we compare the value of a commodity at one time with its value at another, it is only a comparison of the relation in which it stood at these different times to some other commodity.”15 That is to say that commodities form a synchronic system of relation, as it were. But Bailey overlooked a simple fact—that commodities cannot be exchanged directly . All commodities are mutually interrelated, but only mediated by money qua the general equivalent. Ricardo considered labor-value substantial and money secondary, while tacitly relying upon the being of money. In a similar way, Bailey tacitly took money’s being for granted: his synchronic system is organized by the very money that is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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a zero sign or a repressed center. Nonetheless he made little of money, because he identifies money with gold.16 But, this presents a formal and logical problem vis-à-vis money: even if money can be gold, gold cannot be money . One cannot exchange a commodity directly with gold. First, we have to change it to money, and then buy gold. Then, what makes gold money? Or why can commodities not be directly exchanged with each other? This is precisely what Marx questioned in his theory of value form. The difference between Ricardo and Bailey might be identified as that between dogmatism (or rationalism) and skepticism (or empiricism). Indeed Bailey is like Hume (aside from Hume’s own theory of political economy). As Kant’s dogmatic slumber was interrupted, so was Marx, who had been dependent upon Ricardo’s theory of value substance-input labor, shaken by Bailey’s skeptical approach. Therefore, Marx’s Copernican turn in Capital is isomorphic to the Kantian turn provoked by Hume’s subversive skepticism. In between object (qua use-value) and value, Marx discovered the form of value which makes them what they are, from which they derive. Kant, on the one hand, rejected rationalism as metaphysics, and on the other hand, pointed out to Hume that the sense data, his point of departure, was already a product of the mediation by the form of sensibility. Hence Kant discovered “symbolic form”—in the term of Ernst Cassirer—in between sensibility and concept, the unmediated points of departure for previous philosophers. Such is transcendental reflection. And precisely in the same manner, Marx extracted value form, the very magic that makes products and commodities money. As I have said earlier, Hume dismissed the Cartesian ego cogito and posed plural egos instead. Then Kant intervened, rebuking the Cartesian with respect to Hume’s thesis, he criticized it, pointingego to as theillusion; function of transcendental apperception X on the basis of the plural egos. The stance to consider the X as some empirical substance is metaphysics, but we can hardly escape from the drive to consider the X as substance. In this sense, it is more correct to say that ego is not just an illusion but a transcendental illusion. The point here is that money is something like that. According to Ricardo, contain exchange-value in for themselves, and is it is money commodities that is the denominator. That is to say, him, money http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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just an illusion. Based upon this idea, both Ricardian leftists and Proudhon proposed the labor money and exchange bank as alternatives. Criticizing this position, however, Marx was still within the confinement of the labor theory of value. Then suddenly he was confronted by Bailey’s critique that claimed that the value of a commodity exists nowhere but in its relationship with other commodities. Therefore the labor-value claimed to be internalized in commodities is just an illusion and thereafter, Marx’s theory of value was forged to be transcendental. It was only after the relational system of commodities was synthesized by money and each commodity was given value that classical economics was able to consider each commodity as internalizing labor-value. For his part, Bailey insisted that there existed only values qua commodity relations; however, his thought neglected to question what is money that prices them. This was the same as having overlooked the agent that composes the system of commodities, namely, money as the general equivalent form in Marx’s term. Money in this sense is precisely like a transcendental apperception X, in contrast to the substantial aspect of money such as gold or sil ver. To take it substantially is, to Marx, fetishism. Money as fetish is an illusion. But, in the sense that it is the kind of illusion that is hard to eliminate, it is a transcendental illusion. For the mercantilists and monetary system that preceded classical economics, money was a ‘special thing’. Marx called it the fetish of money. Classical economics scorned it and posed labor as an alternative value substance, yet they left the fetishism of money intact. The auto-reproductive movement of capital (M-C-M ) itself is the product of the fetish of money. Both Ricardo, the pioneer of labor 

theory of value, and his critic, (the founder of the neoclassical school), justBailey covered upunacknowledged money on the surface. At times of crises, as Marx said, people rush to money, turning back to the monetary system. Thus, the Marx of Capital traced a trajectory back to mercantilism passing Ricardo and Bailey. And by criticizing both of his predecessors, Marx revealed the form—the transcendental form—that constitutes the commodity economy. For Marx, what makesnature. a certain thing—namely, gold—money is not precisely its material Gold becomes money only because http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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it is posited in a certain form—the “general equivalent form.” In this sense, it does not have to be gold. What Marx discovered was the form that makes objects money. In the same way, what makes objects commodity is the commodity form. Classical economists did not distinguish commodities from objects in general. They believed that objects in and of themselves had value, and it was here that Marx inserted his break, stating that what makes objects commodity is the commodity form. To understand this, Marx’s formalist intervention, I refer to language. In linguistics, the material voice/sound and the phoneme— that which discriminates meaning—are distinguished. The phoneme is already a form that renders signification. In the same sense, ob jects and the objects posited in the commodity form are different. “The use-values of commodities provide the material for a special branch of knowledge, namely the commercial knowledge of commodities. Use-values are only realized [verwirklicht ] in use or in consumption. They constitute the material content of wealth, whatever its social form may be. In the form of society to be considered here they are also the material bearers [Träger ] of . . . exchange value.”17 In value form, the value of a commodity is expressed by the use-value of another commodity. In this case, use-value should be considered as a signifier rather than as just material function. It is a material form for value. Lacking this differentiation, classical economists could not distinguish goods (and their production) from commodities (and their production). Missing this distinction is equal to missing the distinction between production in the capitalist commodity economy and other kinds of social productions. To say it differently, classical economics did not distinguish them because they assumed capitalist production would sooner was or later prevail against allthat other productions. And this assumption wrong. The capitalist commodity economy forms a worldwide system of the division of labor, nevertheless it does not cover all kinds of production. Instead this continues to give noncapitalist and noncommodity productions a fictitious institution . This is expressed in Marx’s discourse: “[a small peasant] is first of all considered as his own employer (capitalist), employing himself as a worker, andhimself his own wages landowner, using himself as his own farmer. He pays as a http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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worker, lays claim to profit as a capitalist and pays himself rent as a landowner.”18 The commodity economy is that which organizes objects and their production within its fictitious institution, thus giving them commodity form. No matter how much it expands, those products and productions that are not yet fully encompassed by it endure. In other words, what we grasp as objects of the political economy are never the “things-themselves” but only the “phenomena” that are constituted by the commodity economy. The capitalist commodity economy discovers its limit in those things that it cannot organize at its disposal. As I relate later, these are the natural environment (that agriculture seeks to organize), and human beings (the labor power that industrial capital exploits as commodity). Scrutinizing commodity form thus necessitates a transcendental elucidation of the form that makes objects commodity and/or money. In the “simple form of value,” the value of commodity A is expressed by the use-value of commodity B. Therein commodity A is in the relative form of value, while commodity B is in the equivalent form. The simple form of value is expressed in the following equation: 20 yards of linen 1 coat (relative form of value) (equivalent form) 

Setting out from this premise, Marx logically describes the development to the “expanded form of value,” to the “general equivalent form of value” wherein one commodity exclusively stands in the equivalent form of value while others are in the relative form of value, and finally to “money form.” Although this description seems like a Hegelian development, in fact it is the reverse: Marx discovers, stage stage, what is repressed by retrospection. the more developed forms by way of hisby transcendental-genealogical In other words, he discovers the enigma of money lurking behind the “simple form of value.” What the equation indicates is that twenty yards of linen cannot express its value by itself; its value can be presented in its natural form only after being posited in the equivalency with one coat. On the otherwith hand, coat isItinis the thatform it can always be the exchanged theone former. theposition equivalent that makes http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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coat seem as if it had exchange-value (direct exchangeability) in itself. “The equivalent form of a commodity, accordingly, is the form in which it is directly exchangeable with other commodities.” 19 The enigma of money is lurking behind the equivalent form. Marx called it “fetishism of the commodity.” But, this simple equation does not mean that the one coat is the only, unequivocal, equivalent form. It is possible for twenty yards of linen to be in the equivalent form as well. Of course, the expression 20 yards of linen 1 coat, or 20 yards of linen is worth 1 coat, also includes its converse: 1 coat 20 yards of linen, or 1 coat is worth 20 yards of linen. But in this case I must reverse the equation, in order to express the value of the coat relatively; and, if I do that, the linen becomes the equivalent instead of the coat. The same commodity cannot, therefore, simultaneously appear in both forms in the same expression of value. These forms rather exclude each other as polar opposites. 



Whether a commodity is in the relative form or in its opposite, the equivalent form, entirely depends on its actual position in the expression of value. That is, it depends on whether it is the commodity whose value is being expressed, or the commodity in which value is expressed.20

Thus it is strictly up to its position whether a thing is a commodity or money. A thing can be money only because it is posited in the equivalent form. And the thing can also be a commodity when posited in the relative form of value. “The relative form of value and the equivalent form are two inseparable moments, which belong to and mutually condition each other; but, at the same time, they are mutually exclusive or opposed extremes, that is, poles of the expression of value.”21 In the money form, gold or silver occupies the position of the general equivalent form, while everything else is placed in the relative form of value. In consequence: [w]hat appears to happen is not that a particular commodity becomes money because all other commodities express their values in it, but, on the contrary, that all other commodities universally express their values in a particular commodity because it is money. The movement through which this process has been mediated vanishes in its own result, leaving no trace behind. Without any initiative on their part, the commodities find their own value-configuration ready to hand, in the form of a physical commodity existing outside but also alongside them. This object, gold orthe sil ver in its crude state, becomes, immediately onphysical its emergence from http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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200 Marx

bowels of the earth, the direct incarnation of all human labor. Hence the magic of money.22

To be certain, classical economists were free from the magic of money that had haunted bullionists (the monetary system). Nonetheless, regarding money simply as secondary, as an external object, they ignored the asymmetricity—between the equivalent form and the relative form—inherent in the form of value. This was the same as negating the adifficulty in from exchange. formbut of value” is not historicalinherent departure whichMarx’s money“simple developed, an arché that is discovered only by the transcendental-genealogical retrospection from the market economy—that which classical economists deemed self-evident. 5.3

Capital’s Drive

Marx’s theory of value form does not deal with the historical origin of money. It is a transcendental (and retrospective) reflection upon exchange mediated by money. Adam Smith famously posited the origin of money in the barter system. In exchange via money, one can certainly locate the exchanges of things at one end. This does not mean however that the exchange of things develops into the monetary economy. The exchange of things is made possible by something totally different: the reciprocity of gift and return. Adam Smith wrote as follows: This division of labor, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequences of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor another species of contracts.23

Marx cast doubt upon the premises assumed by the theories of origin. (In Smith’s time, there were many reflections on origin—and of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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language in particular—by Rousseau and Herder, for instance). Smith’s position on barter as the origin was itself a product of the capitalist market economy. Once the origin was identified as barter, money was posited as secondary product. But the market economy is far knottier than it looks: It is not just a place where things and services are exchanged via money; it is a place where the exchanges occur as capital’s movement. Smith’s theory of origin covers up the peculiarity of the capitalist market economy, namely, the asymmetry inherent in the exchange between commodity and money. The implication is that the position of money form and the position of commodity form are not symmetric; those who are in money form (the buyer) and those who are in commodity form (the seller) are not symmetric. Those who have money can buy things anytime they want, while those who have commodities have to sell them as soon as possible before they depreciate. Having money is far more advantageous. This becomes conspicuous especially in the relationship between those who have only labor-power commodity and those who buy it with money. This is a free relationship based upon lawful contract, unlike feudal domination and subordination. Yet it is also a hierarchical relationship par excellence, based as it is upon the asymmetric relationship (form) between commodity and money (capital). Speaking of the origin of money, Smith gives the impression that the symmetry in the relation of exchange is a permanent natural form (based upon human instinct). On the contrary, by way of transcendental—and not empirical—retrospection, Marx discovered the form of value, namely, the asymmetric relationship between the relative value form and the equivalent form. This verifies that the exchange can never be symmetric. After this, in the chapter, “The Process of Exchange,” Marx appears to give a historical account of the genesis of monetary exchange. There his stress is the intermundia , the space between communities. “The exchange of commodities begins where communities have their boundaries, at their points of contact with other communities, or with members of the latter. However, as soon as products have become commodities in the external relations of a community, they also, by reactions, become commodities in the internal life of the community.”24 This discourse is, in the strict sense, not dealing with an empirical problematic per se but the kind of problematic that is grasped only by “the power of abstraction,” to http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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use Marx’s term, because this is not something that came into existence at a certain time in a remote age, but something that is always already and presently going on, and furthermore, because the implication of Marx’s “communities” is manifold, including many levels, from the family, tribe, nation-state, and so on. What is the implication of the statement that commodity exchange begins in between communities? First, this exchange is different from that which takes place within communities in the common sense, which is mainly motivated by the principle of reciprocity in gift and return. For instance, even in those nation-states where the commodity economy is most advanced, within families there is—if a division of labor—no commodity exchange. Within families the functional exchange is the reciprocity of a gift called love . Second, there is looting in disguise within a community, also known as taxation and redistribution, which is yet different from the violent form that occurs in contact between communities. Thus, in precommodity economic situations, dominant within communities were the relationships based on gifting and/or looting, while the commodity economy took place only marginally. Karl Polanyi made such a claim—that the reciprocity of gifting and redistribution was dominant before the market economy took hold—in his book The Great Transformation .25 Here the point I would like to stress is that redistribution is, from the beginning, a form of plunder, or more to the point, an institution in order to plunder continuously. Feudal lords ruled agrarian communities as they pillaged their products. They restricted the amount of robbing to a level where peasants could survive; they also had to protect them from external forces, and conduct public undertakings such as irrigation For this reason, the peasant’s obligation payplunthe land taxworks. was represented as a return or duty. That is to sayto that der takes the guise of reciprocity. This form of redistribution was essentially consistent with that in absolutist monarchies as well as nation-states. By redistributing the tax it levies, the state apparatus seeks to resolve class conflicts and solve unemployment problems. And again all of these are represented as the state’s gift. Plunderkind is compulsive, while the That reciprocity ofcompels gifting assumes a different of compelling power. is, a gift the gifted http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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to make a return. As typically observed in potlatch, gifting the other is returned by the other’s double gift, and this reciprocity continues ad infinitum. This compelling power is different from the one in exchange, that enforces the carrying out of a contract. This power (called mana or hau by some aboriginals) is driven by the psychological feeling of debt. Functionalist anthropologists interpreted this reciprocity of gifting as having resulted in exchange. Herein the exchange had not been intended. Therefore, gift and commodity exchange should be deemed a genealogically unrelated, but coexisting difference. And it is never likely that commodity exchange would cover the whole domain of human exchanges, precisely like commodity production remains a part of production in general. Even in fully developed capitalist economies where commodity exchange reaches its zenith by way of commodifying labor power, commodity exchange remains strictly partial. The forms of robbery and gifting persist even in the stage in which commodity production and commodity exchange appear to permeate to the limit. Marxists typically held that the economic domain was a base structure, while state and nation were superstructure. Furthermore, they restated that the superstructure nevertheless was relatively autonomous to, though determined by, the economic base. First, the very notion that the capitalist economy is base or infrastructure is itself questionable. The world organized by money and credit is rather one of illusion, with a peculiarly religious nature. Saying this from the opposite view, even though state and nation are composed by communal illusion, precisely like capitalism, they inevitably exist thanks to their realistic grounds. So it is that we cannot dissolve them by saying that they are illusory. It must beon thought that capital, of state, and nation are independently based different principles exchange. It is difficult to distinguish them because they formed a trinity at the beginning of the bourgeois modern state that still persists. It is thus necessary to distinguish the principles of exchange, according to each type. This attempt should be different from a historiographical analysis, rather a kind of transcendental retrospection. We would discover herein the three types of exchange: the reciprocity of gift and return, plunder and redistribution, and commodity exchange via money. What is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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204 Marx

more, there is another type of exchange: we call this ‘association’. This is based upon a principle distinct from either of the three: therein the exchange would no longer be exploitive like that in the state and capital; the reciprocity would be spontaneous and open unlike that in the agrarian community. It is possible to say that in the beginning of modernity the commodity exchange expanded dramatically, overpowering other types of exchange. No matter how much it expands, however, it won’t be able to assimilate every domain. (In this sense, today’s prospects based on the globalization fever are wrong.) First, as Marx said, it is the “juridical relation, whose form is the contract.”26 In other words, it already relies on the state apparatus that guarantees and protects the execution of the contract by means of violence. Second, it won’t be able to decompose the traditional community entirely. For instance, it won’t be able to replace the family relationship with the commercial relationship in the market economy. It has to rely on the noncommercial relationship within family. Furthermore, the commodity economy cannot totally assimilate agricultural production. Capital has to depend on the relations in family and community, especially in order for the production of humans and nature. The capitalist economy can exist upon the premise of the non/precapitalist mode of production. Therefore, these other forms will persist, no matter how far the capitalist market economy is globalized. Later on, I scrutinize the cases of the state and nation. Here it is crucial to note that capital, state, and nation should be seen as different forms of human exchange, and not structured like the architectonic metaphor: base/superstructure. It is important to understand the hardship entailed in human exchange, the hardship that is responsible for the endurance of the oppressive forms of capital, anddid nation. Adamstate, Smith not distinguish commodity exchange from exchange in general. This is the same as identifying the social division of labor by commodity exchange with the division of labor within communities. He takes for granted the principle of the market economy as a suprahistorical principle. Those who objected to this position—Polanyi being one of them—resorted to a form of exchange other than exchange that of commodity. Lévi-Strauss and George Bataille interpreted in a wider sense. Lévi-Strauss approached the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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structure of kinship from the vantage point of the exchange of women. According to Bataille, gift is a form of exchange, and the commodity economy is just a part of the “general economy.” Neither of these attempts tackled the problematic inherent in commodity exchange, even if they proved the historicity and partiality of the market economy.27 Notwithstanding that it is based upon consensus, commodity exchange produces a hierarchical relationship. This relationship, however, is not the same as the one based on plunder. The hierarchy inherent in the capitalist economy derives from the asymmetric relationship between commodity and money. This is based upon the fact that commodity cannot be exchanged if not mediated by the equivalent (money). Hence Marx retrospectively inquired first into the form of value that nurtures commodity and money (rather than the owner of commodity and the owner of money themselves). Every individual can be the owner of a commodity and/or of money. Yet the commodity/money relationship—that between the relative form of value and the equivalent form—persists. Capital can sustain itself inasmuch as it self-reproduces and self-valorizes. This movement must persist no matter who the agents and what they think. This has nothing to do with individual desire and will. 28 For this precise reason, Marx said: To prevent possible misunderstandings, let me say this. I do not by any means depict the capitalist and landowner in rosy colors. But individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, the bearers [Träger ] of particular class-relations and interests. My standpoint, from which the development of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he remains, socially speaking, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.29

In this domain, individuals cannot be the subject as they are, except that, if they can be subjective (active), it is only as an agent of the category of money. So it is that the capitalists can be active. However, capitalists are also confronting hardship: surplus value can be attained only by the wage workers in totality buying back what they produce. That is being to say that capital at least once the position of buyer, subordinated to the willhas of to thestand wageinworkers http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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who are in the position of seller. Here there is a dialectic that is different from the Hegelian dialectic based upon the relationship between master and slaves, based upon plunder. The neoclassical economists overlooked this dynamic relation between categories that entails an overturn. They assume only consumerists and corporations as the sub jects of economic activity and speak of the issues of the market economy as if the crux were just how corporations could respond to the demands of the consumers. This position forms a stagnant parallelism with the majority of Marxists who are only concerned with the class domination that exists in the production process. For both classical and neoclassical economists, the task is to elucidate how the social equilibrium can be achieved when individuals are acting for their maximal interest (i.e., either profit or utility). This thematic belongs to the matter of the market economy and its mechanism; it has nothing to do with the foundational question, What is capitalism ? These economists start from the individuals and companies who pursue their maximal interests. Yet these individuals themselves are the products of the commodity economy, and thus historical . Their desire itself is already mediated. In order to shed light on this, we have to return to the form of pre-industrial capital, rather than focusing on the characteristics of advanced industrial capital. Classical economics dropped money because its predecessor, the ideology of mercantilism, had supported the accumulation of money by trade. Money gives anyone the right to exchange directly with anything, anytime, and therefore, everyone seeks to have it. This is the fetish of money. Nonetheless, Marx’s objective was no longer simply to criticize the illusion of bullionism. Classical economists had already attacked the money-fetishist thinking of mercantilism, Marx acknowledged this as their contribution; that they and opposed the money-centered stancegreat of mercantilism and sought to reconsider the value of commodity from the vantage point of the process of production. Meanwhile, he himself was consistently concerned with money qua metaphysical conundrum. He wrote about it in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy : Only the conventions of everyday life make it appear commonplace and ordinary that social relations of production should assume the shape of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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things, so that the relations into which people enter in the course of their work appear as the relations of things to one another and of things to people. This mystification is still a very simple one in the case of a commodity. Everybody understands more or less clearly that the relations of commodities as exchange values are really the relations of people to the productive activities of one another. The semblance of simplicity disappears in more advanced relations of production. All the illusions of the monetary system arise from the failure to perceive that money, though a physical object with distinct properties, represents a social relation of production. As soon as the modern economists, who sneer at the illusions of the monetary system, deal with the more complex economic categories, such as capital, they display the same illusions. This emerges clearly in their confession of naive astonishment when the phenomenon that they have just ponderously described as a thing reappears as a social relation and, a moment later, having been defined as a social relation, teases them once more as a thing.30

The magic of money was no longer the concern for classical economists. Money, for them, was a barometer of valueIt(labor immanent in commodity, or just a means of circulation. followstime) that they gave importance to the production of goods and services and the adjustment of exchange by market. This emphasis made them overlook the mystery of capital as self-reproducing money, or the fundamental motive drive of capitalism. Furthermore, it made them lose sight of the asymmetric, hierarchical relation between capital as the buyer and wage workers as those who have to sell their laborpower commodity; it made them fail to grasp the critical moment of capital—that it has to, at least once, stand in the selling position due to its self-reproductive nature. What Marx said with respect to “circulation” can be summarized as follows: in the process of circulation C-M-C , C-M (selling) and M-C (buying) are separate, and precisely for this reason, the sphere of 

exchange is infinitely expandable in both space and time. Nevertheless, in this process, because of the fatal leap implicit in C-M or C -M (selling), the “possibility of crises” exists. If circulation is expressed in the circuit C-M-C, this process simultaneously contains a reverse process: M-C and C -M. That is to say, the movement of money is the circulation of commodities, but not vice versa. “Hence although the movement of money is merely the expression of the circulation of 



commodities, the situation appears to be the reverse of this, namely http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the circulation of commodities seems to be the result of the movement of money.”31 Therefore, C-M-C and M-C-M seem like the front and back of the same cycle, but are completely different because the initiative of the circulation is seized and controlled by the possessor of money. The movement of capital is, simply expressed, M-C-M (M  M). In vulgar economics, capital simply means funds, while to Marx capital means the whole process of metamorphosis—from money to production equipment/raw material, to products, and to money again. If the metamorphosis is not complete, namely, if capital cannot complete its self-reproduction, it is no longer capital. But, because the metamorphosis appears as the circulation of commodity, the movement of capital is concealed within. For this reason precisely, in the imagination of classical and neoclassical economists the selfreproductive movement of capital is dissolved within the circulation of commodities, or in the process of the production and consumption of goods. The ideologues of industrial capital avoid the word ‘capitalism’, preferring ‘market economy’, which conveniently represents capital’s movement as people’s free exchange of things via money in the marketplace. This veils the fact that market exchange is at the same time the place for capital’s accumulation. When the market economy is in turmoil, these ideologues like to criticize speculative financial capital as being responsible for the disorder, as if the market economy itself were innocent of capital’s business. The economic phenomenon that appears as the production and consumption of goods contains a veiled, perverted drive which is totally different from the ostensible activity. This is the will to M (M  M), “the fetishism of money.” But Marx saw it as the fetish of commodity; this was because took as of a given thatAtclassical economists had already criticized thehe fetishism money. the same time, he realized that the fetishism of money was still surviving, inscribed within the stance of classical economics itself (especially the claim that each commodity internalizes value). So it is that the fetishism of commodity here should not be confused with the commodity fetish in the field of consumption, namely, that which fixes consumers’ eyes on advertisements in mass image and or show windows—the focus of innumerable Marxian historians cultural commentators http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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today. This is equal to the drive to attain the right to consume any where and anytime, instead of consumption at this moment. It is this drive that makes gold—out of all other commodities—sublime. What I would like to focus on here is not how capital’s self-reproduction is possible but why capital’s movement has to continue endlessly . Indeed this is interminable and without telos . If merchant capital (or mercantilism) that runs after money (gold) is a perversion, then industrial capital, that appears to be more productive, has been bequeathed the perversion. In fact, before the advent of industrial capital, the whole apparatus of capitalism, including the credit system, had already been complete; industrial capital began within the apparatus and altered it according to its disposition. Then what is the perversion that motivates the economic activity of capitalism? It is the fetishism of money (commodity). At the fountainhead of capitalism, Marx discovered the miser (money hoarder), who lives the fetishism of money in reality. Owning money amounts to owning “social prerogative,” by means of which one can exchange anything, anytime, anywhere. A money hoarder is a person who gives up the actual use-value in exchange for this “right.” Treating money not as a medium but as an end in itself, plutolatory, or the drive to accumulate wealth, is not motivated by material need. Ironically, the miser is materially disinterested, just like the devotee who is indifferent to this world in order to “accumulate riches in heaven.” In a miser there is a quality akin to religious perversion. In fact, both money saving (hoarding) and world religion appeared at the same time, that is, when circulation—which was first formed “in between” communities and gradually interiorized within them— achieved a certain global nature. Therefore, if one sees the sublime in religious one should see the same a miser’s or if one perversion, sees a certain vulgar sentiment in theinmiser, one perversion; should see the same in the religious perversion. It is the same sublime perversion. The hoarder therefore sacrifices the lusts of his flesh to the fetish of gold. He takes the gospel of abstinence very seriously. On the other hand, he cannot withdraw any more from circulation, in the shape of money, than he has thrown into it, in the shape of commodities. The more he produces, the 32 more heand cantosell. thrift, and greed therefore his three cardinal virtues, sell Work, much and buy little is theare sum of his political economy.


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The ‘motive’ for hoarding money does not come from the desire— whether or not mediated by the desire of others—for material (use value). It must be said that all psychological or physiological approaches to analyzing this motive are altogether more vulgar than the miser himself, because lurking behind the motive of the miser is a religious problem, as it were. Because material can be purchased anytime if money is saved, there is no need to stockpile. So it is that saving or accumulation itself begins in the saving of money. Saving money instead of material is not caused by any technical limitation of saving material. Outside the sphere of the monetary economy there is no autotelic impulse to save in any community. As George Bataille said, in such communities, excessive products are just expended. Far from being motivated by need or desire, saving is rooted in perversion (the opposite of need or desire); and, in reverse, it is the saving that creates in indi viduals the more-than-necessary need and multifarious desire. To be sure, the savings of the miser and the capitalist are not the same; while the miser attempts to be left out of the circulation process by selling much and buying little, the capitalist has to voluntarily leap into the auto-movement M-C-M (M  M). Use-value must therefore never be treated as the immediate aim of the capitalist; nor must the profit on any single transaction. His aim is rather the unceasing movement of profit-making. The boundless drive for enrichment, this passionate chase after value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. The ceaseless augmentation of value, which the miser seeks to attain by saving his money from circulation, is achieved by the more acute capitalist by means of throwing his money again and again into circulation.33

What motivates the movement of merchant capital is the same as the saving impulse (money fetishism) of a miser. Merchant capital’s saving of money in consequence realizes the saving of goods, though it appears less as an accumulation of various products from various places than as an expansion of the process of circulation or of production and consumption. The same can be said of industrial capital—it does not aim at the increase of goods (use-value), as classical economics thought. In this sense, Max Weber was correct when he http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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saw an asceticism to use-value in the motivation of industrial capitalism. Puritans were “rational misers,” as it were; however, what drives capitalism is not their rationality but their perversion. The “drive” of capitalism exists in this paradoxical nature: the rejection of goods ends up accruing more goods, contributing to the accumulation of property. For this reason, negation of the desire toward consumption, the ‘materialism’, cannot amount to the criticism of capitalism. As I quoted earlier, Marx posited merchant capital and interestbearing capital as the oldest forms of capital. But at their root are money-hoarders. In reality, both usurer and interest can exist only thanks to money hoarding, that which causes the shortage of money in the circulation process. Therefore, the movement of capital, the hoarding drive, that unwittingly has been forming the globalization of ‘humanity’ in the world, does not have a rational motivation. In Freudian terms it is a sort of “compulsion to repeat [Wiederhol- ungszwang ].” This nature comes to manifest itself in totality in the stage of capitalist production—wherein the commodity economy subsumes the labor-power commodity and makes merchant capital commercial capital, merely, a division of the whole system. This compulsion to repeat can be elucidated only by a retrospective query to the miser. 5.4

Money and Its Theology, Its Metaphysics

Being nurtured in between communities, merchant capital or the commodity economy has, in principle, a global nature. Capitalist production, though only partial, can affect and transform the whole world because this power comes from the sociality (global nature) of the “As money develops into world money, so the commodity commodity economy. owner becomes a cosmopolitan. The cosmopolitan relations of men to one another originally comprise only their relations as commodity owners. Commodities as such are indifferent to all religious, political, national, and linguistic barriers. Their universal language is price and their common bond is money.”34 For instance, the realistic ground for Kant’s cosmopolitan society [Weltbürgergesell- shaft ] lies the commodity economy. In fact, Kant, too, saw the ground forin “perpetual peace” in the development of commerce. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Classical economists of the age when industrial capitalism became dominant lost any awareness of the theological nature of the commodity economy. Young Marx said: “For Germany the criticism of religion is in the main complete, and criticism of religion is the premise of all criticisms. . . . Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics .”35 Obviously, his target was not religious people themselves, but those enlightenment thinkers who sought to rationally abolish religion. But “[t]o abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand the real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions . The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears , the halo of which is religion.”36 His stress is that religion will never be abolished unless the real unhappiness of people within which religion grows is abolished. The theoretical criticism per se of religion cannot affect religion; the religious problematic can only be solved practically . At the same time, however, it was in the monetary economy that Marx saw ‘secular religion’, as it were. Marx’s critique of the political economy was an extension of his critique of religion. In this respect, there is no “epistemological break” as such. While appreciating the achievements of classical economists, Marx detected the original motive of capitalism in the bullionism (monetary system) they had derided. He persisted in taking seriously the situation in which the thing , gold, is sublime. To him, the sublime quality exists not in the nature of the object in and of itself, but in its “universal exchangeability.” The bullionism that considered the objecthood of gold itself as sublime wasthe not taken seriously, while, as a point by of gold fact, as theworld global economy in age of mercantilism was sustained money. This has also been the case since the advent of industrial capitalism; at moments of world crises, people all of a sudden return to gold. 37 With respect to this religious power of money-gold, Marx, of Capital in particular, would say: “For [England] the criticism of mercantilism is in the main complete, and this criticism is the premise of all criticisms.” and Philosophic of Quoting in Economic 1844 , MarxShakespeare touches upon the mysterious power ofManuscripts money that http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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dissolves and binds people, that dissolves communities and socially recombines individuals: Shakespeare stresses two properties of money especially: (1) It is the visible divinity—the transformation of all human and natural properties into their contraries, the universal confounding and distorting of things: impossibilities are soldered together by it. (2) It is the common whore, the common procurer of people and nations. The distorting and confounding of all human and natural qualities, the fraternization of impossibilities—the divine power of money—lies in its character as men’s estranged, alienating and self-disposing species-nature . Money is the alienated ability of mankind . That which I am unable to do as a man , and of which therefore all my individual essential powers are incapable, I am able to do by means of money . Money thus turns each of these powers into something which in itself it is not—turns it, that is, into its contrary .38

Common opinion says that here Marx applied Feuerbach’s logic of seeing God as the self-alienation of the human’s species-being or common essence (in The Essence of Christianity ) to his account of money. Thus there was a call to return to early Marx. On the other hand, Althusser and others argued that the revolutionary break occurred in later Marx, after he discarded his earlier alienation theory. I am doubtful of both. In the first place, although the Feuerbachian critique of religion certainly employs Hegel’s vocabulary, its content is different from Hegel. In Hegel self-alienation is not, like in Feuerbach, a perverted phenomenon wherein the essence of self comes to be contradictory to the self, and the self kneels before it. Rather Feuerbach’s idea, it must be said, derived from the Kantian theory of the sublime. That is to say, the feeling of sublime arises in one’s mind when facing an object which is overwhelming to one’s senses; however the feeling is not caused by the object itself but by one’s intuiting the infinity of reason that goes beyond the finity of one’s sensibility. The feeling of sublime is nonetheless perceived to have come from the object itself. In this precise sense, the sublime is the selfalienation of a human’s fundamental faculties. And, importantly, this is similar to but different from religious awe. Yet Feuerbach did not persist in the Kantian position. According to Feuerbach, for humans who are sensuous and the species-being, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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religion is an alienated way of grasping the species-being; and humans must recapture the common essence. This criticism of religion was a regression from Kant. First, Kant had already negated religions except for their moral aspect; second, the feeling of the sublime arose only after the religious awe to coercive nature had disappeared. It follows that the logic achieved in the experience of the sublime cannot be applied to the criticism of religion. The sublime itself already assumes the negation of religion. The Kantian sublime must be found strictly in natural objects, because this particular feeling is established only when humans are fully enlightened and become secular beings. Therefore, even if it is true that Marx appropriated Feuerbachian criticism of religion to the criticism of the secular capitalist economy, his theory of money would be better understood if it were approached via Kant’s theory of sublime. Furthermore, unlike the Feuerbachian theory of self-alienation, Kant’s theory of the sublime already contains a recognition of capitalism. That is, Kant’s beauty that is discovered by “dis-interestedness” is already a byproduct of the commodity economy, the movement that is disinterested in the qualitative differences of use value. Nonetheless, in the case of beauty it is still inseparable from the use value pleasure principle, while the sublime appears as totally contradictory to the principle. 

By the same token, a liking for the sublime in nature is only negative (whereas a liking for the beautiful is positive ): it is a feeling that the imagination by its own action is depriving itself of its freedom, in being determined purposively according to a law different from that of its empirical use. The imagination thereby acquires an expansion and a might that surpasses the one it sacrifices; but the basis of this might is concealed from it; instead the imagination feels the sacrifice or deprivation and at the same time the cause to which it is being subjugated.39

In the sublime, a certain pleasure is attained by displeasure. Kant defines it as “acquir[ing] an expansion and a might that surpasses the one it sacrifices.” Isn’t this the problematic of surplus-value par excellence? This is evident in the following phrase from Kant’s Anthro- pology from a Pragmatic Point of View . Young man! Deny yourself satisfaction (of amusement, of debauchery, of love, etc.), not with the Stoical intention of complete abstinence, but with http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the refined Epicurean intention of having in view an ever-growing pleasure. This stinginess with the cash of your vital urge makes you definitely richer through the postponement of pleasure, even if you should, for the most part, renounce the indulgence of it until the end of your life. The awareness of having pleasure under your control is, like everything idealistic, more fruitful and more abundant than everything that satisfies the sense through indulgence because it is thereby simultaneously consumed and consequently lost from the aggregate of totality. 40

Freud conceptualized“the “theeconomic economicproblem problemofofthe masochism,” and Kant conceptualized sublime,” as it were. Here, according to our concerns, Kant seems to have likened the sublime to the hoarding drive of capitalism. “[T]he postponement of pleasure” in Kant is not so much like that of Weber’s Protestantism, “the spirit of capitalism,” but more precisely the spirit of capitalists that Marx grasped as the “rational miser,” insatiably looking after the pleasure of sustaining and expanding the right of direct exchangeability rather than that of actual consumption. It has been a common practice to explain modern capitalism from the vantage point of the desire for use-value (consumption). But the interminable movement of capital must be seen as the “drive [ Trieb ],” in Freudian terms, that exists beyond the pleasure principle and the reality principle—the death drive, more properly. In terms of his own position with respect to the political economy, Kant complied with Adam Smith’s labor theory of value. For him, currency was not the least an enigma, neither was it sublime. He questioned how goods become money. The thing to be called money must, therefore, have cost as much industry to produce or to obtain from other men as the industry by which those goods (natural or artificial products) are acquired for which that industry is exchanged. . . . But how is it possible that what were at first only goods finally become money? This would happen if a powerful, opulent ruler who at first used a material for the adornment and splendor of his attendants (his court) came to levy taxes on his subjects in this material (as goods) (e.g., gold, sil ver, copper, or a kind of beautiful seashell, cowries ; or as in Congo a kind of matting called makutes , in Senegal iron ingots, or on the Coast of Guinea even black slaves), and in turn paid with this same material those his demand moved to industry in procuring it, in accordance with exchange regulations with them and among them (on a market or exchange).—In http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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this way only (so it seems to me) could a certain merchandise have become a lawful means of exchange of the industry of subjects with one another, and thereby also become the wealth of the nation, that is, money .41

Money is deemed here the nominal definition of exchange between a worker who makes a product and another worker who makes another product. Kant did not question why and how different labors come to be compared according to the same standard. Born the son of a craftsman, Kant disdained merchant capitalism or mercantilism, like classical economists. His idea that synthetic judgment was expansive can be interpreted in the context of economic event that profit (surplus value) should be earned in the production process alone, and should not be a speculation that aims at producing difference in the circulation process. What Kant had in mind as an ideal was the association of independent small producers, and not the or in theGermany like in industrial that had labor rarelyunion existed in Kant’scapitalist lifetime.production In this sense, money in Kant’s term was not (and should not be) that which would turn into capital. With respect to money, however, we should refer not to his accounts of money but to Critique of Pure Reason . The implication here is, of course, that money is a transcendental illusion that one cannot easily get rid of. The previous one has to inon mind the fact that Kant did notnotwithstanding, consider the problematic of keep morals a subjective level. As I have said earlier, he saw the core of morality in the imperative: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” In other words, to Kant, to use others as a means was the major premise to begin with. This was an affirmative recognition of the social life constituted upon division of labor and exchange. For that matter, Smith’s economics was primarily a division of ethics: upon the affirmation of egoism, he sought to go beyond the contradictions caused by the egoism by introducing sympathy . Even today, political economists who question the harms of the market economy tend to resort to sympathy. Meanwhile, Kant criticized Smith’s “moral sentiments,” and sought to treat morality as an a priori law. Kant’s criticism of Smith makes Kant’s ethics or “the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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kingdom of ends” look subjectivist; but this could not be the case, for it was based upon realistic, economic ground. That Kant saw the kingdom of ends as a regulative idea contains a critique of the capitalist economy precisely because the capitalist economy makes it fatally impossible to “treat humanity in the person of any other as an end.” Contrary to what people usually imagine, Marx rarely spoke of the future. In The German Ideology , which was mostly written by Engels, Marx made the following addendum: “Communism is . . . not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes [aufhebt ] the present state of things, the conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.”42 And the potency to constitute this reality comes from capitalism itself. In this sense, communism would exist as a companion to the movement of capitalism, yet as an oppositional movement created by capitalism itself. This should not be, in Kantian terms, a constitutive idea, namely, “an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself,” but a regulative idée , namely, an ideal which constantly offers the ground to criticize reality. An elucidation of capitalism is thereby an ethical task par excellence. Here is the transcritical juncture between political economy and morality, between Marxian critique and Kantian critique. 5.5

Credit and Crisis

Kant rejected the metaphysics that projects what is achieved ex post facto onto ex ante facto thinking. Yet at the same time, he acknowledged as sine qua non any teleological projection into the future— schein callingfunction it the “transcendental illusion” [transszendentalen ], whose we cannot dispense with, albeit only an ‘illusion’. He maintained that even theory requires faith . It is my contention that what supports the capitalist economy is credit qua transcendental illusion . A commodity cannot express its value—no matter how much labor time is expended to produce it—if it is not sold. Seen ex post facto, the value of a commodity could be considered as existing in

social labor time, while in ex ante facto, there is no such guarantee. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In order to self-reproduce, capital has to go through the ordeal of C-M (selling). If it fails, capital loses money with unsold objects— M-C. To avoid this ordeal for now , credit is called for. According to Marx, this is to assume the selling of C-M ideally , in advance; credit takes the form of exchange where the actual payment is temporarily suspended, but the counterbalancing/settling of accounts will occur later. Of course, a bank note (or check) is credit, and, for that matter, money itself is already a kind of credit. We cannot belittle this strange convention as just an illusory system. For instance, although check, credit card, and digital money may appear to be inauthentic in comparison with a gold coin, they are the same if seen from the vantage point of credit . It is believed that it would be preferable to remold gold coins (as currency) into pure gold, if the price of gold were to go up; but in reality it cannot be the case and it is never done—there are technical troubles as well as an inevitable loss in weight—except that there is the faith of credit that it could be done when the time comes. Gold currency and gold (gold as use value) never match, though there is a persistent faith that they would accord. That is to say that the currency itself is already credit. As Marx observed, the institution of credit, having come into existence together with the expansion of circulation in the manner of “natural growing [Naturwüchsigkeit ],”43 expands circulation itself. The credit system accelerates and eternalizes the cycle of capital’s movement, for with this system capitalists can begin new investments without having to wait for the outcome of the cycle M-C-M . The expansion of the capitalist economy is no more and no less than the expansion of the credit system. However, the fact that the origin of credit is naturwüchsiges means it does not have a rational ground. At 



the time, credit is not within a state or a No community, but same “in between” them, in formed the “social” relationship. political power can design and construct a credit system at its disposal; it can only give legal background to the credit system, because it is the political power itself that relies on the social credit system. States issue currencies, though it is not in their power to make them circulate in reality. Imagine if there were a currency purely institutionalized by a state power; it would not function international trading, therefore, neither would it work within theinnation-state. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The essence of credit lies in its avoidance of the critical moment inherent in the selling position—the postponement of the present perplexity to the future. Though the balance must eventually be paid with money, with credit the settlement can be deferred for now. This postponement in time in a sense reverses capital’s M-C-M movement. The insecurity of the selling position may not surface immediately, because it is the nature of credit to make it appear as if the sale had already been made. But the danger persists; it is metamorphosed into the uncertainty of future money payment, while in volving a larger and larger nexus of creditors and debtors. Under the credit system, the self-reproduction of capital occurs not because of its desire for accumulation; it becomes compulsive because of its desperate need to infinitely postpone the final settlement. It is from the moment the credit system is set that the movement of capital surpasses the will of individual capitalists and becomes a compulsion. (For instance, investment in equipment is usually financed by a bank’s advance of funds, thus capital can no longer stop its activity in order to pay back the debt and pay off the interest.) Credit enforces capital’s movement endlessly at the same time that it hastens capital’s self-reproduction and eliminates the danger involved in selling. Seen in aggregate, the movement of capital (for self-reproduction and self-valorization) must endure in order to endlessly postpone the settlement as a stopgap maneuver: If there is an end, the credit will have to collapse. To be sure, from time to time the moment of settlement comes as a surprise attack: this is the crisis that appears—only where credit is fully developed—as nothing short of a collapse of credit. Nevertheless, credit is neither a mere illusion nor an ideology, even if there is a certain truth in the asser

illusory tion that the the real currency economy forms an system.collapses, It is still true that that people encounter, once this illusion is nothing natural and substantial. It is money. Such a crisis occurs only where the ongoing chain of payments has been fully developed, along with an artificial system for setting them. Whenever there is a general disturbance of the mechanism, no matter what its cause, money suddenly and immediately changes over from its merely nominal shape, money into hard cash. Profane commodities canand no longer replace of it. account, The use-value of commodities becomes valueless, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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their value vanishes in the face of their own form of value. The bourgeois, drunk with prosperity and arrogantly certain of himself, has just declared that money is a purely imaginary creation. ‘Commodities alone are money,’ he said. But now the opposite cry resounds over the markets of the world: only money is a commodity. As the heart pants after fresh water, so pants his soul after money, the only wealth. In a crisis, the antithesis between commodities and their value-form, money, is raised to the level of an absolute contradiction. Hence money’s form of appearance is here also a matter of indifference. The monetary famine remains whether payments have 44

to be made in gold or in credit-money, such as bank-notes.

In times of crisis it is not the material form of the commodity that people cling to, but the “direct exchangeability” (equivalent form) of the commodity—money itself. Before a financial crisis hits, there is always an overheating of credit. Though the rate of profit falls while the rate of interest soars, capitalists continue to invest in competition—there is no other way for them to behave. To say it differently, crisis occurs when capital driven by illusion expands be yond its competence. Kant called all “pretensions of reason” speculative , and it is crisis that criticizes capital’s speculative expansion in actuality. It critiques the ideology that presupposed an equilibrium of economic development. In this sense, what impressed Marx in writing Capital was not the “theory of surplus value”—that which already been posed and stressed interminable by Ricardian illness leftists— but thehad crisis as a symptom of the incurable, of capitalism. By way of a psychoanalytic retrospection or belated analysis of deferred action [Nachtäglichkeit ], as it were, Marx located the symptom in the “value form,” that is, the asymmetric relation that can never be sublated. The possibility of crisis exists in the split between buying and selling, and selling and paying, though this is also potentiality the very ofvalue, capitalcredit, (qua self-reproductive money) itself. In other words, surplus and crisis form one and the same circuitous movement of capital.45 (And, in order to explain the peri- odicity of crises, to be certain, one must consider industrial capital. And I return to this later.) Crises nevertheless do not dissolve capitalism; rather this is a capitalistic solution to the problems inherent in capitalism, and part of

the whole process of the prosperity cycle (prosperity-crisis-depression-prosperity). Crisis and the depression that follows are merely http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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parts of the violent (or liberalistic ) reformation of capitalist production. The same periodical crises of Marx’s age are no longer existent, precisely like the victims of hysteria caused by sexual repression that Freud encountered. Yet, so long as capitalism is a world constituted by the credit system, crises will continue to dog it. The economic process is a religio-genic-process that continues to create and expand the phantasmic domain of value. And the temporality of capitalism is similar to that of Judeo-Christianity in the sense that the end is indefinitely deferred. This analogy, however, does not intend to point out a parallelism or reciprocity between economic and religious phenomena.46 If religion is economic, it is so in the sense that it is rooted in the burden of debt that the living feel toward the dead, or namely, the exchange between this world and that world. One should not disdain the economic. Rather all the serious institutions of humanity: capital, state, nation, and religion should be scrutinized from the economic standpoint. Whether or not we believe in religion in the narrow sense, real capitalism places us in a structure similar to that of the religious world. What drives us in capitalism is neither the ideal nor the real (i.e., needs and desires), but the metaphysics and theology originated in exchange and commodity form. Marx conceptualized communism out of the logic of capitalism itself—that which severs people from the local communities to which they are subordinated, and then recombines them socially . To use the rhetoric of Matthew in The New Testament, money as capital would say: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foe will be more members household. Whoever loves father or mother thanof meone’s is notown worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”47 In the stage that industrial capital was established, namely, when the commodity economy began to control the whole of production by the commodification of labor power, the view to see the previous society from the vantage point of production—historical materialism— finally into existence. An elucidation industrial is useful came in an elucidation of previous society,ofbut not vicecapitalism versa. “The http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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222 Marx

anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape.”48 The capitalist economy cannot be explained by such concepts as “power of production and the relation of production” or “infrastructure and superstructure.” The crux to shed light on its mystery lies in the fact that capital is engendered by the essential difficulty of human “exchange,” and precisely for this reason, it is not easy to abolish. I would like to add, however, that it should not be impossible. As Marx pointed out, capital is engendered at the point where selling (C-M) and buying (M-C) are separated spatially and temporally. The separation not only fosters surplus value, but also eventually causes a credit crisis. This separation cannot be collapsed, and it is wrong to presume that direct exchange is ever possible. Since Georg Lukács, a theory of reification has been influential which problematized the situation in which the relation between humans wrongly appears as the relation between things. This problematization is, more than anything else, a construct of the consciousness of craftsmen (or producers of simple commodities) living within the frame of the feudal hierarchy. For them, the relation which had been transparent and direct now appears to be reified. However, social relations between human beings in the commodity economy have been organized, from the beginning, by capital, and appear as the relation between things. There has been no other way. It has al ways already been the case that we never know with whom we are connected. It is nevertheless this separation that socially connects people from enclosed communities and nation-states, and could form a cosmopolis, a world civil society. In this social relation we cannot know how we are mutually connected, while it is this ungraspable spatial ‘whole’ that morally forbids us to claim our mutual unrelatedness. this moment, than half of the cannot people claim around the globe areAt starving; people more in advanced countries to be unrelated , that is, innocent. But still the social relation cannot be presented conspicuously. Thinking of the problematic spatiality, one can no longer be so naive as to insist that the originally healthy and organically connected relational world has become reified by the intervention of capitalism. This is an ex post facto perspectival perversion. overlooks thesocial mostrelation crucialinfact it is capital and 49 nothing elseItthat organized the that first place. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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6 Value Form and Surplus Value

6.1

Value and Surplus Value

I have dealt with the nature of the “drive [ Trieb ]” of capital’s selfreproduction. Now it’s time to question how the self-reproduction is made possible in the process M-C-M . Said in the most common parlance, it is by buying low and selling high. Classical economists accused this act as exemplifying the cunning nature of merchants, and stressed that the profit of industrial capital, in contrast, comes from the process of production. Their insistence on the labor theory of value understandably comes from this viewpoint. They considered the process of circulation to be secondary, and sought to derive interest and ground rent from the profit earned in the process of production. When capitalist production began in England, however, the credit system had already been in place, and even stock companies had already been active. It was merchant capital that had 

created them. capitalists were[Verlagssystem no other than the merchants who Early beganindustrial the ‘putting-out system’ ]. Industrial capitalism and its theorists forgot their origin . The system of illusion produced by the capitalist economy can never be explained from the viewpoint of the production process alone. Marx began his scrutiny from the process of circulation because the kernel of capital exists in the formulation of the archi -capital M-C-M , and because 

capitalist production cannot exist if not for the world market engendered by this formulation. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The justification of classical economics was that the profit of industrial capital is produced by equivalent exchange; it is achieved by the enforcement of the power of production by the division of labor and cooperative work—the healthy, favorable acts. Marx, too, claimed that surplus value cannot be achieved in the process of circulation. “The capitalist class of a given country, taken as a whole, cannot defraud itself. However much we twist and turn, the final conclusions remain the same. If equivalents are exchanged, we still have no surplus value. Circulation, or the exchange of commodities, creates no value.”1 Yet at the same time, he insisted that surplus value cannot be realized in the process of production alone. The total mass of commodities, the total product, must be sold, both that portion which replaces constant and variable capital and that which represents surplus value. If this does not happen, or happens only partly, or only at prices that are less than the price of production, then although the worker is certainly exploited, his exploitation is not realized as such for the capitalist and may even not involve any realization of the surplus-value extracted, or only a partial realization; indeed, it may even mean a partial or complete loss of his capital. The conditions for immediate exploitation and for the realization of that exploitation are not identical. Not only are they separate in time and space, they are also separate in theory. The former is restricted only by the society’s productive forces, the latter by the proportionality between the different branches of production and by the society’s power of consumption.2

Marx is saying that, regardless of what happens in the process of production, surplus value is finally realized in the process of circulation. That makes it contradictory to the previous statement—that surplus value cannot be achieved in the process of circulation. Capital cannot therefore arise from circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to arise apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and not in circulation. We therefore have a double result. The transformation of money into capital has to be developed on the basis of the immanent laws of the exchange of commodities, in such a way that the starting-point is the exchange of equivalents. The money-owner, who is as yet only a capitalist in larval form, must buy his commodities at their value, sell them at their value, and yet at the end of the process withdraw more value from circulation than he threw into it at the beginning. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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His emergence as a butterfly must, and yet must not, take place in the sphere of circulation. These are the conditions of the problem. Hic Rhodus, hic salta !3

It must be noted that this antinomy is not limited to the situation of merchant capital. The surplus value in industrial capital, too, “must, and yet must not, take place in the sphere of circulation.” If so, we should consider this first with respect to merchant capital. As Marx said, deriving surplus value from the division of circulation within in a value system alone is an unequal exchange, a fraud. On the other hand, the case of exchange between different value systems, surplus value can be achieved even if each deal is of equal exchange within each system. Thus the Marxian antinomy is solved by invoking multiple value systems—and no other way. Marx continues: On the other hand, as I have already remarked, the exchange of products springs up at the points where different families, tribes or communities come into contact; for at the dawn of civilization it is not private individuals but families, tribes, etc. that meet on an independent footing. Different communities find different means of production and different means of subsistence in their natural environment. Hence their modes of production and living, as well as their products, are different. It is this spontaneously developed difference which, when different communities come into contact, calls forth the mutual exchange of products and the consequent gradual conversion of those products into commodities. Exchange does not create the differences between spheres of production but it does bring the different spheres into relation, thus converting them into more or less interdependent branches of the collective production of a whole society.4

Taking the origin of exchange into account in this manner—like in Adam Smith’s attempt—gives us the impression that the monetary exchange developed gradually out of barter. Yet the point in the present context is that Marx retrospectively discovered the difference between communities at the fountainhead of exchange. And that difference is the given of the natural conditions. Merchant capital came into existence in the difference, namely, between communities. “Trading nations, properly so called, exist only in the interstice of the ancient world, like the gods of Epicurus in the intermundia , or Jews in the pores of Polish society.” 5 It is precisely for the nature of merchant capital that capitalism has never gone so far as to transform the whole of conventional productions and relations of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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production. It has always remained partial, yet, by pursuing difference, produced the social and global nexus between peoples that individual communities had never been able to organize. The situation has not changed even since modern nation-states have come into existence as an expansion or unification of the communities. Marx’s “social [sozial ]” is pointedly distinct from not only Gemeinschaft , but also from Gesellschaft , because even the latter is another kind of community that appeared after the establishment of the commodity economy. For the consciousness within community, for the thinking entrapped within, it is possible to say that money is just an index of value or the medium of exchange. In contrast, Marx’s term “social” should be exclusively used to describe the exchange between different systems, and furthermore, exchange in which one cannot know with whom the product is being exchanged. Therefore, the social characteristics of the exchange that occurs in between communities is more evident in foreign trade, wherein money appears as world money [Weltgeld ] qua universal commodity in the social space. But as coin, money loses its universal character, taking on a national, local one. It is divided up into coinage of different sorts, according to the material of which it consists, gold, copper, silver, etc. It acquires a political title, and speaks, as it were, a different language in different countries. . . . Gold and silver, like exchange itself, as already mentioned, do not initially appear within the sphere of a social community but at the point at which it ends, at its boundaries; at its not very numerous points of contact with foreign communities. Gold and silver now appear posited as the commodity as such, the universal commodity which preserves its character as a commodity at all places.6

Mercantilists clung to gold, not simply because of their mammonism, but rather because gold is the ultimate means of settlement in international trade. And, with respect to this, Marx says, “However much the modern economists consider themselves to have ad vanced beyond the mercantile system, in periods of general crises gold and silver figure in precisely this determination, in the year 1857 as much as in 1600. In this character, gold and silver [play] an important role in the creation of world market.” 7 Mercantilists derived gold from the balance of trade. Meanwhile, modern economists, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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who denied them, considered money simply as a denominator of value and a means of circulation. This is equal to ignoring the beings of multiple communities (qua value systems). Money transforms into capital in the place of remaining a mere means of circulation, mostly because of the beings of multiple systems. The labor theory of value, that came from classical economics, was conceptualized in a unitary system. Precisely for this reason, its followers had to revise their theory when having to explain why the prices of production attain average rates of profit in different departments of production. Meanwhile, neoclassical economists negated the labor theory of value and sought to explain value (price) from the vantage point of utility (use-value). Employing the concept of “marginal utility,” they posited the point of equilibrium between supply and demand, without resorting to psychological elements. After all, however, classical economists too had assumed the equilibrium of price in the market, and thus they had maintained the value apropos labor time. They had paid attention to the mechanism by which individual (anarchic) productions and exchanges come to settle—ex post facto—in an equilibrium. Furthermore, since the core of “marginal utility” of neoclassical economics had already been prefigured in Ricardo’s “law of diminishing returns,” its invention cannot be attributed to the neoclassical school. Theories of equilibrium—no matter how mathematically rigorous—are without exception conceptualized within a unitary system, and thus cannot tackle the ‘social intercourse’ capital engenders. Now that one has to take different value systems into consideration, one has to suppose a value of a commodity that is different from its equilibrium price. So long as one thinks within a unitary system, money likened to zero that structures theorsystem in a mathematical senseis (or philosophically, nothingness apperception in the Kantian term). Meanwhile, only where there are heterogeneous systems can money transform into capital that gains surplus value from the exchange between systems. Marx appears to be more obsessed with the labor theory of value than Smith and Ricardo, who finally abandoned or revised their theory.8 But Marx’s sense is totally different from thatisof hisapredecessors. the classical economists, labor value just replacement While of the for equilibrium price that http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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is established within a unitary system, Marx began his whole analysis from manifold systems, and hence came to need the concepts of social and abstract labor value. Between manifold systems, a commodity’s price naturally varies. What, then, is the value of a commodity? Only by thinking in this manner does the value qua abstract labor come to be proposed as distinct from the equilibrium price of a unitary system. What is at stake here is that there are manifold systems; that surplus value arises from their differences; therefore, that money transforms into capital. When criticizing Ricardo, Bailey already pointed out that the value of a commodity does not exist by and for itself, but is determined by and for others, namely, in a relational system. This signifies that the price of the same commodity differs in another system. “Value is a relation between contemporary commodities, because such only admit of being exchanged for each other; and if we compare the value of a commodity at one time with its value at another, it is only a comparison of the relation in which it stood at these different times to some other commodity.”9 That is to say that commodities form a synchronic relational system, as it were. Bailey seems to think of the relation in time, but it can and should be thought of in space as well. When a commodity is placed in a different system, the equilibrium price alters. This difference is not simply caused by the fluctuation of price, but by the difference of the relational system itself. But, then, what happens when trade occurs between them? Here comes surplus value. Marx speaks of value clearly in distinction from equilibrium price, because it is a matter of manifold systems and, furthermore, surplus value.

6.2

The Linguistic Approach

No product can be produced without labor. Classical economics thus posits labor as a substance of value. However, as we have seen, what makes value of a product is the form of value, namely, the relational system of commodities. It is not that materials and labor by themselves make value of things. It is thanks to the form of value that and labor economic objects. Classical economistsmaterials conceptualized thebecome labor value that exists beyond empirical http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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prices, while neoclassical economists negated the value and sought to remain in the sphere of empirical prices. What they both overlooked is the fact that price as well as labor-value are derivative variants of the form of value (qua relational system). In order to solidify our understanding of the form of value, a ‘linguistic’ reference is of great help, because value is essentially like language. As we quickly realize, however, it is rather linguistics that was shaped by following the model of political economy. Roman Jakobson said as much: In the century-old history of economics and linguistics, questions of uniting both disciplines have arisen repeatedly. One may recall that economists of the Enlightenment period used to attack linguistic problems (see Foucault 1966: chap, 3): as, for example, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, who compiled a study on etymology for the Encyclopédie (1756), or Adam Smith, who wrote on the origin of language (1770). G. Tarde’s influence on Saussure’s doctrine in such matters as circuit, exchange, value, output-input, and producer-consumer is well known. Many common topics, as, for instance, “dynamic synchrony,” contradictions within the system, and its continual motion, undergo similar developments in both fields. Fundamental economic concepts are repeatedly subjected to tentative semiotic interpretation. . . . At present, Talcott Parsons (in 1967 and 1968) systematically treats money as “a very highly specialized language,” economic transactions as “certain types of conversations,” the circulation of money as “the sending of messages,” andavowedly the monetary system “a code ininterchange the grammatical-syntactical sense.” He applies to theaseconomic the theory of 10 code and message developed in linguistics.

Saussure in fact employed a model of political economy when he considered language as a synchronic system (i.e., Langue ). The concept “synchronic” indicates a certain state of equilibrium rather than a tentative instant in time. The conventional linguistics had focused on observing a certain linguistic element in its historical transformation, as detached from the whole of the system. Saussure posed an antithesis to it: The transformation of elements in a relational system provokes a shift of the whole system and produces a new system; the diachronic transformation of a language must be grasped as a change of system itself. This is nothing short of a shift from one equilibrium to another. This idea was obviously taken from “the general equilibrium system” of Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), who was http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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teaching at the University of Laussane. But Saussure further developed this framework; he did not remain in Pareto’s model, like many of Jakobson’s examples, which were just rewordings of neoclassical economics. Saussure differentiated himself from neoclassical theory. His con viction was that in language there are only differences; it is a system of pure value11—these statements could not have been said had he thought within a unitary system (i.e., of a Langue ). He introduced the concept of value only when he took into consideration another system of Langue . Saussure’s point is that when a word is translated into another language, it achieves the same meaning, yet at the same time, the value of the word is altered in the new/different system in correspondence to its different relationship with other words. From this focal point, he explains that there is no meaning (the signified) that is apodictically tied to the signifier, in other words, no immanent meaning. As Hjelmslev pointed out, the signifier and the signified cannot be conceptually separated as long as one synchronic system is concerned. The concept of value as distinct from meaning—or ‘price’, in economics—becomes necessary only when manifold/different systems are at stake. What about Marx? In general terms, he negated the idea of seeing money and language analogically. “To compare money with language is no less incorrect. Ideas are not transformed into language in such a way that their particular attributes are dissolved and their social character exists alongside them in language as do prices alongside commodities. Ideas do not exist apart from language. Ideas which must first be translated from their mother tongue into a foreign language in order to circulate and to become exchangeable would provide a better analogy; but 12 then the analogy is not with the language but with its foreignness.” That is to say that, if an analogy between language and money becomes crucial at all, it is only where their foreignness [ Fremdheit ] is at stake. Saussure employed economic figures only when he spoke of the value of language that is distinguished from meaning. He explained it by using examples of different currencies.13 If one follows this analogy, meaning is identified with price, whilethat value corresponds to the difference between the relational systems determine price. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Within a synchronic system, a commodity is made to be related to all other commodities. Exchanging a commodity with money is not simply an occurrence between two things (the commodity and gold), but it is equal to placing the commodity in relationship with all other commodities. The price of a commodity does not simply express an equivalent relationship with money, but aggregates the relationship with all other commodities. What is more, the price of a commodity varies in different systems. And the difference inexorably persists, even when an equilibrium of prices in individual systems is presupposed. If placed between different systems, an exchange—even at a price that does only equal exchange within individual systems—can generate margin (surplus value). To repeat, Marx paid attention to value as it is distinguished from equilibrium price, and this is because he began his thought from a heterology of systems. He never presented value as an empirical— which is an impossibility. Empirically speaking, all we have is an equilibrium price. This is the same as saying that empirically there is only profit, but not surplus value. That which Marx discovers as value— the abstract, social labor—takes as a premise heterogeneous systems. Therefore, in Marx’s concept of value, already conceived is the secret as to how surplus value (or money) transforms into capital. But, even though surplus value can be achieved between manifold systems as a result, the whole event is invisible to each participant. This is precisely because the process of deriving surplus value M-C-M is split into M-C and C-M —which occur in different times and places. 



Circulation bursts through all the temporal, spatial and personal barriers imposed by the direct exchange of products, and it does this by splitting up the direct identity present in this case between the exchange of one’s own product and the acquisition of say someone else’smutually into theindependent two antithetical of sale and purchase. To that these andsegments antithetical processes form an internal unity is to say also that their internal unity moves forward through external antithesis. These two processes lack internal independence because they complement each other. Hence, if the assertion of their external independence [äusserliche Verselbständigung ] proceeds to a certain critical point, their unity violently makes itself felt by producing—a crisis. 14

Herein exists the crucial point: what produces capital also makes the possibility and inevitability of crisis. This is the destiny of capitalism. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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As Marx says, via money, selling and buying are split both spatially and temporarily. The owner of money can buy anything, anywhere, anytime. Seeing this again in analogy with language, money is like writing [écriture ] in contrast to speech [ parole ]. Written texts may be read by anyone, anywhere, anytime, and its circulation is invisible. What is univocally understandable to the present other in speech has to be read differently in different languages ( Langues ) in writing. The hatred of money of Ricardo or Prouhdon corresponds to the hatred of writing. Both are hatreds of mediated communication, going hand in hand with the fantasy of direct and transparent exchange. As Jacques Derrida problematized in Of Grammatology , philosophy since Plato has entailed a hostility to letters, while admiring the direct and transparent exchange-communication.15 And the same has been going on in the political economy as hostility toward money. As Plato’s criticism of writing already took for granted the irresolvable being of writing, the idea of barter, the starting point of classical economists—such as seen in the narrative of Robinson Crusoe—tacitly took as a premise the irreducible being of money (qua the general equivalent). It must be said that those political economists or socialists who idealistically deny the apodeicity that exchange has to be mediated by money are falling into metaphysics. Capital reads: “Value, therefore, does not have its description branded on its forehead; it rather transforms every product of labor into a social hieroglyphic. Later on, men try to decipher the hieroglyphic, to get behind the secret of their own social product: for the characteristic which objects of utility have of being value is as much men’s social product as is their language.”16 Marx saw the commodity form as “social hieroglyphic,” which Derrida’sthing; term archi-écriture . Thisinscribed is to say that money is not justis ainsecondary and it is already in and as the core of commodity form. To conclude this section, I examine a critic who approached the problematic of artistic value from the vantage point of the opacity of social exchange, Paul Valéry. After all, a work of art is an object, a human product, made with a view to affecting certain individuals in a certain way. Works of art are either objects http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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in the material sense of the term, or sequences of acts, as in the case of drama or the dance, or else summations of successive impressions that are also produced by acts, as in music. We may attempt to define our notion of art by an analysis based on these objects, which may be taken as the only positive elements in our investigations: considering these objects and progressing on the one hand to their authors and on the other hand to those whom they affect, we find that the phenomenon of art can be represented by two quite distinct transformations. (We have here the same relation as that which prevails in economics between production and consumption.) What is extremely important is to note that these two transformations— the author’s modification of the manufactured object and the change which the object or work brings about in the consumer—are quite independent. It follows that we should always consider them separately . Any proposition involving all three terms, an author, a work, a spectator or listener, is meaningless—for you will never find all three terms united in observation. . . . I shalland go further—and comenot to come a point no doubtabout find strange paradoxical, ifhere you Ihave to you thatwill conclusion what I have already said: art as a value (for basically, we are studying a problem of value) depends essentially on this nonidentification, this need for an intermediary between producer and consumer. It is essential that there should be something irreducible between them, that there should be no direct communication, and that the work, the medium, should not give the person it affects anything that can be reduced to an idea of the author’s person and thinking. . . . There will never be any accurate way of comparing what has happened in the two minds; and moreover, if what has happened in the one were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of art would disappear. The whole effect of art, the effort that author’s work demands of the consumer, would be impossible without the interposition, between the author and his audience, of a new and impenetrable element capable of acting upon other men’s being.17

Thus Valéry points to the ultimate ground upon which the value of artwork arises in the separation of two processes (production and consumption), and the impenetrability of the gap. The direct target of his critique here is evidently Hegelian aesthetics, which stands in the position to subsume both processes, and claims that history has no opacity. (For that matter, so-called Marxist aesthetics is the same.) Valéry undoubtedly came to achieve this stance through his reading of Capital .18 http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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234 Marx

Seen from this perspective, capitalists are those who seek to actually stand in different processes and systems. Merchant capitalists derive surplus value from the margin accrued between different value systems. This is not in the least based upon the fraud of unequal exchange. If a certain commodity is produced abundantly in a certain region thanks to the natural environment, the price within the relational system of commodities differs from the prices in the system of regions where the commodity is scarce or not produced at all. Merchants buy commodities where they are cheap and sell them where they are expensive. They earn surplus value from the balance, yet this is not fraud. Each exchange is executed according to the equilibrium in individual value systems. 6.3

Merchant Capital and Industrial Capital

How then does industrial capital earn surplus value? Classical economists, who ideologically support industrial capital, emphasize the importance of profit earned in the process of production rather than in the process of circulation. Unlike Ricardian leftists, Ricardo himself never thought so simply that this was an exploitation of surplus labor, yet his idea contained the seeds from which this position derived. Ricardo considered that the natural price (as distinguished from the market price) of a commodity already contained profit— that which is then distributed to ground rent (overhead) and interest.19 As I mentioned previously, it is thought that Marx’s theory of surplus value is a successor to this, and as a result, Marx’s theory has been accused by many while defended by neo-Ricardians since Piero Sraffa. Forproved instance, Okishio andrate Michio Morishima mathematically the Nobuo proposition: if the of profit is plus (positive), the rate of surplus value is plus (positive), that is, surplus labor exists .20 But the problem of their predecessor, Ricardo, who began from labor value and omitted money, still haunts. That is to say, this line of thinking is strictly modeled within a homogenous system. What is of fatal importance to us, however, is the fact that there are plural value systems, between them. and surplus value is engendered in the exchange http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Marx’s unique contribution is that he sought to understand industrial capital, too, within the general formula M-C-M . In other words, Marx sought to reconsider surplus value from the vantage point of circulation. To Marx, what distinguished industrial capital from merchant capital was, first and foremost, that the former discovered a ‘special commodity’ that the latter had not known—the commodity of labor power. Industrial capital purchases this most special commodity in human history—labor power—in order to produce products, and then sells those products to the commodity itself— laborers—in order to earn surplus value. For neoclassical economists, consumers and companies are the only economic subjects. To them, laborers are deemed just wages as part of the cost of production. Meanwhile, the surplus value of industrial capital is attained only in a sort of circulation process: capital purchases labor power from living laborers, who, in consequence, buy back what they produce from capital (and at this very moment, laborers are totally equal to consumers ). It is not that individual workers buy the very same things they produce, but that in totality —and herein the concept totality intervenes as a sine qua non—laborers qua consumers buy what they produce. This further signifies that surplus value cannot be considered on the level of individual capital but strictly as total social capital . 

Each capitalist knows that he does not confront his own worker as a producer confronts a consumer, and so he wants to restrict his consumption, i.e., his ability to exchange, his wages, as much as possible. But of course, he wants the workers of other capitalists to be the greatest possible consumers of his commodity. Yet the relationship of each capitalist to his workers is the general relationship of capital and labor , the essential relation. It is precisely this which gives rise to the illusion—true for each individual capitalist as distinct from all the others—that apart from his own workers, the rest of the working class confronts him not as workers, but as consumers and exchangers — as moneyspenders. . . . It is precisely this which distinguishes capital from the [feudal] relationship of domination—that the worker confronts the capitalist as consumer and one who posits exchange value, in the form of a possessor of money , of a simple center of circulation—that he becomes one of the innumerable centers of circulation, in which his specific character as worker is extinguished.21

Such a separation between the spheres of production and marketing nullifies the category of laborers and identifies it with consumers in http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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general . As a result, neoclassical economists and the like identify con-

sumers as the subject, and companies as suppliers to their demands— thus the illusion of the consumer subject that plays a major role in consumer society. But this is not all. The acts of consumers against companies such as protest and boycott are, in substance, laborers’ movement, yet they are considered as distinct and even made to oppose it. One of the most crucial lessons of Marx’s reflection is that surplus value cannot be assessed from the process of individual capitals’ movements. In this fact there exist the complexity and invisibility of capitalist system as a totality. Capital cannot realize surplus value unless it succeeds in selling its products, namely, unless its products achieve value as commodity. But the problem is that the potential buyers of the commodity are in reality either other capitals and/or their laborers. This is the dilemma of individual capitalists. Going after profit, capital tries to reduce wages and elongate labor-time of its own workers to their limits. But if all capitals follow these tenets unconditionally, surplus value won’t be realized because the potential buyers of the commodities, namely, the laborers, will be worn out and beaten. Thus the more the individual capitals seek to attain profit, the worse the recession gets in toto. But in the Great Depression of the 1930s, the total capital managed to reverse the impetus. This was so-called Fordism. In consequence, what we know as the consumerist society came into existence. These incidents were however not beyond Marx’s theoretical reach. Fordism or Keynesianism signifies the intervention of the total social capital to restrain the egoism of individual capitals in order to avoid total collapse, and in turn, secure profit for the individual capitals. It appears to be contrary to the of Adam Smith that everyone’s egoistictostrive for profit is conviction in the end beneficial to everyone. Also it appears be a denial of the Weberian spirit of capitalism-Protestantism that encourages ‘diligence’ and ‘saving’. But they are nothing unimaginable within Marxian theory. It was shocking only for the view that detects the realization of surplus value in individual capitals alone or in the process of production alone. absolute surplus value Marxsurplus made value a keen distinction relative : The former isbetween attained by the lengthening ofand the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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labor day and reinforcement of labor power; the latter is attained by sustaining the same labor day, yet lowering the value of labor power indirectly by way of strengthening productivity. The explanation that the lengthening of the labor day—namely, that laborers work longer than the necessary labor time, that is, more than their labor value— results in surplus value sounds reasonable, yet is too simplistic and immediately encounters an impasse. According to this idea, a capitalist going bankrupt would indicate that he could not earn surplus value, and therefore, that he was a ‘conscientious’ capitalist who did not cold-bloodedly exploit his laborers. This is a logical fallacy due to some misconceptions: first, that physical labor time equals value substance; and second, that surplus value is earned only in the process of production. Marx was well aware that the realization of surplus value is completed in the process of circulation, and then some: the process of circulation is not enough for the realization. This is when he unleashes his antinomous cry, “Hic Rhodus, hic salta !” To solve this aporia, the being of manifold systems must be introduced again. The situations of industrial capital and merchant capital are different in characteristic, yet industrial capital too gains surplus value, precisely like merchant capital, from the difference between manifold systems. The labor-power commodity is placed in the value system wherein all commodities relate to and rely on each other. And Marx’s saying that the value of labor power varies according to nation and epoch means that the value of labor power must be taken into consideration in a synchronic relational system. Yet, if it is considered within a unitary system, surplus value cannot occur. In such a case, as merchant capital would be just a swindler, so would capital be justcapital an exploiter. The industrial truth is that industrial earns surplus value by producing new value systems temporarily and continually . The surplus value proper to industrial capital is thus relative surplus value . This is attained by the following procedure: Technological innovation shortens labor time; this lowers the values of commodities that are necessary for the reproduction of labor power; then, the value of labor-power is lowered as a practical Relative surplus valueof is. an exploitation in the double sense—effect. development to take advantage http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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238 Marx

To classical economists, profit is supposed to be gained exclusively by the reinforcement of productivity enabled by the division of labor and cooperation; and because capitalists are responsible for this, profit belongs to them. Ricardian leftists regarded it as an exploitation of surplus value, and Proudhon called it “theft.” Exploitation and theft occur only because the division of labor and cooperation are organized by the hand of capital, the owner of the means of production. Thereupon appeared the idea of producers’ cooperatives where workers themselves own the means of production and organize the division of labor and cooperation. But if this prospect works, it would be only ex post facto a profit being made, while in reality profit may not be made. Here exists the difficulty for the producers’ cooperative. Capitalist corporations are constantly compelled to innovate their production systems amidst competition with others, and producers’ cooperatives, too, are thrown into the agon. In order for them to be able to compete with capitalist enterprises, producers’ cooperatives need not only outside funds but also an internal management that organizes an effective division of labor and cooperation and motivates technological innovations. Lacking a recognition of this necessity, the majority of them disappear, survive humbly in less competitive domains, or become capitalist corporations. Vis-à-vis this same problem, Marx inherited classical economists’ thoughts on the division of labor and cooperation and called this “the new power that arises from the fusion of many forces into a single force.”22 But that is not all there is to his idea: He goes on to emphasize the fact that “the specialized worker produces no commodities. It is only the common product of all the specialized work23

ers that becomes a commodity”; nevertheless, “[a capitalist] pays [workers] the value of 100 independent labor powers, but he does not pay for the combined labor power of 100. Being independent of each other, the workers are isolated. They enter into relations with the capitalist, but not with each other.”24 And, furthermore, “[labor power’s] use-value consists in the subsequent exercise of that power. The alienation [Veräusserung ] of labor-power and its real manifestation [Äusserung , that 25 is, the period of its existence as a use-value, do not coincide in]time.” http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The previous phrases appear to be similar to those of classical economics and Ricardian leftists, except that Marx introduces the temporality of ex ante facto and ex post facto. Surplus value, unlike profit, cannot be posited within the context of individual companies. Surplus value that makes possible the accumulation of capital is engendered only in totality by workers selling their labor power and with the money buying back the commodities they produced. And only where there is a difference in price between value systems: A (when they sell their labor power) and B (when they buy the commodities), is surplus value realized. This is so-called relative surplus value. And this is attained only by incessant technological innovation. Hence one finds that industrial capital too earns surplus value from the interstice between two different systems. As Marx says, indi vidual workers cannot lay claim to what they produce as the result of their combination prior to their production. Here is the inexorable opacity engendered by the temporal sequence. Therefore, the surplus value of industrial capital is not fraudulent, either; but this is simply in the same sense that the surplus value of merchant capital is not. If we accuse merchant capital of being an unequal exchange, industrial capital has to be accused, too. The need to produce different value systems temporally makes the technological development of industrial capital inevitable. If, like Joseph Alois Schumpeter, one praises the extra surplus value earned by technological innovation as “entrepreneurship,” one could consider the surplus value that merchant capital gains as a fair share for its acumen in discovering the regional differences of values and its adventurous spirit of going to ever more remote places. Schumpeter thought that the decline of entrepreneurship would terminate This only indicates would when it cancapitalism. no longer exploit difference. It isthat onlycapital inevitable thatend the entrepreneurship declines when difference is no longer produced. But capital cannot help discovering and/or creating difference, no matter what is at stake. Thus, while merchant capital is engendered spatially by the difference between two value systems (that is invisible to those who exclusively belong to either of the systems), capitaltemporally sustains. itself by continuing to produce differentindustrial value systems http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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240 Marx

The improvement of the productivity of labor enables industrial capital to produce different systems within a system . Therefore, the look of equivalent exchange notwithstanding, it can achieve difference. Then immediately thereafter, the difference is dissolved and a new value system at the new level is required and produced. Capital has to produce this difference incessantly and endlessly. It is this requirement or burden that has motivated and conditioned the unprecedentedly high speed of technological innovation in the age of industrial capitalism. Despite both the praise and accusations surrounding this phenomenon by ideologues of opposing sides, this technological innovation is not motivated in and of itself; it is driven by capitalism. As we have long been observing, for the expansion of capital, a next to meaningless differentiation of technology is constantly required. Capital is destined to motivate and continue technological innovation not for the sake of civilizing the world, but for the sake of its own survival.26 In order to avoid confusion I should clarify that the expression ‘the value of labor is lowered’ has nothing to do with lowered wages or impoverishment. It means that the value of labor is lowered relative to the standard within the given value system. In the newly formed value system, the lowered value of labor contemporaneously confronts the lowered value of products. Therefore, as a result, the living conditions of workers could be improved and even the workday could be shortened. This improvement does not in the least contradict that capital nevertheless earns relative surplus value. For the sake of definition, I have stressed the different ways by which merchant capital and industrial capital earn surplus value— the former from spatial difference and the latter by temporal differentiation. But For in instance, reality, capital not choose either/or; it employs both. in the does nineteenth century, English industrial capitalism bought cotton from India, manufactured it into fabric, and exported it back to India. It earned tremendous profit from this cycle, involving the difference of the Indian value system. In consequence, it ruined the Indian manual labor industry, while contributing to an increase in the production of raw cotton therein. Today situation has not changed: looks not only forthe cheap raw materials but also Industrial for cheap capitalism labor power, roving http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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all over the world. When wages get high domestically, companies transport their factories abroad to find cheaper labor. Capital does not choose where and how it gets surplus value. Even in economies based upon industrial capital, the activities of merchant capital coexist omnipresently, including stock exchange and exchange rate. It is this omnipresence of the activities of merchant capital that constantly brings the fluctuating prices closer to equilibrium. The ma jority of economists warn today that the speculation of global financial capital is detached from the ‘substantial’ economy. What they overlook, however, is that the substantial economy as such is also driven by illusion, and that such is the nature of the capitalist economy. 6.4

Surplus Value and Profit

In the first volume of Capital , Marx considers capital in general, and in the third volume, he deals, for the first time, with individual capitals, namely, capitals in various branches of production. In other words, the first volume deals with ‘value’ and ‘surplus value’, while the third deals with the ‘price of production’ and ‘profit’. In the beginning of the third volume, he explains the design: It cannot be the purpose of the present, third volume simply to make general reflections on this unity [of the production and circulation processes]. Our concern is rather to discover and present the concrete forms which grow out of the process of capital’s movement considered as a whole . In their actual movement, capitals confront one another in certain concrete forms, and, in relation to these, both the shape capital assumes in the immediate production process and its shape in the process of circulation appear merely as particular The by configurations of in capital, developed in this volume, thus moments. approach step step the form whichasthey appear on the surface of society, in the action of different capitals on one another, i.e., in competition, and in the everyday consciousness of the agents of production themselves.27

In the everyday consciousness of the agents, namely, of industrial capitalists and their economists, how does the capital’s movement appear? For them, is no such minus thing as surplus is everything. Price there of production cost pricevalue. leavesProfit profit. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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242 Marx

Furthermore, from profit interest and ground rent are paid, and self-consumption expenditure is excluded, then the rest is rein vested. For them, there is no such distinction, that is, of Marx, between variable capital (labor-power commodity) that accrues surplus value and constant capital (means of production and raw material). There is only the distinction between fixed capital (stock) and circulation capital (flow). Wages are part of the cost price; they are not distinguished from the costs of means of production and raw material. Profit is considered to be made by the total capital input. Every capital attempts to earn profit by reducing the cost price. Capitals are divided into various industrial branches, that is, from heavy industry to agriculture. The rate of profit of each branch approaches the average rate of profit. In the branches of higher rate of profit, investments of capital become active, while in those with lower rates, investments are withdrawn or productions are withheld. The world of industries appears to be formed as if by natural selection or the law of the jungle. In the state of equilibrium in which an average rate of profit is established, the price of production in various branches assumes the kind of price with which to achieve average profit. To be certain, within the same branch fierce struggles among capitals in search of extra profit constantly take place. This improves the productivity—namely, the organic composition of capital— of each branch. For the empirical consciousness of capitalist society, the whole thing about economic activity appears merely in the above manner. Required is no more than achieving the equilibrium price (price of production) that is distinguished from market price fluctuating by the dynamic of supply and demand. Thus the insistence of neoclassical that thethe concepts of consciousness value and surplus areHowfalse is ineconomists total accord with everyday of thevalue agents. ever, it is only by the reflection of such everyday consciousness that the conundrum of surplus value can be shed light on. Our task is to conduct a retrospective query from this everyday consciousness in the third volume to the general reflection in the first volume, reversing, as it were, the order of Marx’s descriptive deployment. “In actual fact, is the historical startingtopoint. value and the the rate rate ofofprofit surplus value are, relative this, Surplus the invisible http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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essence to be investigated, whereas the rate of profit and hence the form of surplus-value as profit are visible surface phenomena.”28 Marx spoke of this as “the transformation of surplus-value into profit.” When the third volume was published posthumously under Engels’s editorial supervision, this shift in stance became a target of attack. For instance, in his Karl Marx and the Close of his System , Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk argued that the tendency in the third volume contradicted the theory of value in the first volume, and criticized Marx for having given up his original design. Since then, many have come to his defense, and this whole argumentation is known as the transformation problem. In my understanding, however, it is wrong to think that, in writing the third volume, Marx gave up the design he had had in the first volume. In an interesting way, this ‘discrepancy’ reminds me of Kant, whose first critique tackles the issue of subject in general, but whose third critique engages in the issue of plural subjects. This difference is commonly understood as that between scientific recognition and aesthetic judgment. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that the multitude of subjects is at stake in scientific recognition, too. Why, then, didn’t Kant begin his first critique with the issue of conflicting subjects? Because he had to first ensure the issue of the transcendental category and from that precede the multitude of conflicting subjects. In a similar way, Marx approached capital in general in the first volume in order to conduct a transcendental scrutiny of the conditions with which the accumulation of capital is made possible. This is equal to seeing the value of a commodity in the context of the value system, and grasping the surplus value of capital in the difference between value systems or in the differentiation itself. Intime the third volume, Marx deals with plural capitals, while at the same asking how it is possible transcendentally empirically that they realize profit or the rate of profit. Speaking of the “transformation problem,” Smith and Ricardo had already encountered a similar question. Based upon his labor theory of value, Smith held that every commodity contains an immanent value. But if, in a state of equilibrium, every capital achieves the same average rate of profit, theMarx’s price that makes profit possible— Smith’s “natural price” and “price of this production”—must http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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244 Marx

diverge from the original value. Confronting it, Smith had to abandon his labor theory of value, and switch to a position that speaks to labor as a relatively dominant factor. The problem here is that the price that constitutes the equal rate of profit between industries does not parallel the amount of input labor. If, in every branch of industry, the rate of profit comes to be equal, the price of production of a certain product must be either higher or lower than its ‘original value’. For this reason, Ricardo, too, partially revised his labor theory of value and concluded that value cannot be determined only by labor input, except for those branches that have a standard composition of capital and a standard turnover term of capital. So it is that the transformation problem was not Marx’s invention, but an aporia that had long existed. It is the common understanding that Marx sought to solve this aporia at the same time as sustaining the labor theory of value. Neoclassical economists since Bawerk claimed to have pointed out Marx’s contradiction, and sought to banish the notions of “value” or “surplus value” altogether. Ironically, however, in the line of neoRicardians since Sraffa, the correspondence between the rate of surplus value and the rate of interest has been mathematically proven, as has been touched upon earlier. But I do not think that this explains what Marx sought to do. First, Marx’s labor theory of value and that of Ricardo are fundamentally different. As I have already explained, Marx’s belief was: It is not that input labor time determines the value, but conversely that the value form (system) determines the social labor time. In other words, Marx sought to transcendentally elucidate the formal system that valorizes the inputlabor. The term “surplus value” is of concern here. In distinction from “profit,” is a transcendental concept; it isthis not dimension, something that is visible right it here, empirically. Ricardo lacked had to resort to the labor theory of value to make up for it, and then pulled it back when inconvenient. In the third volume, Marx distinguishes rate of profit and rate of s , surplus value in the following manner: While rate of profit is c_____  v the ratio of surplus value to the total social capital seen as the sum total of variable capital (qua labor etc.), power) capital _s , raw material, means of production, theand rateconstant of surplus value(qua is v http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the ratio of surplus value to the total social capital seen as variable capital (labor power). Now if we suppose that the rate of surplus value to the total social capital is fixed, in capitals in which the ratio of constant capital to the total social capital is large, the rate of interest must be lower. Then, how, in capitals of every branch, can an average rate of profit be guaranteed? To repeat, the aporia Ricardo encountered was this: If in industrial branches with different ratios of variable capital and constant capital—or different organic composition of capital in Marx’s term—the same rate of profit has to be achieved, price of production is diverged from the value qua input labor. Ricardo thus came to posit that price of production accords value only in capitals with standard organic composition. On the other hand, Marx’s solution to this aporia is that the total surplus value of total capital is distributed to the price of production of the capitals of different industrial branches so that the average rate of profit can be established in each branch. To this rather strange idea, it is easy to pose alternatives. For instance, as Engels critically mentioned in his preface to the third volume of Capital , George C. Stiebeling posed a solution: The rise of the organic composition of capital increases the productivity of labor and raises the rate of surplus value; therefore, the rate of profit of the branch, even if it has a smaller ratio of variable capital, goes up and approaches the average rate of profit. On the other hand, Marx, though he admits that the transformation of organic composition of capital affects the productivity of labor, assumes that the productivity of labor is constant, that is, the rate of surplus value is constant. Here Marx undoubtedly premised a certain synchronic system wherein the rate of surplus value of total social capital is constant. According to our primary definition, the surplus value of industrial capital is attained by the temporal differentiation of systems, but then, what happens if it is seen synchronically? This is what Marx did: “What we previously viewed as changes that the same capital underwent in succession, we now consider as simultaneous distinctions between capital investments that exist alongside one another in different spheres of production.”29 This method is also used else where: “Wepcan now to apply the above profit rate,   s v/c,move to theonvarious possible cases.equation We shall for let the the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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

individual factors of s v/c vary successively in value, and establish the effect of these changes on the rate of profit. We thus obtain various sets of cases which we can consider either as successive changes in circumstances for the action of one and the same capital, or, indeed, as different capitals, existing simultaneously alongside one another, and brought in for purposes of comparison, for example, from different branches of industry or from different countries.”30 Marx saw as the same that capitals with higher organic composition and those with lower organic composition spatially coexist as different branches of industry, and that capital in general temporally succeeds from lower stage to higher stage in organic composition. In the latter case, relative surplus value is achieved. And if this temporal succession is shifted to the spatial dimension, it can be considered that capitals with higher organic composition absorb (exploit) relative surplus value from those with lower organic composition. Imagine an extreme case: an enterprise in which every aspect of production is automated, performed by robots. In this production, the ratio of variable capital (workers) is zero, and the rate of surplus value is supposed to be zero; nevertheless, an average rate of profit is attained. In terms of Marx’s formulation, this is because the surplus value of total capital is distributed. That is to say that highly profitable companies with relatively few employees— such as, for instance, investment, information, and high-tech production firms—may not appear to exploit workers who work in different individual capitals directly, but they do so indirectly. What are the implications of Marx’s idea that total surplus value is being distributed to individual capitals? The first is that capital attains surplus value only by workers—as a whole—buying back what they produce; second that surplusthe value is inexorably invisible to individual capitals. In consequence, inherent relationship between capital and wage labor comes to be blurred. “Since all sections of capital equally appear as sources of the excess value (profit), the capital relation is mystified.”31 To the everyday consciousness of individual capitals, their workers are merely a part of the price of production, and the workers of other capitals are just consumers. Thus it has been imperative tolike recapture the relationship between capital and wage labor. But if, a Ricardian leftist, one considers that exploitation http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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occurs in the production process of individual capitals, we will face a contradiction: that the capitals with higher organic composition gain a rate of profit that is unfairly higher than the amount of their labor input. It is here that Marx proposes an explanation—because the surplus value earned by other capitals is being distributed to them. In other words, the surplus value attained by the exploitation of other capitals’ workers is being distributed to the capitals with higher organic compositions. If so, it is not only insufficient but also often harmful to stress the exploitation in the production process on the level of individual capitals alone. This is the reason why the labor union movement based upon the theory of Ricardian leftists, though flourishing, came to be reactionary. In the profit that a certain individual capital gains, what is distributed is the surplus value exploited from the workers of different industrial branches as well as independent small producers; in the profit that the total capital of a certain nation-state gains, what is distributed is the surplus value exploited from the workers and peasants of foreign countries (colonies). But the difficulty is that these details are always invisible.32 When Marx assumed that total surplus value was being distributed to individual capitals, he conceptualized it within a synchronic, equilibrium system, it might be said. This can be grasped only on the transcendental level (read not on the empirical level). Rather now the spatial coexistence of branches should be transposed back into temporal succession once more. In reality there are superior branches in which technological innovations and expansion of production continue, and inferior branches which are downsized because of their inability to achieve the average rate of profit. The equilibrium systemselection created and by the average rate profit inbranches. fact veils the actual violent reformation of of industrial And even within the same branch, individual capitals are exposed to constant competition with each other. To beat the competition, they tend toward technological innovations to effectively reduce the cost of wages. They want to sell their commodities that have been produced at a lower cost, for a price higher than the lowered cost, yet lower than the production—by so doing, get extrabyprofit Marxprevious thoughtprice thatoftechnological innovation wasthey motivated the. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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activities of individual capitals seeking extra profit. Schumpeter wrote about this, calling the essence of capitalism an incessant “creative destruction.”33 But “creative destruction” does not occur continuously because once companies invest in new equipment, they cannot discard it and refit so easily. In reality, the selection shows itself dramatically when the average rate of profit goes down, during times of depression. I have stressed that the movement of capital is in principle based upon relative surplus value attained by technological innovation, but this process is never a smooth one; it always appears as the trade cycle. What Marx sought to do in the third volume was to elucidate this mechanism. The trade cycle is inevitable in the capitalist economy—no matter how individual capitals behave. This is sheerly due to the behavior of the total surplus value of total capital—the invisible whole. Trade cycles in capitalist economies take the following path: During times of prosperity, more laborers are hired, and wages rise; this causes a fall of the rate of profit; despite the fall of the rate of profit, individual capitals cannot so easily reduce production after having invested a certain amount of constant capital; and especially when credit is overheated, as it is during times of prosperity, it is difficult to anticipate (and sense) falls in the rate of profit; then, all of a sudden, crisis hits, revealing the reality of the situation; many companies go bankrupt, and many laborers are fired. With the continued falling rate of profit, capitals tend toward the investment of constant capital (qua the introduction of technological innovation); it is at this moment that the organic composition of capital improves across the board; when the time of prosperity comes again, the labor power that has been excessive is now absorbed, and wages rise; this lowers the rate of profit; despite the fallofofthe theswelling rate of profit, capitals have to continue to expand because of credit; and crisis hits again. This is the (short-term) trade cycle that Marx observed during his lifetime, called the Juglar cycle. Throughout the cycle, capital in general advances its organic composition. As becomes clearer in this context, the prolongation of labor time (absolute surplus value) is the typical of prosperity, an attempt increase production or phenomenon to quickly collect on the investment in to equipment without http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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improving the organic composition. “The value of the fixed capital, moreover, is now reproduced in a shorter series of turnover periods, and the time for which it has to be advanced in order to make a certain profit is reduced. The prolongation of the working day thus raises profits even if overtime is paid, and up to a certain point this is true even if overtime is paid at a higher rate than normal working hours.”34 The prolongation of the working day (the source of absolute surplus value) is a common phenomenon in times of prosperity even today when working hours are much shorter than during Marx’s time. But working longer is not necessarily compelled by the employer: Workers sometimes want overtime pay. If a longer working day is made compulsory, the workers’ living conditions are threatened, namely, the reproduction of labor power—workers being healthy enough to bear and raise children—is affected. Certainly workers would resist, and even the bourgeois nation-state would interfere (as exemplified in the factory act of nineteenth-century England). The idea of Ricardian leftists that workers are made to work longer than necessary, an idea that is often mistaken as Marx’s, became the theoretical ground for the labor movement and contributed to the shortening of working hours. In fact, working hours have been gradually and constantly shortened throughout history. Meanwhile, capitals continue to seek the intensification of labor.35 But the concept of absolute surplus value—defined as the surplus value earned by the prolongation of working hours and intensification of labor—does nothing to reveal the secret of capitalist production that expands endlessly. (There is a strong tendency to centralize absolute surplus value. Marx, for instance, began with absolute surplus value. But insignificant. his case, it was just for one the sake description, not anything more Therefore, needofnot think of itand as central.) On the other hand, relative surplus value can only be earned by creating new value systems through technological innovation. It is during depression—when the rate of interest goes down—that capitals raise their organic composition all at once. Technological inno vations, including those that have been rendered previously, are fully employed at this moment. In short, the two kinds of surplus value— absolute and relative —that Marx explained successively must http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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be understood as two moments of capital’s circuitous movement in the process of its accumulation. What is crucial here is that the rise of capital’s organic composition—what earns total capital its relative surplus value—can be made only via depression. Hence, the trade cycle is destiny. In order to capture surplus value, capital in sum has to constantly create a new value system in which the value of labor power is consistently lowered. But this cannot be realized at its convenience, but only via the trade cycle, which is not caused by the anarchic nature of capitalist production itself. As Kozo Uno stressed, in the final analysis, it derives from the fact that the capitalist production relies on a special commodity (labor-power commodity). It is humans, who cannot be discarded when they are excessive, who cannot be readily reproduced when scarce. Nevertheless, what we have to keep in mind here is that crisis or trade cycle cannot be properly understood if not for an examination of the ‘credit system’. The trade cycle is shaped by the conflict and reciprocity between usurers’ capital (money capital) and industrial capital (real capital), namely, the conflict and reciprocity between rate of interest and rate of profit. And, as a result of the swelling of credit, the fall of the rate of profit, that is already ongoing, does not affect businesses immediately. (Overproduction is just one of the effects of this.) This whole makes an invisible bind, both spatially and temporally, to our everyday, empirical consciousness. Here I would add that there are two kinds of trade cycle: short and long. Marx observed the shorter.36 In contrast, there is Kondratieff’s wave, a trade cycle of fifty to sixty years. It is said that this longer cycle cannot be explained simply by the economic process per se; yet is still concerned of with the fall of the general rate of interest anditthe employment radical technological innovations. This trade cycle involved a world crisis (i.e., the Great Depression) as well as the alteration of a key commodity (the world commodity) of capitalist production—from cotton manufacturing to heavy industry to durable consumer goods to the information industry. It inexorably led to a reorganization of the whole society. As a result, it has been stressed that be theexplained longer trade because oflevel its ‘structural causality’, cannot on cycle, the economic alone. But it is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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essentially the same as the shorter cycle. It, too, should be seen as a part of the process to drastically improve the organic composition of capital. Certainly, the advent of the longer cycle might be said to indicate that the capitalist economy had begun a new stage. Nevertheless, this new stage is nothing that goes beyond the recognition of capitalism presented in Capital , namely, the limit of the capitalist economy. 6.5

The Global Nature of Capitalism

Industrial capital, as Marx says, subordinates other kinds of capital, and reorganizes them as parts of itself. “The varieties of capital which appeared previously, within past or declining conditions of social production, are not only subordinated to [industrial capital] and correspondingly altered in the mechanism of their functioning, but they now move only on its basis, thus live and die, stand and fall together with this basis. Money capital and commodity capital, in so far as they appear and function as bearers of their own peculiar branches of business alongside industrial capital, are now only modes of existence of the various functional forms that industrial capital constantly assumes and discards within the circulation sphere, forms which have been rendered independent and one-sidedly extended through social division of labor.”37 In consequence, merchant capital becomes commercial capital that takes partial charge of industrial capital’s activities. It was this phenomenon that made classical economists belittle merchant capital. Industrial capital supersedes other capitals, because “[i]ndustrial capital is the only mode of existence of capital in which not only the appropriation of surplus-value or surplus-product, but also its cre38 ation, is acharacter function. of It thus requires production to bedrives capitalist in . .”capital. The movement of industrial capital capitalist society to incessant technological innovation. Yet this does not prevent industrial capital from striving for earning surplus value from spatial difference as well. In fact industrial capital has always been doing this; and without it, cannot survive. Industrial capital is a variant of merchant capital that earns surplus value from the differ-

ence the spatial systems it creates. For instance, capitals today travel of around the world looking for cheaper labor power. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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I insist on seeing industrial capital as a variant of merchant capital, rather than elaborating its distinction from merchant capital. Capital—no matter what kind—gains surplus value from the difference of value systems, yet this essential nature is theoretically repressed. Industrial capital as well as the theorists who support it repressed their essential sameness by marginalizing merchant capital and mercantilism.39 Industrial capital or the capitalist mode of production was begun by those merchant capitalists who were competing in the mercantilist international trade; by that time, commercial credit, bank credit, and stock companies had already been established. Industrial capital’s reformation of the world notwithstanding, however, the capitalist mode of commodity production—in distinction from commodity production in general—was and is only partial, and its percentage within the whole of production is small. The majority of production, be it commodity production or noncommodity production, is still noncapitalist. In the future, too, it is impossible that all production becomes capitalist through and through. Why then could this partial capitalist mode of production overpower the globe? Only thanks to the global nature of the commodity economy that interconnects the whole of products and production, namely, the global nature of money. Marx saw the ‘historical premise’ for modern capitalism in the ad vent of the world market. “The circulation of commodities is the starting point of capital. The production of commodities and their circulation in its developed form, namely trade, form the historic presuppositions under which capital arises. World trade and the world market date from the sixteenth century, and from then on the mod40

ern history ofmeans capitalthat starts unfold.” The formationeconomy of the world market really thetospheres of the commodity that had existed as fragments in different parts of the world came to be connected. In the concrete, this means that the world currency system was established by gold and silver; thereupon grounded was the mercantilism that accumulated gold and silver as the means of international liquidation. World money [Weltgelt ] encompassed communities, which been isolated in autarky. Since then, noother matter what even people of had communities the world over wanted, or, in words, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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though their lives were not always carried on within the commodity economy, their products came to be virtually and forcibly posited in the chain of the global commodity economy. For world money, there was no longer any exteriority that went beyond it. It is at this moment that capitalism was established as ‘world capitalism’.41 What Immanuel Wallerstein calls the “modern world system” began, in reality, within the international credit system of merchant capital. Even absolutist monarchical states had no choice but to operate in and with it; it was rather engendered by its compelling presence. So-called ‘primitive accumulation’—which separated labor power from means of production and commodified land—was rendered by the absolutist monarchical state; but this whole thing occurred within and was provoked by the competition for international trade. The capitalist mode of commodity production in England was commenced by merchant capital fighting the international trade war in order to compete with foreign noncapitalist commodity productions. But this particular mode of production has not decomposed all conventional forms of production and will not. It simply provides a fictitious institution to noncapitalist modes of production— as if they were fully capitalist enterprises—and marginalizes them. In consequence, capitalist modes of production, though partial, seem to be omnipotent. Seeing capitalism from the specificity of industrial capitalism alone often results in repressing the premises of capital’s historicity, and equally crucially, the total picture of how the capitalist mode of production coexists with the noncapitalist mode of production in mutual reciprocity. As I said in chapter 5, Marx reflected upon the establishment of the average rate of profit from the vantage point of how total surplus value is distributed to and unequally developing industrial branches. But, to be more precise thorough, the branches of noncapitalist production must be included in this scheme. First, thinking about the situation within a nation-state, the businesses of many branches of self-employed farmers and independent small producers do not achieve an average rate of profit; they have little consciousness of the rate of profit as such. They sustain their simple introducing own and their family members’reproduction labor power. by They own their their means of production and are not http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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254 Marx

proletariat; thus they even have pride of a petit-bourgeois kind. Nevertheless they are the kind of people who are, though indirectly , exploited even more than the proletariat. Also these branches play the role of storing the relative surplus population (qua the industrial reserve army) that increases in number as the organic composition of capital rises. During times of prosperity, the necessary labor power is mobilized from them. Notwithstanding the persisting signs that the capitalist mode of production is about to decompose all other modes of production, it is not and never will be the case. Rather the capitalist mode of production seeks to conserve and make use of them, and the proletariat is no exception. Wallerstein says: “I do not tell you anything novel to say that, in historical capitalism, there has been increasing proletarianization of the workforce. The statement is not only not novel; it is in the least surprising. The advantages to producers of the process of proletarianization have been amply documented. What is surprising is not that there has been so much proletarianization, but that there has been so little. Four hundred years at least into the existence of a historical social system, the amount of fully proletarianized labor in the capitalist world-economy today cannot be said to total even fifty per cent.”42 The majority of wage workers are not those fully defined proletariats who are, as Marx claims, “[f]ree workers in the double sense,”43 (the double sense means that they do not own any means of production, and they are free from various traditional binds derived from the precapitalist means of production, as would be the case with slaves, serfs, etc.) but semi-proletariats who belong to households whose members share incomes from the various jobs they get whenever possible. In the households of the semiproletariat, everyone shares everybody This kind of mutual aid is not exchange, but based else’s uponincome. the same compelled reciprocity of gift and return that I observed before. Which also means that they are bound by the traditions and orders of community (more than an urban population). And if I think about it, an element of noncapitalist reciprocity remains even in the most ad vanced sectors of capitalist development. Even after the traditional communities have relationships. for the most part decomposed, remnants of them still exist in family http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Why on earth are premodern production and relations of production preserved in advanced capitalist countries? This is an intractable problem the world over (outside the most advanced sectors of England and North America). In prewar Japan, there was a famous uproar called the “Japan Capitalism Debate” or the “Feudal System Debate,” which involved quite a few scholars of the time. The title specifying Japan notwithstanding, this problem is not peculiar to Japan, it is universal. (The same type of problematic—as to whether or not the societies in Latin America are feudal—reappeared in the argument between Ernst Laclau and Immanuel Wallerstein in the 1970s.) In the Japan Capitalism Debate, one school Koza-ha maintained that in Japanese society, where (extraeconomic) feudal domination presided over by the emperor [Tenno ] system remained deeply embedded, the primary task was a bourgeois revolution against feudalism. The opposition school Rono- ha insisted that Japanese society was already amidst a fully developed capitalist economy; what appeared to be feudal dominion in agricultural districts was in fact already a form of modern landholding wherein the farm rent overheated because of competition between the overpopulation of tenant farmers coming from cities as relative surplus population. In such a situation, the hierarchy in rural areas appeared to be even more feudal, which however was really a product of the capitalist economy; and even that phenomenon would eventually disappear.44 At a glance, the latter position seems to be more realistic. This, however, contained the problematic determinism that all underde veloped capitalist nation-states would repeat the same developmental pattern as Britain, the model of Capital —and overlooked the crucial fact both developed andofunderdeveloped coexisted inthat the synchronic relation world capitalism.nation-states Meanwhile, stressing the feudal remnants, the former school at least conceived of a theoretical stance that could question the simplistic economic determinism and objectify the formation of political and mythological power—the so-called superstructure. The problematic of analyzing the Japanese specificity was then succeeded in the postwar climate by some critics (such as the Masao Maruyama and Takaaki moto) leftist as, most eminently, enigma of Emperor fascism:YoshiWhy http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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primeval, mythological elements function in highly advanced industrial capitalist societies. For this endeavor, they introduced methods of political science and anthropology, and so forth, domains outside conventional Marxist doctrines. This somewhat corresponded to the agendas of the Western Marxists who struggled under Fascism during the 1930s; Gramsci, for instance, who came to pay utmost attention to cultural hegemony, and the Frankfurt School, which introduced psychoanalysis into its analysis of power. As a general tendency, Marxists paid attention to the relative autonomy of superstructure because of their belief that this intervention would finally compensate Marx’s theoretical shortcomings. As I mentioned earlier, however, Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte had already revealed the mechanism of Bonapartism (qua the prototype of fascism)—how it came into existence out of the complex of coexisting advanced industrial capitalism and conventional relations of production and class structure—by way of analyzing the every mechanism of the representation [ Darstellung ] and representative system [Vertretung ]. Thus the idea that the advent of Fascism in the 1930s brought something novel—against which Marx’s analysis was obsolete—was finally wrong. The idea only proved that Marx had not been read closely enough. It is now necessary to shift our problematic: the issue of why primeval, mythological elements function in highly advanced industrial capitalist societies should be grasped—not as the relative autonomy of superstructure—but in the framework of why high industrial capitalization does not entirely decompose the conventional relations of production, and rather conserves them for its own use; namely, it should be grasped as an immanent problem of capitalism. For instance, in both 1935 sides KozoofUno importantDebate.” observation when criticizing the made “JapananCapitalism The following is a rough summary of his point. The process of capitalist development in underdeveloped countries that had begun capitalization in the stage of imperialism was inexorably different from the process of British development. Forced to undertake a quick capitalist development by the pressure of advanced strong states, they had to proceed with the of capital by adopting state tectionist policies andconcentration the stock system. They sought to shape upprothe http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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institutions of financial capitalism while importing the form of large mechanical industry. Since the new state-supported heavy industries did not absorb much labor population, however, a large amount of relative surplus population went back to or remained in agricultural districts. This invited an overheating of farm rent, and resulted in preserving various institutions that kept feudal features. So it was that this was the result of a development of industrial capitalism rather than backwardness. Thus, it was possible that, while heavy industrialization was going on, feudal remnants were reinforced and premodern representations were created. In short, countries did not follow the course that Great Britain had gone through. Therefore, both developed and underdeveloped countries have to be seen in the “synchronic structure of world capitalism.”45 Also, as we shall see later, here one must recognize the autonomous being of the state, independent from capital. The Marx of Capital did not tackle this problem head-on, but his account of the price of production implied the answer. He began this account from the fact that industrial branches with different productivities coexist. Concerning the average rate of profit and the price of production, Marx stressed that, when these industrial branches with difference coexist in equilibrium, the more productive branches are depriving others of surplus value. Herein exists the reason why the capitalist mode of production, albeit partial, becomes dominant. And this is the crux of what is called exploitation. The surplus value in the capitalist mode of production is attained by technological innovation (or improvement of the productivity of labor); but this is via the difference that is made not only from the extra profit within the same branches, but also from the gap with other branches of production. These considerations have been made exclusively within the model of a nation-state, yet the whole scheme can and should be applied to the world market. So now I will take up the case of world trading, which has so far been bracketed, for “[c]apitalist production never exists without foreign trade.”46 The industrial revolution centered on cotton manufacturing in England occurred not because of an impetus the domestic market, but the mercantilist struggle over of international hegemony. In due thistoclimate, Ricardo http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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objected to mercantilist profit making from foreign trade and the protective tariff constituted for it, with the conviction that free trade would result in mutual profit. This was based upon his theory of “comparative costs”: In the total production cost in each country, the production branches of which productivity is comparatively high, namely, of which commodities are produced with less labor input, are naturally specialized into exportation branches; and the international relation of specialization is formed between these branches. This was, however, little more than an ideology of Great Britain-asfactory-of-the-world, that made all other countries suppliers of raw material. Ricardo explained the mutual benefit of world specialization citing examples of England (cotton fabric) and Portugal (wine). But he was wrong. It is a historical fact that, thanks to this very structure, Portugal turned into an agricultural country subordinated to English industrial capitalism. What is more, consider the England/India relation. Up until the end of the eighteenth century, Indian cotton products had been overpowering English textile industries. As a countermeasure, Great Britain began to raise tariffs against Indian products to protect national manufacturers. Then, after the success of the industrial revolution, at the point when the price of English products got cheaper, she began to advocate free trade.47 The result was the destruction of traditional Indian manual labor industries. This was far from the result of free trade; it was a direct result of the politico-military colonial domination that forbade India from claiming her own tariff rights. The lesson from this history is that liberalism was, despite its appearance to the contrary, a variant of mercantilism. The liberalism of classical economics took for granted Great Britain as the factory of the world, while forcing all countries suppliers of raw It was a matter other of course that to thebeother regions of material. the world had only to reform themselves as modern nation-states—with the claim that sovereignty is equal to the right to impose tariffs—and promoted state-owned industrial production. And those nation-states that succeeded with heavy industrialization managed to escape colonial domination. It follows that the origin of nationalism was economic, par excellence. BothofSmith and Ricardo against colonialism—but less because their opposition to were the robbing of colonies than because http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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they represented the interests of Great Britain, the factory of the world, to which the enclosure of colonies by other strong European states was the only obstacle. Still today, Ricardo’s concepts of comparative advantage and international specialization are popular among neoliberal economists. As opposed to this, Arghiri Emmanuel argued that the exchange between the core and colonies on the world market inexorably renders unequal exchange, and once this begins, the result is cumulative. Samir Amin attributed the cause of underdeveloped countries remaining underdeveloped to the unequal exchange and dependency practiced in the guise of comparative advantage and international specialization. Surprisingly, before the industrial revolution in England, there had not been so much difference in economic and technological advancement between Europe and non-Europe (especially Asia). The underdevelopment of the latter was produced, quite recently, after the advent of industrial capitalism. In the rough, their claims are right. Nonetheless, to my position, they are too much based upon the substantial labor theory of value. Their position is like insisting: “la propriété, c’est le vol,” without tackling the question of how surplus value (unequal exchange) occurs in equal exchanges. Wallerstein inherited a certain aspect of the dependency theory— that capitalism should always be analyzed as a world economy, instead of a national economy, because the national economy or nation-state itself was engendered in the world market. However, the standpoint of world capitalism was already given logically in Capital . As opposed to Ricardo’s theory of international specialization, when Marx tackled the nature of industrial capitalism with the problematic views of world market and merchant capitalism, he already had in what is referred to the today as world capitalism. That is,but in Cap- , Marx dealt with not English national economy with ital mind world capitalism. Here again Marx employed an antinomy: he once said, “Capitalist production never exists without foreign trade,” but soon after he said, “Bringing foreign trade into an analysis of the value of the product annually reproduced can therefore only confuse things, without supplying any new factor either to the problem or to 48

its solution. Wecan therefore completely abstract from it here that . . .” Marx This contradiction be solved if and only if we consider http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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conceptually and methodologically internalized the world economy within the national economy.49 Capital took England as a model— thus came the debate as to whether it could be applied to the other more underdeveloped nations. Yet what Marx saw in and through England was no less than the world economy. Marx carefully made clear the way a national economy is formed by global forces. In explaining the tendential fall in the rate of profit by the rise of capital’s organic composition, Marx pointed out that it is prevented by foreign trade: In so far as foreign trade cheapens on the one hand the elements of constant capital and on the other the necessary means of subsistence into which variable capital is converted, it acts to raise the rate of profit by raising the rate of surplus-value and reducing the value of constant capital. It has a general effect in this direction in as much as it permits the scale of production to be expanded. In this way it accelerates accumulation, while it also accelerates the fall in the variable capital as against the constant, and hence the fall in the rate of profit. And whereas the expansion of foreign trade was the basis of capitalist production in its infancy, it becomes the specific product of the capitalist mode of production as this progresses, through the inner necessity of this mode of production and its need for an ever extended market. Here again we can see the same duality of effect. (Ricardo completely overlooked this aspect of foreign trade.) There is a further question, whose specific analysis lies beyond the limits of our investigation: is the general rate of profit raised by the higher profit rate made by capital invested in foreign trade, and colonial trade in particular? Capital invested in foreign trade can yield a higher rate of profit, firstly, because it competes with commodities produced by other countries with less developed production facilities, so that the more advanced country sells its goods above their value, even though still more cheaply than its competitors. In so far as the labor of the more advanced country is valorized here as labor of qualitatively a higher specific weight, the profit rate sinceThe labor that is not paid as higher is nevertheless soldrises, as such. relationship may hold towards the country to which goods are exported and from which goods are imported: i.e. such a country gives more objectified labor in kind than it receives, even though it still receives the goods in question more cheaply than it could produce them itself. In the same way, a manufacturer who makes use of a new discovery before this has become general sells more cheaply than his competitors and yet still sells above the individual value commodity, valorizing the thus specifically productivity labor of hehis employs as surplus labor. He realizeshigher a surplus profit. Asof farthe as http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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capital invested in colonies, etc. is concerned, however, the reason why this can yield higher rates of profit is that the profit rate is generally higher there on account of the lower degree of development, and so too is the exploitation of labor, through the use of slaves and coolies, etc. . . . But this same foreign trade develops the capitalist mode of production at home, and hence promotes a decline in variable capital as against constant, though it also produces overproduction in relation to the foreign country, so that it again has the opposite effect in the further course of development. We have shown in general, therefore, how the same causes that bring about a fall in general rate of profit provoke counter-effects that inhibit this fall, delay it and in part even paralyze it. These do not annul the law, but they weaken its effect. If this were not the case, it would not be the fall in the general rate of profit that was incomprehensible, but rather the relative slowness of this fall.50

Here Marx shows us that the tendential fall in the rate of profit is inevitable within a system (a nation-state). The tendential fall in the rate of profit is not a problem that arose anew in the stage of imperialism that developed heavy industry. From the beginning, “[c]apitalist production never exists without foreign trade.” Marx thought, from early on, that industrial capitalism did not exist without the world market. Why then did he take the trouble of such a detour— enfolding the world economy into the English economy—instead of directly tackling the world economy? To this day this remains one of the most troubling enigmas of Capital . I believe it was because he had to negate the stereotypical view that grasps world capitalism just as an aggregate of individual national economies. The point is that no single national economy could be autonomous; no matter how hard it resists, it is inexorably combined into the system of world specialization. Now seen from the paradoxical view of nation-world , wherein the products of various countries are internalized, the issue of unequal exchange by foreign trade can be transposed back to the branches within a national economy that have different organic compositions. As I have already mentioned, total surplus value is distributed to the capitals with the higher organic composition—as the average rate of profit or the price of production. Only in this manner is it possible to see that under the free trade that Ricardo advocated— namely, specialization by comparative advantage and international http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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specialization—surplus value is transferred (exploited) from the margin to the center via the ‘fair trade’ at the price of production. Facing the problem as to why and how the general rate of profit can be established among different branches of production, it must be said, Marx was already dealing with it on the level of world capitalism. With respect to the uneven development, Wallerstein says: Core and periphery, then, are simply phrased to locate one crucial part of the systemisofa system surplusinappropriation by the bourgeoisie. To oversimplify, capitalism which the surplus-value of the proletarian is appropriated by the bourgeois. When this proletarian is located in a different country from this bourgeois, one of the mechanisms that has affected the process of appropriation is the manipulation of controlling flows over state boundaries. This results in patterns of ‘uneven development’ which are summarized in the concepts of core, semiperiphery and periphery. This is an intellectual tool to help analyze the multiple forms of class conflict in the capitalist world-economy.51

However, in this unequal exchange, is there any one particularly ‘insidious operation’? There is no conundrum here. It appears enigmatic only because one considers industrial capital to be different from merchant capital. As I mentioned, merchant capital practices equal exchange in individual systems, yet the difference between systems itself earns the surplus value; and industrial capital, too, earns surplus value from the difference between systems—by temporally differentiating systems. In the stage of merchant capital, the uneven development between regions was conditioned sheerly by the natural environment. But the intervention of industrial capital changed the condition: With the exchange of industrial products, the products of nonindustrial nations were forced to specialize—namely, in raw materials—which brought about unevenness. Ever since, this unevenness has been reproduced every day. Since as early as the late nineteenth century, Marx’s prospects— the tendential fall in the rate of profit, the impoverishment of the proletariat, and the polarization of classes—have been questioned and criticized as unrealistic. It was true that British workers achieved a certain leeway counter to Marx’s law of impoverishment. But this does not disprove his analysis, because British capital gained surplus value from foreign trade, which was redistributed to the compatriot http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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workers to a certain extent. That is to say that the impoverishment occurred less within one nation-state, namely, Great Britain, than to people abroad. And, of course, this is still going on: More than half the population of earth is experiencing famine. Previously, I said that surplus value can be detected on the level of total social capital rather than on the level of individual capitals; and in this context, the level should be further upgraded from that of a nation-state to total world capital. Capital is truly “A Critique of Political Economy” because it sought to grasp capitalism from the stance of world capitalism beyond a polis (nation-state).


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7 Toward Transcritical Counteractions

7.1

The State, Capital, and Nation

My emphasis on Marx’s retrospective query into merchant capital (M-C-M ) does not suggest that the development of capitalism since the nineteenth century can be ignored. It is totally the opposite. In order to see the development clearly, the retrospective query was imperative. Rather it was the ideology of industrial capitalism—upon which classical Marxism was based—that was the very obstacle to our seeing the peculiarity of the development of contemporary capitalism. And the retrospective or belated query was the method of undoing this bind. Capital has been rebuked as having become obsolete in the epoch since it was written, while efforts to ‘renovate it creatively’ have been ongoing among Marxists. My attempt in writing this book is unrelated to those efforts: It is a return to Capital once more to read in it the potential that has been overlooked. By no means could 

Marx havestock taken into consideration recentbetween events as imperialism, joint companies (apropos such separation capital and management), financial capital, and Keynesianism. But, was their novelty so fundamental that Marx could not even have imagined them? I would say no—as precisely presented in Capital , they had already existed as form , if not substance, even before the advent of industrial capitalism. Lenin maintained that imperialism had begun in the late nineteenth century,of the age of But financial capital that was omized by the exportation capital. financial capital, the epittype http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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that assumes adhesion between usurers’ capital or loan capital (i.e., a bank) and monopolistic industrial capital, had already existed as form at the stage of mercantilism. And imperialism sensu strictu had existed since the age of mercantilism = absolute monarchy. In contrast to the imperialism of ancient and medieval empires, it was already based upon the principles of the commodity economy. All in all, British liberalism was established upon the spoils of imperialism of the age of mercantilism. If so, the stage of imperialism should be seen not as a development of the stage of liberalism, but as a return of the repressed (by the atmosphere of liberalism) of mercantilism. To nineteenth-century Marxists, such phenomena as the domination of financial capital and imperialism appeared as drastically novel, because they were deeply affected by classical economics qua an ideology of industrial capitalism (despite their stress on Marx as a critic of classical economics). Along with the establishment of industrial capitalism and with the thoughts of classical economics, the preceding forms were deeply buried. The ideology of industrial capitalism— namely, that which Max Weber highly appreciated as The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism —is still living today. When something occurs to counter them, it is represented as a drastic shift. For instance, situations such as the recent casino capitalism or the e-trade phenomenon seem to indicate that people no longer believe in the rewards of diligent production and fair exchange, but rush toward difference by way of merchant capitalist investment. As is evident, this is not a major change in capitalism. Marx had already observed it in his lifetime: “All nations characterized by the capitalist mode of production are periodically seized by fits of giddiness in which they try to accomplish the 1

money-making without the more mediation of thetoproduction process.”often Marx’s Capital is much adequate today’s situation, called neoliberalist, than the innumerable theories developed in tandem with the ‘new’ situations that have arisen since it was written. But this ‘foresight’ is owed less to Marx’s intention to see the future than to his return to the archi-form of capitalism that had already existed before the establishment of industrial capitalism. The capitalist economy is customarily subdivided historical stages: mercantilism, liberalism, imperialism, and along late capitalism. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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This view appears to be correct in terms of articulating the dominant tendencies, nevertheless it is wrong to think that some fundamental shift occurred between the stages. For instance, the fact that the bulk of the labor market has moved from hard to soft labor— from physical to service and sales departments—or that intellectual labor such as information administration has become more crucial to the whole operation is considered a marker of “late capitalism.” Meanwhile, returning to Marx’s rhetoric, one immediately discovers that he employed the term industrial in a much broader manner. [I]ndustrial [is used] here in the sense that it encompasses every branch of production that is pursued on a capitalist basis. . . . There are however particular branches of industry in which the product of the production process is not a new objective product, a commodity. The only one of these that is economically important is the communication industry, both the transport industry proper, for moving commodities and people, and the transmission of mere information—letters, telegrams, etc. . . . The useful effect produced is inseparably connected with the transport process, i.e., the production process specific to the transport industry.2

In this sense, capital does not care whether it gets surplus value from solid object or fluid information. So it is that the nature of capital is consistent even before and after its dominant production branch shifted from heavy industry to the information industry. It lives on by the difference. And as the father of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, suggested, information is originally nothing but difference .3 The most crucial point of distinction for Marx is the one between production in general and value production; value productivity is not determined by what it produces, but by whether or not it produces difference . Accordingly, it is incorrect to say that the shift of the main labor types is parallel to the shift of the forms of capitalist production. Mark Poster posed the concept of “the mode of information” as opposed to Marx’s “mode of production” in his Foucault, Marxism, and History .4 This is another attempt to revise historical materialism that persistently sees history from the vantage point of production; it cannot be a critical comment on Capital , which is originally an inquiry into the forces with which capitalist production qua the production of information (difference) organizes society. Another group of Marxists has paid utmost attention to the diversification of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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commodity production in consumer society and especially its ‘fascinating’ effects, as if they were the cornerstones to revising the world view of Capital . In reference to Walter Benjamin’s phrase “[n]ovelty is a quality independent of the intrinsic value of the commodity,”5 for instance, they seek to discover an autonomous domain in cultural production. From my stance, however, novelty is little more than a synonym for information qua difference. What capital has to produce from the beginning are not products in and of themselves, but, more crucially, value (and surplus value). From the vantage point that surplus value is attained by the production of difference, the drive for novelty does not offer any ‘new’ recognition. To tackle capital, hence, one always has to think from the formula of merchant capital: M-C-M . This approach would reveal that the so-called development of industrial capitalism in stages is nothing but the “return of the repressed” of the archi-form of capitalism. Wallerstein’s theory of the modern world system is important insofar as it posed an alternative to the view that sees the world economy simply as the relationality and aggregate of national economies. Yet at the same time, it appears epoch-making only because mainstream Marxism has interpreted Marx’s thought as if it were an extension of national economics (the economics of polis) and not as its critic that he was. Classical economists (liberalists) have been disavowing their own origin—the amalgamation of mercantilists and absolutist monarchy—and insisting on the separation of economy from state power. This is a repression of the historical origin in a double sense. As I have already mentioned, the capitalist mode of production commenced within the mercantilist state thanks to its in vestment and protection. In the latecomer capitalist states (such as 

Germany, France,in and in the nineteenth century, there state intervention theJapan) economy; however, even in England, thewas industrial revolution took place thanks to the backup of the state as it sought to grasp world hegemony. The liberalists forgot this fact and described the world as if the capitalist economy had come into existence sui generis, independent from the state, and continued to exist as such. Wallerstein’s concept of the modern world system thus indicates, in our context, that at the fountainhead of modernity there existed the absolutist-mercantilist state qua economic system, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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and this has not changed since. Nation-states, no matter how democratic and industrial-capitalist-like to insiders, are absolutist-mercantilist par excellence to outsiders. What is called liberalism is also a form of the absolutist-mercantilist agenda, an economic policy that hegemonic states always adopt. In Capital , Marx bracketed the matter of state, which however does not mean that he overlooked the existence of the state. The primary task of Capital was to grasp the principles of capital’s movement, counter to and as a critique of German mercantilist state economists (those whom Marx called the vulgar economists). Thereby Marx bracketed the existence of the state methodologically, because state intervention—especially since the absolutist state—is bound by the principles of the capitalist economy; because extra-economic compulsion does not work in this context. In this respect, the absolutist state diverged from the feudal state, where the economic and the political had not been separated. Nonetheless, saying this does not deny the fact that the state is based on a different principle of exchange (plunder/redistribution) from that of the capitalist market economy; therefore, one has to acknowledge its autonomy to a large extent—and this in a different sense from the relative autonomy of superstructure that derived from historical materialism. The fact that Capital lacks a theory of state has made Marxists either gloss over it or return to pre-Capital accounts of it. It is generally understood that early Marx grasped the state as an ‘imagined community’, while middle Marx considered it as a device for class domination. But in his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , there is a deeper understanding vis-à-vis the state than in either of these examples. Then, how did the Marx of Capital think of the state? The answer to this question is not, found bitsstate and in pieces of his account of state in Capital nor inby hiscollecting theories of his earlier work. That is, we have to construct a new theory of state by applying Marx’s method in Capital . In order to tackle the capitalist economy, Marx returned from liberalism to mercantilism, from industrial capital to merchant capital. In order for us to tackle the state, we have to return to the previous stage of the bourgeois constitution. In this retrospective however,feudal we must be wary of not returning to a past tooapproach, distant, namely, states and Asiatic http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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270 Marx

despotic states.6 We should return as far as the modern absolutist monarchical states. It is said that in absolutist monarchies, the economic and the political merged. But, to be more precise, in this stage, they were first split and then recombined, whereas in the feudal state, they had been one and the same. This separation/ combination signifies in the concrete that the absolutist monarchy supported the activities of merchant bourgeoisie, and at the same time was ensured a source of tax from them. This is ‘mercantilism’ as economic policy, and ‘bullionism’—inasmuch as the policy relied on gold qua ‘world money [Weltgeld ]’—as the means of international settlement. The absolutist monarchy lifted the feudal ‘extraeconomic compulsion’, and transformed feudal dominion into private property, by suppressing the innumerable feudal lords standing in a row waiting their turns. Furthermore, it imposed the commodity economy onto the agrarian community by way of monetary taxing. By these measures, the absolutist monarchy accelerated the bourgeois reform of the feudal economy. It is this process, called ‘primitive accumulation’, that was nurtured amid the competition among states within world capitalism. Thus the amalgamation of absolutist state and mercantilism. In England, at the point in time when the absolutist monarchy was overthrown and industrial capitalism/liberalism was established, economy and state were represented as two separate things. But in fact, their deep bondage did not disappear. Liberalists insisted that state and government should be smaller; but, as I have said, this was a pretext to promote the temporary economic policy of the British Empire, which was, from the beginning, an unrealistic, ostentatious propaganda of an empire with immense foreign colonies. At the same time, outside England, to thebe) tight bondage between state and economy was (and continues omnipresently observed among latecomers to capitalism. The state is essentially mercantilist; Marx’s reflections on mercantilism conversely shed light on what the state is. Marx pointed to the fact that in bullionism the ‘fetishism of money’ appeared symptomatically , while, elsewhere, he commented that classical economists suddenly went back to bullionism in times of crisis. This account can transcritically be applied to the theory of state. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In the bourgeois democratic state, it is so defined that sovereignty is in the people, and the government is their representative; here the idea that an absolutist monarch equals sovereignty is already obsolete. But finally this may not be the case. For instance, Carl Schmitt, the thinker of the Weimar Republic, questioned this, claiming that while it seems that there is no sovereign ruler when we think within the state , the sovereignty as the ultimate decision maker is revealed in extreme cases: that is, during wars. 7 This same theory later made Schmitt a supporter of Hitler, a sovereign ruler who made ‘extreme’ decisions. But Schmitt’s account contains an undeniably important issue. In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , what Marx tackled was the same problem; he analyzed the process by which Bonaparte could appear as a sovereign who made decisions. What he elucidated here is the conjuncture where the ‘state itself’ appears in the crises of representative parliament and capitalist economy. The monarch/king as sovereign in the absolutist monarchy was already different in nature from the feudal king. In this system, the monarch/king could technically be anyone who sat in the place. What Marx called fetishism was the obsessive idea that confuses gold itself with currency, even though gold becomes money only inasmuch as it is posited in general equivalent form. He spoke of it in a striking manner, using metaphors of king and subjects. “Determinations of reflection [Reflexionsbestimmungen ] of this kind are altogether very curious. For instance, one man is king only because other men stand in relation of subjects to him. They, on the other hand, imagine that they are subjects because he is king.”8 These metaphors are in a strange way more than metaphors, and perfectly appropriate to absolutist monarchy. In theeconomists, same way that was denounced as illusion by classical thebullionism absolutist monarchy was denounced by democratic ideologues. After absolutist monarchy as a system disappeared, however, the place remained as an empty lot. The bourgeois revolution guillotined the king, but the place of the king itself could not be erased. In the normal situation and/or within the nation-state, this is invisible. But in extreme cases, that is, military crises ordictators, wars, theliberalists, topos itself is manifest, various agents: socialists, and sogulping on. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Enter Thomas Hobbes (whom Schmitt reveres). In order to define sovereign, Hobbes conceptualized a process by which everyman transfers his Right of Nature to a single man (Leviathan). This is isomorphic to the process by which every commodity establishes a mutual relationship via money qua a commodity placed in the position of equivalent form. Hobbes in a sense took in advance Marx’s description: “Finally, the last form, C, gives to the world of commodities a general social relative form of value, because, and in so far as, all commodities except one are thereby excluded from the equivalent form.”9 So it might be said that Hobbes thought of the principle of state from the vantage point of the commodity economy. He was the first person who discovered the fact that the sovereign—like money— exists in its form (position) rather than in its person/substance. Hobbes wrote Leviathan in the midst of the Puritan Revolution. So it was not in the least that he sought to ground the absolutist monarchy of the previous age. The absolutist monarch was ideally based upon the divine rights of kings; this is equal to the idea that a king rules his subjects because he is a king. On the other hand, Hobbes’s position of social contract was not proper for the absolutist monarchy; his theory in fact worked well with the assembly of constitutional monarchy after the Glorious Revolution. Why then does he seem like a theorist of the absolutist state? Because he stressed the concept of ‘sovereign’. Yet, as a point of fact, I should acknowledge that he stressed not the existence of the person of the sovereign but the fact that the place of the sovereign (qua state) remains insofar as there can be no social contract among states that transcends it. Even though absolutist monarchical kings disappeared thanks to the Puritan Revolution, the position of sovereign remained. That was the corresponding fact. After all, theinsovereignty of state isAfter a sheer position, and the one who is placed it is the sovereign. the Glorious Revolution, the constitutional monarchy came into existence. Nevertheless, the position of the sovereign has remained, even under the republican system. The position of the sovereign, or the state itself, should be distinguished from the particular king or president who occupies it. Those John thinkers thetended constitutional monarchy, namely, Lockewho andcame Davidafter Hume, to identify the state http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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with the government—that which consists of members of parliament who are elected by the people. This collapse is similar to that made by classical economists, who reduced ‘money’ to the labor-value internalized in commodities. Notwithstanding these respective identifications— sovereignty with nation’s representatives and money with an index of value—in exceptionally critical situations such as economic crises and wars, the bare features of money and sovereignty are exposed. Hegel spoke of Stände —Estates (as parliamentary institutions)—in the constitutional monarchy system as follows: . . . For the highest officials with the state necessarily have a more profound and comprehensive insight into the nature of the state’s institutions and needs, and are more familiar with its functions and more skilled in dealing with them, so that they are able to do what is best even without the Estates, just as they must continue to do what is best when the Estates are in session. . . .10 . . . At the same time, this position means that they share the mediating function of the organized power of the executive, ensuring on the one hand that the power of the sovereign does not appear as an isolated extreme —and hence simply as an arbitrary power of domination—and on the other, that the particular interests of communities, corporations, and individuals [Individuen ] do not become isolated either. Or more important still, they ensure that individuals do not present themselves as a crowd or aggregate , unorganized in their opinions and volition, and do not become a massive power in opposition to the organic state. 11 The determination of the Estates as an institution does not require them to achieve optimum results in their deliberations and decisions on the business of the state in itself , for their role in this respect is purely accessory. . . . On the contrary, they have the distinctive function [Bestimmung ] of ensuring that, through their participation in [the government’s] knowledge, deliberations, and decisions on matters of universal concern, the moment of formal freedom attains its right in relation to those members of civil society who have no share in the government. In this way, it is first and foremost the moment of universal knowledge [Kenntnis ] which is extended by the publicity with which the precedings of the Estates are conducted.12 The provision of this opportunity of [acquiring] knowledge [ Kenntnissen ] has the more universal aspect of permitting public opinion to arrive for the first time at true thoughts and insight with regard to the condition and concept of the state and its affairs, thereby enabling it to form more rational judgements on the latter . In this way, the public also becomes familiar with, and learns to respect, the functions, abilities, virtues, and skills of the official bodies and civil servants. And just as such publicity provides a signal opportunity http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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for these abilities to develop, and offers them a platform on which they may attain high honours, so also does it constitute a remedy for the self-conceit of individuals and of the mass, and a means—indeed one of the most important means—of educating them.13

To Hegel, the task of Estates is to rule civil society politically and reinforce people’s knowledge of and respect for the government, at the same time as achieving a consensus of civil society. But this position cannot be attributed to Hegel’s negligence of parliamentary democracy and the expression of the underdevelopment of Prussian democracy. For the development of democracy is nothing but the development of “educating [/ruling] them.” The idea of people’s sovereignty was established along with the advent of universal suffrage, though the “people” were no other than those who had been educated/ruled by the state. As Stirner said, under these conditions, individuals are not egoists (read sovereign). To see the parliamentary democracy—be it the constitutional monarchy or republican system—as a process through which people’s opinions are more fully represented is misleading. It is de facto little more than the procedure by which to make what the bureaucrats determined appear to be the nation’s own decision. This is consistent or even more persistent in the government of social democracy. Young Marx criticized Hegel’s position. It was his belief that the base was civil society (social state) and the political state was just a self-alienated form of it. Nonetheless, what Marx called civil society here was already that which had been articulated and reorganized by the warring states. The citizens were already nations. Therefore, even if the aspect of the political state were minimized or even eliminated, the state would continue to remain within the civil society itself. Theofpoint Stirner’s critique here. In this Marx thought ‘state’ofwithout taking into lay consideration theperiod, existence of other states. For this reason, he could not see the autonomy of the state that could not be reduced to civil society. In fact, when he criticized Hegel’s Philosophy of Right , he overlooked a crucial point that Hegel raised: that the state (sovereignty) exists toward other states. Hegel said: This is internal sovereignty. The second aspect is external sovereignty (see below)—In the feudal monarchy of earlier times, the state certainly had


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external sovereignty, but internally, neither the monarch himself nor the state was sovereign. On the one hand . . . the particular functions and powers of the state and civil society were vested in independent corporations and communities, so that the whole was more of an aggregate than an organism; and on the other hand, they [i.e. these functions and powers] were the private property of individuals, so that what the latter had to do in relation to the whole was left to their own opinion and discretion. . . .14

Swerving away from the Feuerbachian paradigm, Marx also swerved away from his own earlier account of the state. This is evident in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , where he reconsidered the matter of the state from the aspects of monarchy, representative system, bureaucratic system, and so forth. But in the end this book was not written to address the theory of state, nor did Marx, even thereafter, ever tackle the issue of the state in its own right. Because of this missing element, later Marxists had to resort to early Marx and/or Engels, to reference the state issue. Among them, and counter to Engels’s idea that a state is a violent device for class domination, Antonio Gramsci emphasized the aspect that it is also an ideological apparatus. This is trying to say that civil society itself is equal to a state (qua power apparatus) and at the same time an apparatus of cultural hegemony. This was really a critique of the position that divides the state and civil society. I have to claim, however, that his stance saw the state only from within, thereby reducing it to civil society. In order to grasp the state as an autonomous entity, we have to see it as existing in relationship with other states. After Gramsci, the stance that sees the state in terms of cultural hegemony was widespread; then, after Foucault the perspective that locates power omnipresently rather than in the center was widespread. If we think of the state only within the state, there is no visible center for power; and we can easily reduce state power to the network of powers in ‘the state qua civil society’. But the truth is that absolutist states appeared amid the competition with each other in world capitalism, and are still amid the same competition. No matter how social democratic the state appears within itself, it is hegemonic to its exteriority—namely, even under the slogan of ‘humanitarian intervention’. I have already opposed the view that sees state and nation as superstructure (in the architectonic duality with the base-economic


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276 Marx

domain) and points out that they are two different types of exchange (see section 5.3). According to my scheme, there are in the strict sense four relations of exchange in the world. First, there is reciprocity of gift and return (within agrarian communities). Second, there are robbery and redistribution (between state and agrarian communities). Third is commodity exchange. And the fourth is association. Association is based on mutual aid like that found in traditional communities, yet it is not as closed. It is a network of voluntary exchange organized by those who have once left traditional communities via the commodity economy. The four types of exchange can be illustrated as follows:

a

plunder and redistribution

c

b d

exchange by money

association

a

feudal state

c

city

a

state

c

capital (market economy)

a

equality

c

liberty

reciprocity of gift and return

b

agrarian community

d

association

b

nation

d

association

b

fraternity

d

association

Lenin thought that nations were formed by unified markets in consequence of the development of the capitalist economy. This obser vation is as the prospect that of capitalism willconfused eventuallyasterminate nations. Yetthe this globalization confusion is not http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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due to economic reductionism; it is due to overlooking the fact that the nation is based on principles of exchange different from those of state and capital. As opposed to the common Marxist view, anthropological and psychoanalytic approaches intervened later on, cherishing as they did nation-as-superstructure. This tendency is summarized by Benedict Anderson’s famous concept of “imagined communities.” But it is impossible to posit, so simplistically, economic domain as reality and nation as the imagined. The effect of the enlightenment of such a thesis cannot go beyond the closure of academics. The nation qua representation is certainly intensified by education as well as by literature, but it cannot be annulled by the critique of representation, for it does not exist in and by representation alone. Marx famously criticized those enlightened intellectuals who disdained religion, claiming that there was a reality that required religion and that religion could not be abolished unless the reality were changed. In the same way, there are nations and the reality that requires nations. The nations would last unless those realities are solved. Benedict Anderson said that the nation-state is a marriage of nation and state that are originally different in kind.15 This was certainly an important suggestion. Yet it should not be forgotten that there was previously another marriage of two entities that were totally heterogeneous—that of state and capital. In the feudal ages, state, capital, and nation were clearly separated. They existed distinctively as feudal states (lords, kings, and emperors), cities, and agrarian communities, all based upon different principles of exchange. States were based upon the principles of plunder and redistribution. The agrarian communities that were mutually disconnected and isolated were dominated states; but, within themselves, were autonomous, based uponby the principles of mutual aid and they reciprocal exchange. Between these communities, markets or cities grew; these were based on monetary exchange relying on mutual consent. What crumbled the feudal system was the permeation of the capitalist market economy. On the one hand, this engendered absolutist monarchical states that conspired with the merchant class, monopolized means of violence toppling feudal lords (aristocracy), and the finally abolished feudalbydomination (extra-economic http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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domination) entirely. This was the story of the wedding of state and capital. Feudal ground rent became national tax, while bureaucracy and standing army became state apparatuses. Those who had belonged to certain tribes, in certain clans, now became subjects under the absolutist monarchy, grounding what would later be national identity. Protected by the absolutist state, merchant capital (bourgeoisie) grew up and nurtured the identity of the nation for the sake of creating a unified market. Yet this was not all in terms of the formation of the nation. Agrarian communities that were decomposed along with the permeation of market economy and by the urbanized culture of enlightenment always existed on the foundation of the nation. While individual agrarian communities that had been autarkic and autonomous were decomposed by the osmosis of money, their communalities—mutual aid and reciprocity—themselves were recovered imaginarily within the nation. Anderson points out that, after the decline of religion that used to make sense of individuals’ death, the nation plays the proxy for it. In this situation, what is important is the fact that religion had existed as and in the agrarian community. The decline of religion is equal to the decline of community. In contrast to what Hegel called the state of understanding (lacking spirit), or the Hobbesian state, the nation is grounded upon the empathy of mutual aid descending from agrarian communities. And this emotion is awakened by nationalism: belonging to the same nation and helping each other—the emotion of mutual aid. And this nation is exclusive to other nations. (My intention is not to understand nationalism from an emotional viewpoint, though. For emotion is finally produced by the relation Schuld of exchange. to Nietzsche, the consciousness of The [guilt] derivedAccording from an economic principal— Schuld [debt]. indebtedness is the kind that one feels toward gifts. Beneath emotion lies the relation of exchange.) This is the so-called marriage of state and nation. It was amid the bourgeois revolution that these three were officially married. As in the trinity intoned in the French Revolution—

liberty, equality, and fraternity—capital, state, copulated and amalgamated themselves into a force thatand was nation inseparable ever http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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after. Hence the modern state must be called, sensu stricto, the capitalist nation-state.16 They were made to be mutually complementary, reinforcing each other. When economic liberty becomes excessive and class conflict is sharpened, the state intervenes to redistribute wealth and regulate the economy, and at the same time, the emotion of national unity (mutual aid) fills up the cracks. When facing this fearless trinity, undermining one or the other does not work. The French Revolution extolled liberty, equality, and fraternity. The “equality” here was not limited to the equal right to liberty, but practically meant the equality of wealth. In 1791, the Convention Nationale interpreted equality as ‘equality of wealth’, and sought to bring it about. This policy was terminated by Thermidor in 1793. But the idea of the redistribution of wealth by the state remained. This took hold as Saint-Simonism. Meanwhile, the “fraternity” signified the solidarity of citizens beyond nation and language. But then, at the time of Napoleon, it came to mean the French nation. In this manner, the ideal of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” turned into the capitalist nation-state. It was Hegel who grasped this collapse theoretically as the triad system of philosophy [ Dreieinigkeit ]. On the one hand, he affirmed the liberty of civil society as the system of desire, while, on the other hand, he posited the state-bureaucratic system as reason that rectifies the inequality of the distribution of wealth. Furthermore, fraternity, to him, was equal to a nation that overcomes the contradiction between liberty and equality. Finally, the state for Hegel was the political expression of the nation. Thus Hegel’s Philosophy of Right was the most complete expression of the trinity of capitalist nation-state. From this, one can draw everything else: liberalism, nationalism, the accounts the welfare Schmitt’s theory of even criticismson against them. state, Hence it is necessary to sovereignty, retackle theand book in order to grasp the crux to supersede the capitalist nation-state.17 Marx’s critical work began with his accounts of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right . Instead of being prematurely dropped, this concern was really raised to its completion in Capital . Employing the dialectic method of description that he had once denied, Marx sought to illuminate whole of capitalist economy. in Capital one finds nothe accounts of the nation and state, there Although is a framework to grasp http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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everything (not only capital but also nation and state) as an economic structure, namely, a form of exchange. Therefore, it is imperative to reconsider Hegel’s Philosophy of Right from the vantage point of Capital . It must be there that the escape from the trinity is found. In Philosophy of Right , Hegel dialectically grasps the reciprocity of capitalist nation-state that was already in place. Though he did not describe the historical formation of the trinity, his model was evidently taken from the actually existing example: Great Britain. In this sense, the book could function as a critique of the state in Germany. That is to say, what is described in the book is a model to be realized in the future in all places other than the pioneers of the trinity: Great Britain, France, and The Netherlands. In fact, even today, the formation of the trinity is the main objective in many countries of the world. The formation of the capitalist nation-state is never an easy task. Gramsci spoke of revolutionary movements using figures of military tactics: the war of maneuver (frontal attack) and the war of position. The war of maneuver signifies a confrontational and direct fight with the state government, while the war of position indicates a struggle within and against the hegemonic apparatuses of civil society, residing behind the state governmental apparatus. In this context, he clearly stated that what had worked in the Russian Revolution would not work for Western civil societies. “In Russia, the State was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West, there was a proper relation between the State and civil society, and when the state trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks.”18 A mature civilissociety is established only where wedding ofLeninist CapitalNation-State well established. In Italy, fasciststhe smashed the struggle that was led by Gramsci and centered on the occupation of factories. Its weakness was due to its reliance on nationalism. Mean while, in Russia, where the wedding of Capital-State-Nation had not been completed, wars were fought on behalf of the tsar himself and not for the nation; therefore, the socialist revolution had been able to, or had to, borne resort to nationalism. Since then, many socialist revolutions have national independence movements; in those http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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regions where state apparatuses and capitals conspired with colonialist powers, it was the socialists who informed and realized nationalism. The success of the revolutions unfortunately does not teach us anything further concerning the struggle where the CapitalNation-State trinity is well established. One often hears the prediction that, thanks to the globalization of capital, the nation-state will disappear. It is certain that economic policies within nation-states do not work as effectively as before, because of the growing network of international economic reliance on foreign trade. But, no matter how international relations are reorganized and intensified, the state and nation won’t disappear. When individual national economies are threatened by the global market (neoliberalism), they demand the protection (redistribution) of the state and/or bloc economy, at the same time as appealing to national cultural identity. So it is that any counteraction to capital must also be one targeted against the state and nation (community). The capitalist nation-state is fearless because of its trinity. The denial of one ends up being reabsorbed in the ring of the trinity by the power of the other two. This is because each of them, though appearing to be illusory, is based upon different principles of exchange. Therefore, when we take capitalism into consideration, we always have to include nation and state. And the counteraction against capitalism also has to be against nation-state. In this light, social democracy does nothing to overcome the capitalist economy but is the last resort for the capitalist nation-state’s survival. The capitalist economy has an autonomous power. But it also has its own limits. No matter how much the capitalist commodity economy affects the whole production, it is partial and parasitic. Furthermore, it has environment an exteriorityinthat cannot treatand at its disposal—land (the natural the itbroad sense) humans as agents of labor-power commodity.19 For the capitalist market economy to reproduce humans and nature, the intervention of the nation-state is imperative. Kozo Uno saw the ultimate bounds of capitalism in the fact that capital by itself cannot produce labor-power commodity. Labor-power commodity is certainly not a simple commodity, since it cannot beexcess. reproduced because of a shortage, nor the discarded because of an A shortage of labor power lowers profit rate http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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because of the rise of wages it necessitates. Although this conjuncture makes the trade cycle inevitable, it can never deliver the fatal blow to the capitalist economy. Capital deals with the surplus and shortage of labor power by calling on its “industrial reserve army,” drawn from the agricultural heartland and small businesses as well as underdeveloped countries. The capitals of developed countries import foreign workers when internal wages rise or export production abroad. If so, this limit indicates only that the accumulation of capital can continue by way of the very crisis and the trade cycle, and this is the way capital is perpetuated. Now environmental problems—even the most severe—cannot deal capitalism the fatal blow. During the past century, capitalist production has destroyed the self-sustaining recycling system of the natural environment, with which humans had worked in harmony for a long time as agricultural producers. Thus one now sees environmental pollution on a global scale. But to see it as an evil of the recent progressivism of modern industrialization is one-dimensional. It has been observed for quite a long time. Marx, of course, had thought about it. The Marx of Capital assumed the stance that sees history from the vantage point of human/nature relations, namely, in the context of the environment in the broad sense. Capitalist production collects the population together in great centers, and causes the urban population to achieve an ever-growing preponderance. This has two results. On the one hand it concentrates the historical motive power of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth, i.e., it prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; hence it hinders the operation of the eternal natural condition for the lasting fertility of the soil. Thus it destroys at the same time the physical health of the urban worker, and the intellectual life of the rural worker.20

Notwithstanding this insight, what is crucial in Capital is less the distinction between industry and agriculture than that between the capitalist mode of production and production in general, or between the world organized by value form and not. Commodification and industrialization are related, yet different matters altogether. Vis-à-vis the environmental problem, increasing numbers of people advocate symbiosis with nature rather than dominance, after the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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model of underdeveloped societies, that is, of precapitalist modes of production or agrarian communities. This is another romantic dream of people who mainly reside in advanced industrial nations. Ironically and tragically, environmental pollution expresses itself most cruelly in those underdeveloped nations which had until very recently enjoyed symbiosis with nature. The environmental problem alone cannot be the motive to terminate industrial capitalism. In reality, the most efficient way to eliminate environmental pollution would be to include the cost of recycling waste materials into the cost of production, that is, a green tax. This requires seeing what has been deemed a free good as a commodity. The things that have, since Adam Smith, been considered to have use value but not exchange value, for example, air and water, are now becoming objects of commodity production. My point here is that the environmental problem will result in further and further commodification and privatization of the world, rather than the reverse. In consequence, environmental and food crises have the very real potential to invite new imperialist conflicts between states. Therein capitals and states will risk anything for their survival, and peoples of all nations, despite their wishes, will be engulfed in their acts. And all those acts will be executed as ‘public consensus’. Facing World War I, the social democrats who represented many nations at the Second International came to support the intervention of the war. Today’s disaster caused by environmental pollution is becoming more and more urgent to the extent of reminding people of their ‘war intervention.’ No one can deny any longer that this is due to industrial capitalism, and if it is not restrained, major catastrophes will be inevitable. However, to act against it is difficultifbecause we find are living part capitalist Therefore, we cannot a wayas out of of thethe circuit, therenation-state. is no hope for us. I believe that the way out is only through association. 7.2

A Possible Communism

Herein finally intervenes the fourth type of exchange: association. The principle of association was established anarchist Proudhon is totally different from that the other three. It isby anthe ethico-economic form http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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of exchange. And, as I said before, Marx also speculated that an “association of associations” would replace the capitalist nation-state. This prospect quickly dissipated, however, not because the Paris Commune was crushed, nor because Marx kicked Bakunin’s supporters out of the First International. It was due to the heavy industrialization that began in Germany, France, and America in the 1860s. Around the same time, Marx was writing the third volume of Capital , with the idea that the cooperative productions could compete with corporations, though in reality they never prospered. In the stage of the industrial development centered on textiles, the cooperatives could contend with corporations, but not after. (They were defeated not only by British corporations, but by a larger force: the mammoth German state capitalism. In fact, even English corporations declined during the process of heavy industrialization, defeated by the same force. It also occurred to the association of Swiss watchmakers upon which Bakunin relied; it was visited on them by the force of American and German mechanical production.) Observing this, Engels as well as the German Social Democratic Party came to appreciate mammoth corporations and conceived that socialization (state ownership) of them would necessarily lead to socialism, ignoring cooperative production. But this enlargement itself was found not to be an irreversible sort of development. Beginning in the 1990s, the general composition of world commodity has been changing from one based on durable consumer goods to one dominated by the information industry. It is accompanied by the tendency of mammoth-sized companies supported by the statist corporatism to decompose, and new types of monopolies and oligopolies by international capitals to flourish; meanwhile the outstanding growth has been in the network of smalltoismid-sized companies (i.e., venture businesses). Interestingly, there a possibility that the latter—in contrast to the mammoth corporations—could be transformed into cooperative productions. In this sense, today’s situation is becoming similar to the climate in the age when Marx was thinking of associations of cooperatives. So it is that we should read Capital not as a classic written before the time of heavy industry and state capital, butcapitalism. as a text that can be revived in our age of neoliberalism and global http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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After 1848, revolutionary movements based upon street uprisings became obsolete on the European continent—especially in Great Britain, where the Chartist movement peaked and then declined.21 Then, in the 1850s, universal suffrage was realized, and the so-called labor aristocrats appeared. Therefore, when we read Capital now, we should no longer look for the glorious prospect of revolution, but pay attention to Marx’s search for a counteraction to the capitalist commodity economy within which even the labor movement was totally engulfed. One has to be cautious, especially about surplus value theory. This is commonly ascribed to Marx, but it derived from the Left Ricardians. That is to say that Marx’s critique of classical economics implied the critique of the surplus value theory, which considers the production process as the only place where the exploitation of surplus value takes place. Meanwhile, it was this theory that dramatically delivered the Chartist movement and then the Establishment labor unionism. British capital attained surplus value widely from its colonies such as Ireland and India; so it was deceitful to consider the production process as the only source of surplus value. This theorization went hand in hand with the labor union tacitly demanding its share of surplus value from the colonies. In other words, the capital and the labor movements of one nation—Great Britain—came to share an interest at the expense of the colonies. The nationalization of interest later became common in more or less all other advanced capitalist nation-states. (It was epitomized by an event in the late nineteenth century, when a disciple of Engels, Edouard Bernstein (1850–1932), approved the imperialism of the German Empire led by Prussia from his social democratic position.) There have been repeated attempts to ‘re-revolutionalize’ against the labor movement’s conservative these, accumulatoo, were based upon the theory that attributestendency. the secret But, of capital’s tion only to the production process. Thus the strategy to revolutionize the consciousness of workers “only from without ,” namely, by the vanguard party, with the conviction that the occupation of factories—that is, a general strike—would cripple capitalism. This idea basically failed because, in the first place, it is fundamentally difficult to make the workers thewere subject of struggle on itthe front. general strikes realized in reality, wasproduction often at the timeWhen when http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the state and capital were already weakened by external causes such as defeat. Another reason for the failure to revolutionize the labor movement was that the real capitalism itself surpassed the visions of classical and neoclassical economics. In such a climate, Keynes came to believe that chronic depression (or the crisis of capitalism) could be overcome by producing effective demand. This not only implied the mercantilist intervention of state, but more important that the total social capital would come into existence in the form of the state. As Marx explained, capitalists are willing to pay as little as possible to their own workers (the production cost), while they hope other capitalists pay as much as possible to their own workers (the potential consumers). But, if all capitalists followed this drive, depression would endure, unemployment would be rampant, and the capitalist system itself would be in a state of serious malfunction. Thus total social capital appeared to regulate the selfishness of individual capitals. And then Fordism intervened with mass production, high wages, and mass consumption, and produced a so-called consumer society . Herein the labor movement became totally subsumed in the capitalist system, encouraged rather than oppressed. Now the workers’ economic struggle has come to support the up cycles of the capitalist economy in, for example, an increase of consumption (and capital’s accumulation). Accordingly, it seems harder and harder to find a moment in the production process to overthrow capitalism. But it was always impossible. In his later years, Engels, too, came to think that parliamentalist revolution was possible. Though Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) attacked Bernstein as a revisionist, if one considers the fact that he was the legal heir of Engels’s copyright, it must be the thatpolicy Engelsofshared a similar position. And Kautsky, too, succeeded later Engels. The idea of social democracy based upon redistribution of wealth by the state unwittingly reinforces the nationalist impetus. As has been stated, surplus value is finally realized in transnational intercourse; in the redistribution, both capital and wage workers share the interest in one nation-state. After the outbreak of World War I, both social democrats and workers in the nations involved to supportThus the war, and the Second International collapsed asturned a consequence. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Lenin rightfully accused Kautsky as an apostate. But his Third International (or Comintern) also came to be subordinated to the national interest of the Soviet Union. These failures were not necessarily due to Marxists’ indifference to the problematics of nation, as might be considered widely, but, to their ignorance of the problematics of state. Inasmuch as one sees only the production process as the problematic place of exploitation and resort to state power to resolve it, the rise of nationalism that unequivocally pursues profit of its own is inevitable. At the end of the twentieth century, the victory of Bernsteinism became evident. Edouard Bernstein constructed his position from his experience of British society and socialist movements in the late nineteenth century. In Britain, after the 1850s, the working class began to enjoy a certain richness and consumerist lifestyle. So it was that a social democrat like John Stuart Mill became prominent. It was in such a situation that Marx wrote Capital . Today, some Marxists advocate a return to Mill. They do not think about the fact that Marx wrote Capital in an age when Mill was in fashion. Beginning from such a paradigm, it is clear that one can no longer think in terms of the dialectic of master and slave: The dialectic that identifies wage-labor as a version of slave or serf and concludes with the victory of the laborers is obsolete. And Marx sought to think of the capitalist economy and its sublation [Aufheben ] totally differently. In Capital , as Marx clearly stated in his preface, both capitalists and workers are deemed only agents of economic categories: capital (money) and labor power (commodity). Although Marxists refer to Capital often, generally speaking, Marxists are somehow unsatisfied and perplexed by it. This is because it is difficult to find a moment for subjective practice therein. But this is not from a shortcoming of the the book. at the capitalist economy the vantage Capital looks point of “natural history,” namely, a “theoretical” stance; it is only natural that the dimension of subjective intervention is absent. Thus, Uno Kozo is correct when he said that Capital only presents the necessity of crisis and not of revolution, and that revolution is a practical problem. And this “practical,” I insist, must be interpreted in Kantian the movement against capitalism is an ethicalthe and moralsense: one. that All the counteractions—against exploitation, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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alienation, inequality, environmental destruction, discrimination, and so forth—are ethical and moral through and through. Mean while, although Marx bracketed the individuals’ responsibility in Capital , this does not mean that he denied the ethical dimension.22 It is evident that socialism is motivated by morality and Marx himself was so—except that he pointed out that the ethical movement that ignored the economic category would inexorably fail. And his economic category was equal to the value form that makes various products commodities and money. To repeat, Capital is a structurally determined topos where subjectivity cannot freely intervene—this nevertheless with an exception that capitalists are active agents insofar as they are in the position of money form. This is the activity of money—the position to buy (equivalent form). But those who sell their labor-power commodity have no other choice but to be passive; yet again there is an exception in the structure: this is a topos where workers appear to be the subject—the place where the products of capitalist production are sold. This is the place of consumption . This is the only position where workers can stand as buyers, with their own money. In Grun- drisse , Marx described this place: “What precisely distinguishes capital from the master-servant relation is that the worker confronts him as a consumer and possessor of exchange values, and that in the form of the possessor of money, in the form of money he becomes a simple center of circulation—one of its infinitely many centers, in which his specificity as worker is extinguished.”23 For capital, consumption is the place where surplus value is finally realized, thus the only place where it is subordinated to the will of the other, that is, workers qua consumers. Neoclassical economists consider to be oneBut of the two subjects of economic activity (alongconsumers with corporations). in this formulation, the consumer-subjects who are assigned to realize ‘effective demand’ maximally are not truly subjective. Simply being an element of demand in the market economy, they are passive beings, motivated only by the desire of consumption (or differentiation). Furthermore, since the category of consumers includes everyone: independent producers, workers, it obscures the capitalists, crucial relationality of capital versusand wage labor. When http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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separated from the relationality—capital vs. wage labor—the subjectivity of consumers can only be an abstract category. It is for this reason that for Marxists, the place of consumption has appeared to be false and deceitful (at least, before the advent of the postmodern scene). A multitude of negative accounts of consumer society have tacitly conceived this position (and the positive accounts as well). With respect to our position, however, the consumer position is something that should be rediscovered and redefined. All in all, surplus value that sustains industrial capital can exist, in principle, only thanks to this mechanism that workers in totality buy back what they produce. Surplus value is finally realized on the consumption point, the place where capital is confronted by alterity and compelled into a salto mortale as a seller of commodities. In the monetary economy, buying and selling as well as production and consumption are separated. This splits workers’ subject into half—labor-power = seller subject and consumer subject—and marginalizes the former, making it seem as if corporations and consumers were the only subjects of economic activities. In consequence, it also segregates the labor and consumers’ movements. In recent history, while labor movements have been brought down to skeletons, consumers’ movements have flourished, often incorporating issues of en vironmental protection, feminism, and minorities. Generally, they take the form of civil action and are not connected to, or are sometimes even antagonistic to, the labor movement. After all, though, consumers’ movements are virtually laborers’ movements transposed , and are important only inasmuch as they are so. Conversely, the labor movement could go beyond the bounds of its “specificity” inasmuch as it self-consciously adopts the potency of consumers’ positionality. For, incommodity fact, the process consumption a reproduction of laborpower covers of a whole range ofasfronts of our life-world, including child care, education, leisure, and community activities. Here let us reconsider the meaning of the fact that industrial capital is based upon labor-power commodity. This implies not only that industrial capital hires workers to make them work, but also, and more important, that surplus value is attained only by workers, who in buy back what theywere produce. (Although buy aretotality consumer goods, if they not sold, neither what couldworkers producer’s http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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goods be sold.) That is to repeat that the accumulation of capital is realized not only in the production process, but also, and ultimately, in the circulation process. The most significant distinction between Capital and the work of classical economists is this stress on the circulation process. Classical economists could not care less about it, because they were dependent upon Say’s Law of Market—that supply (or production) creates its own demand (or consumption). Keynes derided Marx for relying on Say’s Law of Market, but it only proves his ignorant as well as willful misunderstanding. In Capital , Marx negated both Say’s Law and classical economists’ misconception that profit is attained only by the production process (by labor). But that stressing of the production process has persisted in Marxists (as well as anarcho-syndicalists), who mainly protested against the exploitation of surplus labor in the production process as well as alienation by mechanical production; and who presumed that the struggle within the production process would terminate capital’s movement of accumulation. The production process in a capitalist economy, however, is little more than the place where labor-power commodities sold to capital actually work, therefore the struggle is inexorably focused on improving the terms of labor contracts. As Marx stated, the labor union movement is limited to the economic struggle. But there is no other way for the movement but to focus on the economic struggle, and its importance should not be disdained because of this. This movement has contributed to the rise of wages, the shortened labor week, and improvement of working conditions. But now these struggles have become a given in the capitalist economy. Keynes pompously spelled out his own way of interpreting the historical achievement of the labor union—namely, the ‘law’ of to thethat rigidity or inflexibility wages in a downward as opposed of economists of of the classical school. direction — It was Antonio Negri who radically challenged the Marxist convention that the proletariat becomes an autonomous subject in the process of production. Returning to Grundrisse from Capital , he sought the moment for the proletariats’ subjectivity. In my discourse, this corresponds to the moment that the workers stand in the position, in the process Finally, it means that buying if workers can become subjectsofatcirculation. all, it is only as consumers. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The split between production and consumption constitutes capital, while it is also this moment that can terminate capital. But it seems to me that Negri misreads Capital . That is, he still follows the con vention that surplus value, being detached from circulation, exists only in the process of production. In Marx beyond Marx , he emphasizes that the theory of surplus value introduces the fact of exploitation into the theory of political economy, while the Marxian theory of circulation introduces class struggle. (Thus he proposes the need of shifting our focus from surplus value theory—Capital —to circulation theory—Grundrisse .)24 In our context, we rather have to find the moment for class struggle in the theory of value form in Capital . After the failure of the struggles centered on workers’ occupation of factories, Gramsci, in his prison cell, came to realize that it was due to the state’s and capital’s control of the reproduction process of labor power, and he found it imperative to render the struggle in institutions—such as in the family, school, and church—over cultural hegemony. This might be deemed the very initiation of the “cultural turn” (Fredric Jameson) of Marxism. This tendency is still based on the ‘base and superstructure metaphor’: that the production process is where substantial exploitation takes place, while the circulation process is its representation. Its goal is to liberate workers from reification by focusing on the critique of cultural representation (cultural ideological apparati). Its focus on the reproduction process—where cultural representation forms hegemony—is tacitly taking its production process centrism for granted. In contrast, in our view, the process of reproduction of labor power is nothing but the circulation process that capital has to go through in order to complete its circuitous movement. It is true that in Capital , workers’ consumption considered a passive processmovement. for the reproduction of labor power, is and just a given of capital’s At the same time, however, Marx also stresses that value (surplus value) is fully realized only in the process of circulation. Therefore, it is only here that the moment for workers to be subject exists. Here I would like to point out one crucial aspect of Gramsci’s concepts of ‘war of maneuver’ and ‘war of position’. According to his analysis, the shift from the former to the latter hadpolitical alreadystruggle’s begun in the late nineteenth century: “The problem of the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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transition from a ‘war of maneuver’ to a ‘war of position’ certainly needs to be considered at this juncture. In Europe this transition took place after 1848, and was not understood by Mazzini and his followers, as it was on the contrary by certain others: the same transition took place after 1871, etc.”25 In this context, the “war of position” should be interpreted as much more than just the struggle of hegemony. This becomes clear if we are aware of his understanding of Gandhi’s agenda: “Gandhi’s passive resistance is a war of position, which at certain moments becomes a war of movement, and at others underground warfare. Boycotts are a form of war of position, strikes of war of movement, the secret preparation of weapons and combat troops belongs to underground warfare.”26 He evidently sought the crux of the war of position in the boycott movement. If one reads this passage in combination with his analysis that after the revolution of 1848 there was a transition from a war of maneuver to a war of position, it implies that at the time Capital was being written, in the late nineteenth century, the struggle of the proletariat had already been shifted to acts of boycott, namely, acts that affected the process of circulation; nevertheless the shift was not thoroughly registered. The political struggle’s transition from a ‘war of maneu ver’ to a ‘war of position’ was conspicuous, more than anywhere, in Britain at the point in time when the Chartist Movement by the Ricardian Socialists ran out. Thus my project is to read Capital as that which provides the logic of the war of position. Surplus value cannot be realized in the process of production alone, because it can be realized only as total social capital . Here is a vitally important implication: Inasmuch as surplus value can only be realized globally, the movement to terminate it must be transnational. Struggles within individual or even ual total national capitals would enterprises be no more than within a partindividof the capitalist economy. Workers are divided according to the enterprises and the nation-states to which they belong. In this situation, their interests cannot be detached from those of individual capitals or indi vidual nation-states. The fact stands that workers and farmers of advanced states are exploited, but at the same time compensated, by the redistributions of the states the total capital); and various because of this redistribution by (or which they social live, they are http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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exploiting foreign workers and farmers, though indirectly. As long as our concerns are focused on the production point, labor movements remain divided by states, and always end up requiring more powerful control of state power. While capital organizes social relations globally, the moment to overturn capital—inexorably at the same time as following it—is folded within, namely, in the process of circulation . According to Hegel’s “dialectic of master and slave,” when the master recognizes that he is relying on his slave’s labor, the master ceases to be the master, and the slave is no longer the slave. This logic, based upon feudal domination, namely, plunder/redistribution, cannot be applied to the relationship between capitalist and wage worker. Because, as Marx emphasizes, the relationship between capitalist and wage worker is not one between selfconsciousnesses, but one which is based upon the relationship between capital and the commodity of labor power or, if we return further back, upon the relationship (the value form) between money and commodity. It is only in the relationship based upon looting—over which hovers the fear of death—that the dialectic of master and slave functions. Meanwhile, in the relationship of exchange, there is only the fear of being unsold, including both the fear of the labor commodity to be discharged, and the fear of the capitalist whose products may not be sold. There were and are enterprises in which the relationship between capitalist and workers are like that between master and slave. The labor movement in such a workplace requires a life-and-death struggle. Yet, even after the relationship is democratized, it is not that the relationship between capital and wage labor (or labor-power commodity) withers away. However, the relational structure beyond subjective consciousness does not nullify “subjectivity” entirely. who are are in in the the position position of capital are subjective (active), whileThose those who of having to sell their labor power are inevitably passive. Therefore, it is only a matter of inevitability that workers can only engage in the economic struggle where they negotiate with capitalists over their commodity value. In Capital , the moment for workers to be subjects is found when the shift of workers’ position in the categories— commodity-money—takes from being labor-powerThat commodity to being the moneyplace: en masse that buysthe commodities. is http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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to say that workers as the other—the one who capital can never subsume—appear as consumers. It follows that the class struggle against capitalism must be a transnational movement of workers qua consumers or consumers qua workers. Consumers’ civil acts, including the problematization of environmental and minority issues, are moral, but the reason they have achieved a certain success is that a consumers’ boycott is the most dreadful thing capital can imagine. In other words, the success of the moralist intervention is guaranteed not only by the power of morality in itself, but more crucially, because it is the embodiment of the asymmetric relation between commodity and money. Therefore, in order to begin an oppositional movement against capital, it is imperative to discover a new context where labor movements and consumers’ movements meet, and this not as a political coalition between existing movements but as a totally new movement itself. Mainstream Marxists, who inherited classical economics, have been prioritizing labor movements on the production front, while considering anything else as secondary and subordinate. One has to keep in mind another implication of this—that production process centrism entails male centrism. As a point of fact, until the recent past, labor movements have been conducted mainly by men, while consumer movements have been led mainly by women. This has been based on the division of labor between men and women, compelled by industrial capitalism and the modern state. The production process centrism of classical economics is a view that stresses “value-productive labor” and thus considers household work to be unproductive. The discrimination between value-productive and non-value-productive labors began with industrial capitalism and quickly became “gendered.” is nowaclear that the male-centrist revolutionary movement, whichIt lacks countermeasure to this gendered division of labor, cannot be a real oppositional movement against the state-capital amalgamation.27 Meanwhile, in advanced capitalist nation-states, civil acts have been central as a repulsion against the male centrism of the labor movement. They involve issues of discrimination against women and other minorities as well as to theabstract environment. Unfortunately, acts here, in reverse, tend the matters of processcivil of http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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production and relation of production; in consequence, the relationality with the people in the Third World becomes abstracted. Accordingly, this tends to be finally subsumed into social democracy. The central lesson from this is that so long as our beings and minds are split between process of production and process of circulation, it is impossible to resist capital’s accumulation and the relation of production inherent in capitalism. The opposition to a capitalist nation-state should be neither a workers’ movement nor a consumers’ movement; this should be a movement of workers qua consumers, and consumers qua workers. The movement has to be a transnational association of consumers/workers. In the past, developing countries were categorized as the ‘Third World’, based upon the politico-economic world system of the Cold War. The socialist bloc sought to make these countries secede from the world market and draw them into their fold, with the prospect of collapsing world capitalism. And the leading capitalist states had their own countermeasures. In 1989, the strategy of the socialist bloc was reduced to nil. Since then, the globalization of capitalism has begun in earnest. There is no longer any ideal that can group developing countries as a Third World, and, at various stages of development, they are too divided for unification. But most of them are equally extremely impoverished; their traditional primary industries were reduced to rubble by the pressures of overwhelming international and transnational capitals. This is a creation of the world market of capitalism, and will be reproduced endlessly. There is no longer a possibility for those who are in the developing regions to detach themselves from the world market and develop their economies autonomously. But I still believe there is a way. I think the possibility lies in associationism: develop aproducers’/ circulation system using local currency, and thereby toto nurture consumers’ cooperatives and connect them to those in the First World. This would be noncapitalist trade and could form a network without the mediation of states. The counteraction to the capitalist nation-state cannot be limited within the boundaries of one nation-state. Facing global warming, the movement should be no less than global. shift not fromthe the‘Copernican labor movement movement is The by itself turn’tointhe theconsumer full Kantian sense. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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As I pointed out in the part on Kant, the Copernican turn was a new stance to see the earth and sun as terms in a relational structure, irrespective of those empirically observed objects. The introduction of this stance was more revolutionary than the overturn of the heliocentric view. I would say that the same is true with the movement of “workers qua consumers.” The movements of consumers’ boycotts have long existed empirically, but they attain a radical implication comparable to the Copernican turn only when they are posited in the context of the theory of value form and seen as a transposition from relative value form to equivalent value form (from seller of labor-power commodity to buyer of commodities); and further in the context of the capital’s metamorphosis: M-C-M . If not for the theoretical position, consumers’ acts or civil acts would be subsumed into social democracy. The movement of consumers qua workers is crucial, however, not because workers’ movements are in decline. The exploitation of surplus value takes place in an invisible whole. If so, the resistance—the countermovement against the exploitation—must also take place within the black box, namely, in the domain of the circulation process in which neither capital nor state can ever take control. The concept ‘workers qua consumers’ becomes crucial in this struggle in the dark. This principle could be applied to past history as well. Imagine! Should this have intervened in the conflict between parliamentarianism versus Leninism in the late nineteenth century, things would have been different. Against the parliamentarianism posed by Bernstein and Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin famously insisted upon a strategy centered on workers’ general strikes. And anarcho-syndicalists were the same in this aspect. And neither 

side the that, imperialist wars. of But, if I allow a subjunctive moodcould here:stop suppose in the place political ‘general strike’ executed at the risk of workers’ lives, internationally united workers conducted a ‘general boycott’, a campaign of refusing to buy major capitalist products (whatever the national origin) under the leadership of the Second International while working normally, states and capitals would have been powerless, because all of these acts are legal and nonviolent, at the same time as being most damaging to capital. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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This movement does not require a forged, strong, class consciousness that is always ‘willing to sacrifice’. From the beginning, such political organizations that demands others’ sacrifice are themselves nothing other than that which generates statist power. Summarizing the Marxist movements since the late nineteenth century, one has to conclude that their severe failures have been due to their ignorance of the capitalist economy and state. Only by learning from this can a new transnational associationist movement be conceptualized. The self-reproductive movement of capital will never end by itself; it will continue, no matter what kind of crises it entails. Then, in what way can one stop it? I would propose an idea of combining two endeavors. The first one is to create a form of production and consumption that exists outside the circuit of M-C-M —the consumers’/ producers’ cooperative. In this “association of free and equal producers,” there is no wage labor (labor-power commodity). In order to make this entity grow and expand, one ought to establish a financial system (or a system of payment/settlement) based on a currency that does not turn to capital, namely, that does not involve interest. And this is the most crucial task. Marx’s Capital is in essence a scrutiny of capital, namely, the money that characteristically transforms into capital. Capitalist society is constantly organized and reorganized by way of the self-multiplication of money. Marx’s task was to elucidate the enigma of money. But, what kind of countermeasure can come out of his scrutiny? Both Engels and Lenin thought that capitalism could be abolished by state regulation and planned economy. This nonetheless makes ineluctable the abolition of the market economy itself where individuals can trade freely, and finally the abolition of freedom itself. This 

idea derived from the labor of value of classical economics, and was inexorably unable to theory go beyond the law of value inherent in the capitalist economy. This can at best draw the idea of a society where individuals can get what they work for; this can by no means lead to communism where individuals can get what they need. Neither of them saw the problematically unique phase of money. Money is not simply an index of value, but a mediating force that organizes exchange regulates value-relation all products. Thus money existsand as the organ the of the relational of structure of all http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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commodities, namely, transcendental apperception X. This, in the operations of the real market, is hypostatized; thereby the fetishism of money or the movement of capital qua money’s self-multiplication occurs. And bourgeois economists advocate the superiority of market economy, covering up the fact that it is nothing but the autotelic movement of capital. Nevertheless, for this goal, the market economy of money itself should not be simplemindedly abandoned. Neither is there any hope in the compromise plan of social democracy: the acceptance of the market with state control. All these stances try to neutralize money but do not seek to sublate it. The ultimate moment that one can draw from Capital is this antinomy: Money should exist; money should not exist. To abolish (or sublate) money is equal to creating a currency that would fulfill these conflicting conditions. Marx did not say anything about the money that would be a solution. All he did was critique Proudhon’s ideas of labor money and exchange bank. Proudhon’s idea, too, was based upon the labor theory of value; he sought to make a currency that purely valorizes labor time. Here there was a blind spot: Labor value is conditioned by the social exchanges via money; it is formed as value only after the fact of the exchange. That is to say, the social labor time qua substance of value is formed via money, which thus cannot replace money. Labor money tacitly relies on the existing monetary economy; even if it tries to challenge the system, it could at best be exchanged with existing money for the difference in market value. It is extremely difficult to sublate money; saying this, however, does not mean that Marx gave up the possibility of a currency that does not transform into capital. Having the antinomy in mind, the most exciting example to me is LETS (Local Exchange System), prac28 ticed by Michael LintonTrading since 1982. It isconceptualized a multifaceted and system of settlement, where participants have their own accounts, register the wealth and service that they can offer in the inventory, and conduct exchanges freely, and then the results are recorded in the accounts. In contrast to the currency of the state central bank, the currency of LETS is issued each time by those who are to receive goods or ser vices from And it is so be organized sum total of theother gainsparticipants. and losses of everyone zero. Inthat thisthe simple http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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system—that should be further developed technically in the future— exists a clue to solving the antinomy of money. When compared with the exchange of mutual aid in traditional communities and that of the capitalist commodity economy, the nature of LETS becomes clearer. It is, on the one hand, similar to the system of mutual aid in the aspect that it does not impose high price with interest, but, on the other hand, closer to the market in that the exchange can occur between those who are mutually far apart and strangers. In contrast to the capitalist market economy, in LETS, money does not transform into capital; but it is not simply because there is no interest, but because it is based upon the zero sum principle (the principle of offsetting earnings and expenses in sum total). It is so organized that, although the exchanges occur actively, ‘money’ does not exist as a result. Therefore, the antinomy—money should exist and money should not exist—is deemed solved. Speaking in the context of Marx’s theory of value form, the currency of LETS is a general equivalent, which however just connects all the goods and services and does not become an autonomous, autotelic drive. The fetish of money would not occur here. In the domain of LETS, not only is there no sense in accumulating money as the potency of exchange, but neither is there a need to worry about an increase or loss. While the system of value relation among goods and services is organized via the currency of LETS, it would not become unconditionally commensurable like state currencies. Finally, in LETS money, labor value as “the common essence” would not be established ex post facto.29 Most important, LETS totally accords with the principles of association. It is not simply economic but ethical. It is an ethico-economic association. While the mutual aid in economies traditional compel communities compels fidelity to them, and the market the belonging to communities (states) of currencies, the social contract in LETS is precisely like the “association” Proudhon dreamt of. Individuals can quit a particular LETS anytime and/or belong to other LETS at the same time. Unlike the currency of a state, the currency of LETS is really currencies, they are pluralistic and exist as a multiplicity. Moreparticipant important,the in contrast other currencies, LETS offers each right to to issue hislocal or her own currency http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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(just in the act of registering/recording in the account). If one aspect of the sovereignty of the state exists in its right to issue the currency, one can say that LETS actually offers sovereignties to the multitudes, going far beyond the specious motto “Sovereignty rests with the people.” So it is that LETS is more than another local currency: The problematic it addresses is more than economic in the narrow sense. As I have said, capital, state, and nation are all based upon their own principles of exchange that is finally economic in the broad sense. Therefore, only with the association based on LETS as a new principle of exchange is it possible to replace the trinity. The last aspect of LETS is that it is formed in the circulation process, where consumers hold the initiative. While conventional cooperatives of producers and consumers are quickly driven into hopeless competition with full-hearted capitalist enterprises, LETS can nurture the free, autonomous subjectivity of consumers-as workers. Only when LETS and the financial system based upon it expand can the noncapitalist producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives autonomously exist. But, in terms of strategy, the extracapitalist mode of practice alone cannot terminate capital’s auto-replicating movement. It would remain as partial and complementary to the market economy, no matter how popular it became. For this reason, required are not only the extracapitalist movement, but also the struggle remaining within capitalist economy. Then, where can they interact? It goes without saying that it is in the transcritical position where workers appear as consumers, namely, at the front of circulation . In capital’s movement M-C-M , there are two critical moments: buying labor-power commodity and selling products to workers. Failure in either moment disables capital from achieving surplus value. 

In other words,can it fails to becapital. capital.The That is moment to say that in these moments workers counter first is expressed by Antonio Negri as “Don’t Work!” This really signifies, in this context, “Don’t Sell Your Labor-Power Commodity!” or “Don’t Work as a Wage Laborer!” The second moment says, “Don’t Buy Capitalist Products!” Both of them can occur in the topos where workers can be the subjects. These are the countermovements within . But in order for workers/consumers be able ‘not to work’ and ‘notand to buy’, there must be a safety nettowhereupon they can still work http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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buy to live. This is nothing but an association such as producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives armed with LETS. Thus the noncapitalist cooperatives as well as local currency would support the struggles within the capitalist economy. The “don’t sell/don’t buy” boycott movements within capitalist production would accelerate the reorganization of capitalist corporation into cooperative entity. Therefore, the immanent and ex-scendent struggles against capitalism can interact and be connected only in the circulation process, namely, the topos for consumers qua workers, workers qua consumers. This is the only place where there is a moment for individuals to be sub jects. Association is strictly based on the subjectivity of individuals; it is possible only by having the circulation process as an axis. The annihilation of the capitalist market economy is not the same as the annihilation of the market economy in toto. And the death of the political state is not equal to the coming of the anarchic state. The controversial thinker Carl Schmitt made an insightful comment on the death of the state vis-à-vis consumers’/producers’ cooperative. According to him, who stressed the autonomous dimension of state and politics, the League of Nations idea could never decompose states; it would only result in hegemony of a strong state or a group of states. “Were a world state to embrace the entire globe and humanity, then it would be no political entity and could only be loosely called a state. If in fact, all humanity and the entire world were to become a unified entity based exclusively on economics and on technically regulating traffic . . . [s]hould that interest group also want to become cultural, ideological, or otherwise more ambitious, and yet remain strictly nonpolitical, then it would be a neutral consumer or producer co-operative moving between the poles of ethics and It would neither state aristocracy nor kingdom empire,economics. neither republic nor know monarchy, neither nornor democracy, neither protection nor obedience, and would lose its political character.”30 In other words, Schmitt also implies that there is no other way but to nurture the association of consumers’/producers’ cooperatives in order to sublate the state. In this situation, the state would remain, but no longer as a political entity. In addition, one can say that the capitalist would not abolish money itself;the theabolition comingof global networkeconomy of consumers’/producers’ http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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cooperatives would not be a retrogression to self-sufficient, selfenclosed communities, but an open market economy; and it would not be like the market economy as we know it. The counteraction to the capitalist nation-state should be nonviolent through and through . But here a redefinition of “nonviolent” is necessary; the parliamentary system—as opposed to a military uprising—is always defined as the “nonviolent” way of changing the political state. But it is not the case that it is veritably nonviolent. I argue that parliamentarianism, too, wills to state power. According to Max Weber, the state is equal to a human community that demands an actual monopolization of the means of executing physical violence within a limited domain. Whether by compulsion or by agreement, the execution of might is violent through and through. Therefore, all those who are involved in politics are flirting with the demonic power lurking in violence, it might be said.31 In this sense of Weber, social democracy is in the least nonviolent, albeit less violent. Social democracy seizes state power by resorting to the majority vote in the parliamentary system and seeks to redistribute the wealth extorted from capital (as tax) to workers. If so (as seen from the stance of the radical libertarian Hayek), the difference between Bernstein and Lenin is not as large as it seems. Both resort to state power, that is, violence. One is a soft statism, while the other a hard statism. From our vantage point, neither seeks the abolition of the labor-power commodity, namely, wage labor. And the social democracy is the last resort for the capitalist nation-state to survive. What we call nonviolence is exemplified by the strategy of Mahatma Gandhi. But it cannot be reduced to so-called civil disobedience. Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of nonviolent resistance is well known, less known are his ‘resistances’ of boycotting English 32 productsbut and nurturing consumers’/producers’ cooperatives. If not for this nurturing, the boycott could not be what Gramsci called the war of position. If not for the will to noncapitalist cooperatives, the boycott would be a nationalist movement that cared only for the well-being of national capitals. Karl Polanyi likened capitalism (the market economy) to cancer. Coming into existence the interstice between agrariancells communities and feudal states,incapitalism invaded the internal and http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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transformed their predispositions according to its own physiology. It is still parasitic. If so, the transnational network of workers qua consumers and consumers qua workers is a culture of anticancer cells, as it were. In order to eliminate it, capital and state would have to eliminate the conditions by which they were produced in the first place. The immanent and ex-scendent counteraction that is based upon the circulation front is totally legal and nonviolent, therefore, no capitalist nation-state can meddle with it. According to my reading, Marx’s Capital offers a logical ground for the creation of this culture. That is, the asymmetric relationship inherent in the value form (between commodity and money) produces capital, while it is here where the transpositional moment that terminates capital can be grasped. To utilize it in the most effective way is the task of transcritique. Finally, we have to question what conditions are necessary for the counteraction to truly function like the anticancer cells? The idea of usurping or overthrowing the state always causes the act itself to become similar to the state. In other words, the movement always becomes a centrist, tree-structured organization. Not only Bolshe vism but also Bakuninism were so. The path of such a movement is evident: either it is crushed by the state or, after the victory, it becomes the state (and thereby makes the state itself endure). But, on the other hand, even if we destroy the state and welcome sheer disorder, as certain anarchists envision, the state would conversely re vive in a more forceful manner. Meanwhile, the social democratic strategy—to transform society by intervening in state power through parliament—is very much welcomed by the state. This is part of the contemporary state apparatus. In contrast, a countermovement against the nation-state would gradually construct the association as capitalist the principle of exchange as an alternative to those of the capitalist nation-state, and an association of those associations. This movement should by itself be an embodiment of its goal. For the association is not something that is realized after the state-power is seized, but that should replace the state entirely. Sublating stateitisshould equal to a certain state social state). In thisthe sense, beforming similar to the state in (read one aspect. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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That is, it has to have a certain center. If not, it cannot organize an association of associations, and it would be merely a minor movement that partially resists within the capitalist nation-state, or else merely an aesthetic movement. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, there has been a broad tendency toward partial resistances. Already after 1968, the idea of revolutionary movements led by a central party had been radically questioned. What came out of this were the multitudes of minor movements: ethnic, feminist, lesbian, gay, consumerist, environmental—those that had been deemed secondary in the centralist labor movement. Immanuel Wallerstein called them “antisystemic movements.” We could call them “molecular” movements in contradistinction to the centrist “molar” organization, after Deleuze and Guattari. In my opinion, these movements basically signal a return of anarchism and also subsume the problematic anarchism entailed. That is, they are too wary of centralization, and remain divided and scattered, to be finally subsumed into a social democratic party. In the early 1980s, Frederic Jameson already pointed this out. While appreciating the significance of this tendency, he claimed that in America the opposite tendency is necessary. We must add a final comment about the coded political resonance of this debate, which the critics of “totalization” have so often construed as an attack on may a monolithic totalitarian with ideology. instant “ideological analysis” profitably or be juxtaposed a socialSuch reading of the debate, as a symbolic index of the distinct situations faced by the Left in the structurally different national contexts of France and the United States. The critique of totalization in France goes hand in hand with a call for a “molecular” or local, nonglobal, nonparty politics: and this repudiation of the traditional forms of class and party action evidently reflects the historic weight of French centralization (at work both in the institutions and in the forces as well as themovement, belated emergence what can looselythat be oppose called athem), “countercultural” with the of breakup of very the old cellular family apparatus and a proliferation of subgroups and alternate “life-styles.” In the United States, on the other hand, it is precisely the intensity of social fragmentation of this latter kind that has made it historically difficult to unify Left or “antisystemic” forces in any durable and effective organizational way. Ethnic groups, neighborhood movements, feminism, various “countercultural” or alternative life-style groups, rank-and-file labor dissidence, student movements, single-issue movements—all have in the United States seemed to project demands and strategies which were http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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theoretically incompatible with each other and impossible to coordinate on any practical political basis. The privileged form in which the American Left can develop today must therefore necessarily be that of an alliance politics ; and such a politics is the strict practical equivalent of the concept of totalization on the theoretical level. In practice, then, the attack on the concept of “totality” in the American framework means the undermining and the repudiation of the only realistic perspective in which a genuine Left could come into being in this country. There is therefore a real problem about the importation and translation of theoretical polemics which have a quite different semantic content in the national situation in which they originate, as in that of France, where the various nascent movements for regional autonomy, women’s liberation and neighborhood organization are perceived as being repressed, or at least hampered in their development, by the global or “molar” perspectives of the traditional Left mass parties.33

In contrast to Lukács’ theory of totality, this is a transcritical recognition. And the tendency Jameson commented on here is no longer limited to the United States of America. In the climate following the 1990s, it has become the same world over. Antisystemic movements are flourishing in the advanced capitalist states. But, being too afraid of totalization and the representative system, these movements are isolated from each other. The reason is clear: They are gathered under single thematic frames, respectively—feminism, homosexuality, ethnicity, environmental concerns, and so on. The importance of these movements lies in the fact that they take up the existential dimension that cannot be reduced to the previous movements centered on the relation of production and/or class relation. But my point is that individuals are living in plural dimensions of social relations. Hence, the movements that are grounded upon a onedimensional identity come to face internal conflicts by way of the return of the differences in the bracketed dimensions. 34 For instance, as I have mentioned, consumers’ movements are opposing labor movements in many regions. But then, again, it is likely that social democracy would subsume the mutually isolated, molecular movements. Thus, the movements that refuse centralization and representation have only two choices: being represented by a party that participates in the state power or remaining local. The choice is whether to be subsumed into the capitalist nation-state or left untouched and fragmented. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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The starting point of the counteraction is each individual. But this is not an abstract individual, but an individual who is placed in the nexus of social relations. Every individual lives in multidimensions. Therefore, the counteraction should organize a semi-lattice system that loosely synthesizes the multidimensionality, acknowledging the independence of each dimension and therefore acknowledging an individual’s belonging to multidimensions.35 The association of associations is far from the organization of the tree structure, while at the same time it would remain isolated, dispersed, and conflicting, if it did not have a center. So it needs a center, but the center should exist as a function just like transcendental apperception X and not something substantial. The association of associations should be equipped with a mechanism that avoids the reification of a substantial center. In the concrete, the associations would be united by a central committee consisting of a representative of each dimension. In this case, not only the normal vote but also the lottery must be introduced at the final stage. In this way, an organization with and without a center can be realized. It is evident that if the counter movement against capital and state does not itself embody the principles that go beyond them, there is no way for it to sublate them in the future.36 To conclude, I emphasize that the two types of struggles—the immanent and ex-scendent—against capital and state can be united only in the circulation process, that is, the place where workers appear as consumers en masse. Only here is the moment that individuals can become subjects. Association is finally the form based on individuals’ subjectivity. In the organization of the semi-lattice structure I described earlier, the multidimensional social relation that is 37 beyond individuals’ will and conditions individuals’ beings is never abstracted.


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Notes

Preface

1. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , trans. and ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 38, 4:429. 2. See Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics [1783], trans. and ed. Gary Hatfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 10. Kant says: “The remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted [the] dogmatic slumber.” 3. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason [1781/1787], trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 99, Aix. 4. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , p. 117, Bxxx. 5. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology , in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 49. 6. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction” [1844], in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 182. Introduction

1. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction” [1844], in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 175. 2. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 163. 3. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 102–103. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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4. See Kozo Uno, Principles of Political Economy , trans. Thomas T. Sekine (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1980). 5. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983). 6. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 176. 7. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 182. 8. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks , ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), p. 283. 9. Karl Marx, “The Civil War in France,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 22 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 335. 10. See Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 567. 11. Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 24 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 93–94. 12. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 92. 13. Karl Marx, Grundrisse , Notebook IV, trans. Martin Nicolaus (Harmondworth: Penguin Books, 1993), pp. 420–421. 14. ”Ex-scendent” is a compound deriving from the translation of the Japanese term cho-shutsu , which means “exiting and transcending.” 15. See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944).

1

The Kantian Turn

1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason [1781/1787], trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 512–513, A494/B523. 2. Thomas Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1957), p. 4. 3. C. G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation: An Analysis of the Prelude to a Case of Schizophre- nia , translated by R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 4–5. The sentence within the brackets was translated from the German original by Geoffe Waite to emphasize the nuance lacking in the published English translation, the sense of achieving an externalized stance comparable to the Copernican Turn (C. G. Jung, Gesammelte Werke , ed. Lilly Jung-Merker and Elisabeth Rüf, vol. 5: Symbole der Wandlung: Analyse des Vorspiels zu einer Schizophrenie [Freiburg: Walter Verlag, 1973], p. 23). 4. See The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: Encore 1972–1973 [1975], ed. Jacques Alain Miller, trans. Bruce Fink (New York: Norton, 1998), pp. 123–136. 5. Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics [1783], trans. and ed. Gary Hatfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 10. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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6. Kant’s Introduction to Logic , trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (London: Thoemmes Press, 1992; reprint of the 1885 edition), p. 5. 7. Immanuel Kant, “Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem Winterhalbjahre von 1765–1766,” in Immanuel Kant’s Werke , vol. 2 (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1922), p. 325. 8. I learned much from Yoshifumi Hamada’s close readings on Kant. For further reference concerning Home’s role in Kant’s critique, see Hamada Yoshifumi, Kant Rinrigaku no Seiritsu [The Establishment of Kant’s Ethics] (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1981). 9. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment [1790], trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), p. 56. Translation slightly modified. 10. Kant, Critique of Judgment , p. 59. 11. Kant, Critique of Judgment , p. 60. 12. The New Science of Giambattista Vico [1725], trans. and ed. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch, bk. I, XII (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976), p. 63. 13. Kant, Critique of Judgment , p. 177. 14. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [1945], 3d ed., trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1958), e.g., props. 261–275. 15. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , pp. 484–485, A444/B472-A445/B473. 16. See Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). 17. Jean-François Lyotard, L’enthousiasme: La critique kantienne de l’histoire (Paris: Editions Galilee, 1986), esp. pp. 105–113. 18. See Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1959; first published in German in 1934). 19. See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [1962], 2d enlarged ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), esp. chap 5: “The Priority of Paradigms.” 20. For Paul Feyerabend’s first argument to this effect, see Against Method: Outline of an Anarchist Theory of Knowledge [1975] (London: Verso, 1978); for compressed summaries of his critique of Kuhn, see Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), esp. pp. 67, 128–129, 142, 154. 21. For part of Popper’s critique of Kuhn in this regard, see Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), esp. pp. 182, 216. 22. Other important, related literary responses to the Lisbon Earthquake include Goethe’s depiction of it in the first book of Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth, http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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1811–1835], which chronicles his life up to precisely 1755, and Heinrich von Kleist’s “transnational” significance of the event in South short story “Das restaging Erdbebenof in the Chili” [The Earthquake in Chile, 1806].America, in his 23. See his letter, “An Fräulein Charlotte von Knobloch. 10 August 1763?,” in Im- manuel Kant’s Werke , vol. 9 (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1922), pp. 34–39. 24. Not incidentally, Kant’s thesis about vision is close to one of Lacan’s basic definitions of psychotic paranoia . Lacan also noted that “the history of paranoia . . . made its first appearance with a psychiatrist disciple of Kant at the beginning of the nineteenth century,” specifically that “R. A. Vogel is generally credited with having introof Jacques Lacan, Book III: duced the term into modern usage 1764” (The Seminar The Psychoses 1955–1956 [1981], ed. in Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Russell Grigg [New York: Norton, 1993], p. 4).

25. Immanuel Kant, “Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik,” in Immanuel Kant’s Werke , vol. 2 (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1992), pp. 363–364: “Daher verdenke ich es dem Leser keinesweges, wenn er, anstatt die Geisterseher vor Halbbürger der andern Welt anzusehen, sie kurz und gut als Kandidaten des Hospitals abfertigt und sich dadurch alles weiteren Nachforschens überhebt.” For a partial translation, see “Dreams of a Visionary Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics,” trans. Carl J. Friedrich, in The Philosophy of Kant (New York: Modern Library, 1993). 26. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , p. 99, Aviii, Aix. 27. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , p. 100, Ax, Axi. 28. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , p. 99, Avii. 29. A book by the Japanese philosopher, Megumi Sakabe, Risei no Fuan [Anxiety of Reason] (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1982) informed me of the approach to reading Cri- tique of Pure Reason via “Dreams of Visionary.”inIn“Dreams” his book,isSakabe that the dy-I Critique namism of self-critique (of undecidability) lost inholds , while believe that it is made full use of in the transcendental method developed therein.

30. Immanuel Kant, “Dreams of a Visionary,” in The Philosophy of Kant , p. 15. 31. Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena [1967], trans. David B. Allison (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973), p. 79. 32. See Immanuel Kant, Philosophical Correspondence 1759–1799 , ed. and trans. Arnulf Zweig University Chicago Press, 1967), p. 96. In the written to Mercus(Chicago: Hertz (about May 11,of1781), right before the publication of letter the first edition of Critique of Judgment , Kant confessed that he had an alternative plan in mind. That is, he should have started with “The Antinomy of Pure Reason,” “which could have been done in colorful essays and would have given the reader a desire to get at the sources of the thing-in-itself.” In Kant’s published version, the thing-in-itself is explicated as if it were ontologically premised, whereas in fact it would more properly intervene skeptically by way of the antinomy or dialectic in the Kantian sense. The same is true of transcendental subjectivity. 33. Kant himself warned against finding mystical implications in the thing-in-itself: “Idealism consists in the claim that there are none other than thinking beings; the http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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other things that we believe we perceive in intuition are only representations in thinking to which There in factare no things objectgiven existing these beings corresponds. I beings, say in opposition: to usoutside as objects of our senses existing outside us, yet we know nothing of them as they may be in themselves, but are acquainted only with their appearances, i.e., with the representations that they produce in us because they affect our senses. Accordingly, I by all means avow that there are bodies outside us” (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics , ed. and trans. Gary Hatfield [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], pp. 40–41). Kant thus acknowledges that both the world and other selves are not our products; they exist and become, irrespective of our being; in other terms, we are beings-in-the world. He uses the thing-in-itself in order to stress the passivity of the subject. As I argued previously vis-à-vis Marxian turn, a proper materialism that is neither rationalist nor empiricist canthe come into existence only out of such a stance. 34. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , p. 687, A825–826, B853–854.

2

The Problematic of Synthetic Judgment

1. Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics [1783], trans. and ed. Gary Hatfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 20, 4:272–4:273. 2. See Gottfried Martin, Immanuel Kant-Ontologie und Wissenschaftstheorie (Cologne: Kölner Universitätsverlag, 1960). 3. In this regard, see Kant’s remark in his Critique of Pure Reason [1781/1787]: “But where the public holds that subtle sophists are after nothing less than to shake the foundation of the public welfare, then it seems not only prudent but also permissible and even credible to come to the aid of the good cause with spurious grounds rather than to give its putative enemies even the advantage of lowering our voice to the modesty of a merely practical conviction and necessitating us to admit the lack of speculative and apodictic certainty. I should think, however, that there is nothing in the world less compatible with the aim of maintaining a good cause than duplicity, misrepresentation, and treachery” (trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], pp. 648–649, A749–750 B777–778). 4. ”Diesen zufolge halte ich davor, daß die Substanzen in der existierenden Welt, woven wir ein Teil sind, wesentliche Kräfte von der Art haben, daß sie in Vereinigung miteinander nach der doppelten umgekehrten Verhältnis der Weiten ihre Wirkungen von sich ausbreiten; zweitens, daß das Ganze, was daher dreifachen Dimension habe; drittens, daß dieses Gesetze willkürlich sei, und daß Gott davor ein anderes, zum Exempel der umgekehrten dreifachen Verhältnis, hätte wählen können; daß endlich viertens aus einem andern Gesetze auch eine Ausdehnung von andern Eigenschaften und Abmessungen geflossen wäre. Eine Wissenschaft von allen diesen möglichen Raumesarten wäre ohnfehlbar die höchste Geometrie, die ein eindlicher Verstand unternehmen könnte. Die Unmöglichkeit, die wir bei uns bemerken, einen Raum von mehr als drei Abmessungen uns vorzustellen, scheinet mir daher zu rühren, weil unsere Seele ebenfalls nach dem Gesetze der umgekehrten doppelten Verhältnis der Weiten die Eindrücke von draußen empfängt, und weil ihre Natur selber dazu gemacht ist, nicht allein so zu leiden, sondern auch auf diese Weise außer sich zu wirken” (Immanuel Kant, “Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte und Beurteilung der Beweise,” in Immanuel Kant’s Werke , vol. 1 [Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1922], p. 23). http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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5. Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1957), p. 91. 6. ”Wenn wir von hier aus Kants Erklärungen über den konstruktiven Charakter der Mathematik zu verstehen versuchen, dann sind wir uns darüber klar, daß wir Sachverhalte benutzen, die Kant in dieser präzisen Weise noch nicht gekannt hat. Eine solche Erklärung Kants von unseren heutigen Einsichten heraus scheint uns aber möglich zu sein, weil die Intuitionisten selbst diesen Zusammenhang mit den kantischen Ansätgen bejahen. Dann bedeutet also die kantische These vom anschaulichen Charakter der Mathematik die Einschränkung der Mathematik auf solche Gegenstände, die konstruierbar sind. “Von hier aus sichschon, auch die Kants zur euklidischen Geometrie deutlich machen. Wirläßt sagten daßStellung auch viele Kantianer die Möglichkeit der nichteuklidischen Geometrie lebhaft bestritten haben. Sicherlich hat dieser Protest eine gewisse Begründung in den Aufstellungen Kants gehabt, aber die Dinge liegen weit schwieriger, als man zunächst angenommen hat. Sie werden noch dadurch erschwert, daß Kant—ebenso wie später Gauss—es vermieden hat, von nichteuklidischen Geometrien zu reden, und wenn wir die Kämpfe betrachten, die Einführung der nichteuklidischen Geometrien entfacht hat, dann müssen wir wohl sagen, daß Kant mit gutem Recht vorsichtig gewesen ist. Es kann aber kein Zweifel sein, daß Kant sich darüber klar gewewen ist, daß auch in der Geometrie das logisch Mögliche über den der irrtümlicherweise—an euklidischen Geometrie weitThese hinausgeht. Aber Kant auchBereich vermutlich einer fest. Was über diehielt—wenn euklidische Geometrie hinausgeht, ist zwar logisch möglich, es ist aber nicht konstruierbar, das heißt, es ist nicht anschaulich konstruierbar, und dies heißt nun wiederum für Kant, es existiert mathematisch nicht, es ist ein bloßes Gedankending. Nur die euklidische Geometrie existiert in Mathematischen Sinne, während alle nicht-euklidischen Geometrien bloße Gedankendinge sind” (Martin, Immanuel Kant—Ontologie und Wissenschaftstheorie , p. 32). 7. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems are well known, and I have dealt with them exas Metaphor: Language, Number, Money , trans. Sabu Kohso tensively in Architecture (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995).

8. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics , rev. ed., ed. G. H. von Wright, R. Rhees, G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991), p. 383. 9. In Architecture as Metaphor , I pointed out that Gödel’s method prefigured so-called deconstruction, and that Wittgenstein exemplified a related, yet also fundamentally different orientation. 10. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , 176–177; pt. 3, 49. 11. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , p. 143; pt. 3, 1. 12. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , p. 143; pt. 3, 2. 13. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , p. 173; pt. 3, 42. 14. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , p. 176; pt. 3, 46. 15. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , p. 99; pt. 1, 166. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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16. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , p. 111; pt. 2, 2. 17. Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor , p. 176; pt. 3, 46. 18. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [1945], 3d edition, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1958), sec. 32e. 19. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations , sec. 31e. 20. Plato, Meno , in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters , ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 366. 21. See Nicholas Rescher, Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge (Albany: SUNY Press, 1977). 22. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations , sec. 9e. 23. Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 21. See my Architecture as Metaphor for a more detailed discussion. 24. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], trans. C. K. Ogden (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1992), p. 189. In “Worüber man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen,” schweigen is an unreflexive intransitive verb that does not require the English “be.” 25. Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), p. 169. 26. Plato, Meno , in The Collected Dialogues of Plato , p. 364. 27. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics , trans. Wade Baskin (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 120. 28. Roman Jakobson, Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning , trans. John Mepham (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1978), p. 74. 29. R. Jakobson and J. Lotz, “Notes on the French Phonemic Pattern,” in Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings , vol. 1: Phonological Studies , 2d ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), p. 872. 30. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology , vol. 1, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic Books, 1963), p. 33. 31. Translated into Arabic, sunya became sifr , meaning at once ‘zero’ and ‘sign’ or ‘symbol’, similar to the English ‘cipher’. And one possible contributing origin of the mathematical symbol ‘o’ is that it is the first letter of the Greek word ouden , meaning ‘nothing’. 32. Gilles Deleuze, “A quoi reconnait-on le structuralisme?,” in Histoire de la philoso- phie , vol. 8: Le XXe Siècle , ed. François Châtelet (Paris: Hachette, 1972), p. 300. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Transcritique

1. René Descartes, Discourse on Method [1637], ed. and trans. George Heffernan (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 33; pt. 2, sec. 4. 2. Descartes, Discourse on Method , p. 47; pt. 3, sec. 6. 3. Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: “Logic is not a theory but a reflexion of the world. Logic is transcendental” (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , with an introduction by Bertrand Russell, [London: Routledge, 1981], p. 163, 6:13.) This “transcendental” is commonly deemed synonymous to “a priori.” But, according to my reading, what Wittgenstein calls “logic” is our act of transcendentally scrutinizing the form of language that grasps the world in which we are. 4. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology , vol. 2, trans. Monique Layton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 36. 5. Descartes, Discourse on Method , pp. 23–25; pt. 1, sec. 15. 6. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques , trans. John and Doreen Weightman (New York, Modern Library, 1955), p. 3. 7. Michel Serrès, Hermes 1, La communication (Paris: Édition de Minuit, 1968), p. 38: “Dès lors, sur un contenu culturel donné, qu’il soit Dieu, table ou cuvette, une analyse est structurale (et n’est structurele que) lorsqu’elle fait apparaitre ce contenu comme un modèle au sens précisé plus haut, c’est-à-dire lorsqu’elle sait isoler un ensemble formel d’éléments et des relations, sur lequel il est possible de raisonner sans faire appel à la signification du contenu donné.” 8. René Descartes, “Meditations on First Philosophy” [1641], in Discourse on Method and The Meditations , trans. F. E. Sutcliffe (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), pp. 106–107; second meditation. 9. Descartes, Discourse on Method , p. 51; pt. 4, sec. 1. 10. See Benedict de Spinoza, “Parts I and II of Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy ” [1663], in The Collected Works of Spinoza , vol. 1, trans. Edwin Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 234; and Ethics [1675], in The Collected Works of Spinoza , vol. 1, trans. Edwin Curley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 448 (2EA2). 11. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations [1931], trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), p. 43. 12. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations , p. 35. 13. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations , p. 37. 14. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology [1936], trans. David Carr (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1970), pp. 179–180. 15. Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences , p. 202. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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16. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations , p. 115. 17. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations , p. 100. 18. Descartes, Discourse on Method , p. 53; pt. 4, sec. 4. 19. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature , ed. Ernest C. Mossner (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 315. 20. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature , p. 316. 21. Kant,(Cambridge: trans. and p. ed.8,Paul Critique of Pure Reason [1781/1787], and Immanuel Allen W. Wood Cambridge University Press, 1997), Axii.Guyer 22. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment [1790], trans. Werner S. Pluhar, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), p.15. 23. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time [1927], trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 254. 24. Marx often cited Epicurus’ term intermundia . For example: “Trading nations, properly exist only ”in(Karl the interstices of the ancient world, like the Economy gods of Epicurus so incalled, the intermundia Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political [1867], vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes [Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976], p. 172). 25. José Ortega y Gasset, The Origin of Philosophy [1957], trans. Toby Talbot (New York: Norton, 1967), p. 112. 26. Ortega y Gasset, The Origin of Philosophy , p. 111. 27. Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics [1935/1953], trans. Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 136. 28. See Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics , pp. 127–138. 29. Immanuel Kant, “What Is Enlightenment?,” in Political Writings , ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 55–56. 30. See Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition [1968], trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 1. 31. G. W. F.Press Hegel, trans. A. V. Miller (New York: Science of Logic Humanities International, 1969),[1812–1816], p. 620. 32. György Lukács, Uber die Besonderheit als Kategorie der Ästhetik (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1967), pp. 209–210: “Während nämlich beim theoretischen Erkennen diese Bewegung in beiden Richtungen wirklich von einem Extrem zum anderen geht und die Mitte, die Besonderheit, in beiden Fällen eine Vermittlungsrolle spielt, wird in der künstlerischen Widerspiegelung die Mitte wörtlich zur Mitte, zum Sammelpunkt, wo die Bewegungen sich zentrieren. Es gibt dabei also sowohl eine Bewegung von der Besonderheit zur Allgemeinheit (und zurück), wie von der Besonderheit zur Einzelheit (und ebenfalls zurück), wobei in beiden Fällen die Bewegung zur Besonderheit die abschließende ist. . . . Die Besonderheit erhält eine http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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nunmehr unaufhebbare Fixierung: auf ihr baut sich die Formenwelt der Kunstwerke auf. gegenseitige Umschlagen und Ineinanderübergehen der ändert sich:Das sowohl Einzelheit als auch Allgemeinheit erscheinen stets alsKategorien in der Besonderheit aufgehoben.” 33. As cited from Œuvres complètes de Joseph de Maistre , in A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations , ed. A. J. Ayer and Jane O’Grady (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), p. 280. 34. Kant said the following about Herder’s book: “This attempt is a bold one, yet it is natural that the inquiring spirit of human reason should make it, and it is not discreditable for it to do so, even if it does not entirely succeed in practice. But it is all the essential that, theour nextresourceful installmentauthor of his should work, in which willgenius have firmmore ground beneath hisinfeet, curb his he lively somewhat, and that philosophy, which is more concerned with pruning luxuriant growths than with propagating them, should guide him towards the completion of his enterprise. It should do so not through his hints but through precise concepts, not through laws based on conjecture but through laws derived from observation, and not by means of an imagination inspired by metaphysics or emotions, but by means of a reason which, while committed to broad objectivities, exercises caution in pursuing them” (Immanuel Kant, “Reviews of Herder’s Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” in Kant: Political Writings , trans. H. B. Nisbet [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970],a pretension p. 211). In this reserved criticism, it is evident that Kant detected in Herder of reason or metaphysics. Kant wrote about Fichte as follows: “What do you think of Mr. Fichte’s Wis- senschaftstlehre ? He sent it to me long ago, but I put it aside, finding the book too long winded and not wanting to interrupt my own work with it. All I know of it is what the review in the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung said. At present I have no inclination to take it up, but the review (which shows the reviewer’s great partiality for Fichte) makes it look to me like a sort of ghost that, when you think you’ve grasped it, you find that you haven’t got hold of any object at all but have only caught yourself and in fact only grasped the hand that tried to grasp the ghost. The ‘mere self-consciousness’, indeed, the mere thinking, of content, therefore, of such a nature that reflection uponform it hasofnothing to void reflect about, nothing to which it could be applied, and this is even supposed to transcend logic—what a marvelous impression this idea makes on the reader! The title itself arouses little expectation of anything valuable—Theory of Science —since every systematic inquiry is science, and ‘theory of science’ suggests a science of science , which leads to an infinite regress” (Immanuel Kant to J. H. Tieftrunk, April 5, 1798, in Immanuel Kant—Philosophical Corre- spondence, 1759–99 , ed. and trans. Arnulf Zweig [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967], p. 250). It was thus Kant who first called Fichte’s “self”—that which was reiterated as “spirit” and “man” in German Idealism—ghost . 35. In a letter to Karl Marx, criticizing the idealist tendency of Stirner, Engels wrote: “This egoism is taken to such a pitch, it is so absurd and at the same time so selfaware, that it cannot maintain itself even for an instant in its one-sidedness, but must immediately change into communism.” Engels continued: “But we must also adopt such truth as there is in the principle. And it is certainly true that we must first make a cause our own, egoistic cause, before we can do anything to further it—and hence that in this sense, irrespective of any eventual material aspirations, we are communists out of egoism also, and it is out of egoism that we wish to be human beings, not mere individuals. Or to put it another way, Stirner is right in rejecting Feuerbach’s ‘man’, or at least ‘man’ of Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity). Feuerbach deduces his ‘man’ from God, it is from God that he arrives at ‘man’, and http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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hence ‘man’ is crowded with a theological halo of abstraction. The true way to arrive at ‘man’flesh-and-blood is the other wayindividual, about. Weifmust take our departure from the Ego, pirical, we are not, like Stirner, to remain stuckthe at emthis point but rather proceed to raise ourselves to ‘man’. ‘Man’ will always remain a wraith so long as his basis is not empirical man. In short we must take our departure from empiricism and materialism if our concepts, and notably our ‘man’, are to be something real: we must deduce the general from the particular, not from itself or, a la Hegel, from thin air” (“A Letter from Engels to Marx, 19 November 1844,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , various translators [New York: International Publishers, 1982], p. 38:11–12). But it is hard to think that Engels’s letter properly grasped the issue raised by Stirner. Concerning this, see section 4.5. 36. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 166. 37. See Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death [1849], trans. Alastair Hannay (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1989). 38. See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1989). Phenomenology 39. G. W. F. Hegel, Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 62.of Spirit [1807], trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford:

40. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit , p. 66. 41. Ian Hacking, Gengo wa Naze Tetsugaku-no-Mondai Ni Narunoka? (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1989). 42. Hannah Arendt sought to posit the political process of public consensus in Kant’s Critique of Judgment . Meanwhile, Kant was not in the least satisfied with the notion of common sense that calls worksorwithin only regional and historical confinements. For him, judgment of taste a universality far beyond them. Insofar as public consensus (common sense) omits the call of universality, it retreats into a private matter. On the other hand, Habermas sought to reconceptualize Kant’s reason as a dialogic reason (i.e., intersubjectivity), overlooking the significance of Kant’s thingin-itself. Intersubjectivity is just another—if larger—subjectivity, and does not surpass it. Such a notion tends to ignore the otherness of others. And such shortcomings of theory reveal themselves more dreadfully in the actual events of the world. What is called public consensus among people like Arendt and Habermas tends to be the consensus within communities, among specific groups of people who share common For instance, Habermas dares to the say that his consensus would not air be pertinent sense. to non-Western worlds. He supported German participation in the raids on Kosovo, claiming that it was based upon public consensus. It was not even the consensus of the United Nations, but just within the European nations. In this sense, the European Community, though beyond the scale of conventional nationstates, is just another superstate that is deemed ‘public’ when convenient. 43. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 18. 44. See Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy [1962], trans. Hugh Tomlinson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), esp. the section “Critique.” http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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45. In defining modernism, Clement Greenberg resorted to Kant, calling him the first Greenberg, Collected Essays modernist critic. “Modernist Painting” [1960], in Clement and Criticism , vol. See 4, ed. John O’Brien (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

46. For a detailed account on the Kant/Duchamp effect on contemporary art and aesthetics, see Thierry de Duve, Kant after Duchamp (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996). 47. In “Uses of Aesthetics—After Orientalism” (Boundary 2, Edward W. Said , vol. 25, no. 2, summer 1998), I argued that the position of interests cannot be ignored in consideration of our responses to various matters. Albert O. Hirschman points out that the position of interests came to exceed that ofPrinceton passions in the eighteenth century; The Passions and the Interests see his (Princeton: University Press, 1977). It was thanks to this shift that the theses on passion, which had been flourishing up until the seventeenth century, disappeared in the succeeding era. This was of course the deed of the commercialism of civil society. The commodity economy brackets all the differences of use value and thus reduces everything to exchange value. “Disinterestedness” as a key function of an aesthetic context certainly signifies an act of bracketing economic as well as utilitarian interests. However, aesthetic function does not prevent aesthetic value from transferring itself to commodity value. In this case, the value perversely goes up to the extent that it reaches a heavenly perch from which to look down on other In fact, art worship byitself. the masses is often addressed to the heavenly (orcommodities. perversely) expensive commodity In his critique of utilitarianism, Kant regarded happiness as a matter of affection, which was in reality a matter of interest. For instance, eudemonism (or utilitarianism) is very much that which reduces morality to interest. Henceforth, contemporary ethics, based as it is upon utilitarianism, is essentially economy centered (in the sense of neoclassical economics), because its goal is how to realize, as Jeremy Bentham said, “the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people.” It follows that the function of Kant’s critique of eudemonism lies in making us confront morality directly, once more, by bracketing interest. 48. What Russian formalists called ostranenie or “defamilialization” was nothing but a bracketing of the familiar objects. This kind of operation is not, however, limited to the arts. 49. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 484–485, A444/B472– A445/B473. 50. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason , trans. and ed. Mary Gregor, with an introduction p. 80, 5:94. by Andrews Reath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 51. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , p. 544, A554/B582–A555/B583. 52. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , trans. and ed. Mary Gregor, with an introduction by Christine M. Korsgaard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 31, 4:421. 53. The critique of Kantian ethics as subjectivist has been widespread ever since Hegel. And Max Weber was one of thoseVerantwortungsethik critics. In his Politik als Beruf (1919), he distinguished “ethics of responsibility” [ ] from “ethics of mind” http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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[Gesinnungsethik ]. Ethics of mind implies an attitude that considers the self’s conviction of justicebeyond as essential, the failure action as signifies attributable to othersthat or to situations one’sand control. Ethicsof ofone’s responsibility an attitude takes responsibility for the results of one’s action. Weber understood Kant’s ethics as ethics of mind, based on a misunderstanding. The seminal point of Kant was that thinking of oneself as moralistically sound and acting upon the conviction does not mean one is so in reality, precisely like the $100 in the imagination is not the same as the real $100 bill. Kant’s morality exists in the attitude to ascribe all the results of one’s deeds to oneself, instead of others. 54. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [1945], trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1953), sec. 81e. 55. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , pp. 470–471, A426/B454–A427/B455. 56. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason , pp. 27–28, 5:30. 57. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , p. 38, 4:429. 58. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 92. 59. It seems that from Capital the subjectivity to change the economic social structure of capitalism hardly appears. But, as I detail in the conclusion to part II, Marx discovered the moment to overturn the hierarchical structure within itself . 60. Notwithstanding its remarkable intellectual revolution, structuralism was also celebrated by those who sought to escape from the questions of subjectivity and responsibility. One should pay attention to the fact that most of these followers used this occasion to attack Sartre. But, in fact, Sartre’s early stance was shared by the structuralists. Sartre never simplemindedly and unconditionally claimed the importance of subject. He stressed human freedom, that is, being-for-itself, as a negation of a hypostatized, bourgeois subject. He posited a structural determination, as it were, in the place where people believed they were free, on the condition that he insisted on determination by way of an original choosing (of prereflective cogito). In Being and Nothingness , Sartre maintained that all human doings were destined to fail, and then, after World War II, he began to advocate humanism and attempted to write ethics, because of his experience under the Nazi occupation. Sartre acknowledged that there was no resistance except for the communist party and that he was not worthy of being called a member of the Resistance. Furthermore, he tackled head-on the issues of the French colonialist past before and after World War II, which other intellectuals, including communists, ignored. In this sense, antiSartrean structuralism functioned to dissolve responsibility for the past, bringing about the advent of Nouveau Philosophes , the self-deceiving and mediocre group proud of the French tradition of freedom and human rights. 61. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason , p. 33, 5:36. 62. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power [1888], trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books), 1968, p. 536, #1041. 63. Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics , trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Continuum, 1973), p. 272. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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64. Freud confronted a case where a child who was brought up indulgently came to develop very intense or aasstrict conscientiousness; he sought this riddle bya assuming thesuperego death drive a primary factor. In other words,tohesolve posited that what generates conscientiousness is not a stern superior other (or external world) but a giving up of one’s own aggression drive (i.e., the psychic energy is transferred to the superego and then directed to the ego). But Freud insisted that this new idea was not contradictory to his previous one. Which of these two views is correct? The earlier one, which genetically seemed so unassailable, or the newer one, which rounds off the theory in such a welcome fashion? Clearly, and by the evidence, too, of direct observations, both are justified. They do not contradict each other, and they even coincide at one point, for the child’s revengeful willhis in father. part beExperience determinedshows, by thehowever, amount of punitive aggression thataggressiveness he expects from that the severity of the superego that a child develops in no way corresponds to the severity of treatment with which he himself has met. The severity of the former seems to be independent of that of the latter. A child who has been brought up very leniently can acquire a strict conscience. But it would also be wrong to exaggerate this independence; it is not difficult to convince oneself that severity of upbringing does also exert a strong influence on the formation of the child’s superego. (Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontent , trans. and ed. James Strachey [New York: Norton], p. 92). So itthe is that in Freud theexists superego ambiguous. And thethe novelty ofof Freud after Beyond Pleasure Principle in hisisattempt to elucidate riddle superego without resorting to community’s norms. What began to happen with Beyond the Plea- sure Principle was the transformation not only of the framework of psychoanalysis but also of his cultural theory—they are indeed inseparable. This was an overturning of the romanticist convention that ‘culture’ is an external, social fetter; and this overturning would not have been possible if not for an assumption of the death drive. I have scrutinized this subject in my essay “Death and Nationalism—Kant and Freud” (Hihyo Kukan [Critical Space], no. 15–16 [Tokyo: Ohta Press, 1997–1998]). 65. Adorno, Negative Dialectics , pp. 362–363. 66. In a lecture soon after World War II, Karl Jaspers divided German guilt into four categories: criminal, political, moral, and metaphysical. (The Question of German Guilt , trans. by F. B. Ashton [New York: The Dial Press, 1947]). The first indicates crimes of war—the violations of international law that were being tried in Nuremberg. The second, political guilt, is a concern of the entire nation—no German is innocent. “Politically everyone acts in the modern state, at least by voting, or failing to vote, in elections. The sense of political liability lets no man dodge . . . If things go wrong the politically active tend to justify themselves; but such defences carry no weight in politics” 62). According Jaspers, the responsibility for also this even guilt affects every citizen (p. of the state, not onlyto those who supported fascism but those who did not. The third category, moral guilt, is applied to moral responsibility and not legal responsibility: namely, where one did not help someone even if one could have or one did not object to an evil though one should have. In this case, one is not legally but morally guilty because one did not act for Sollen [oughtness]. The last is metaphysical guilt, which is very close to Adorno’s problematic. For instance, those who survived the concentration camps have had a feeling of guilt toward those who died, almost as if they themselves had killed them. Because this sentiment is almost unfounded both legally and politically, it is deemed metaphysical. Jasper’s little-known lecture defined the way Germans should act toward the responsibilities of war. Now the distinction is a sine qua non for all ethical thinking. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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However, there are a few problems. Jaspers gives us the impression that Nazism was mainly to neglects a fault oftothe mind, social, such that philosophical self-examination could solve due it. He question economic, and political causes of Nazism. That is to say that Jaspers considers Kantian morality on the level of moral guilt, while treating metaphysical guilt as lofty. But Kant’s morality is essentially metaphysical, yet consistent with the stance to examine the natural causes by swerving away from individual responsibility. 67. Derrida’s account was forwarded to those who question Paul de Man’s responsibility as a Nazi collaborator. See “Like the Sound of the Sea Deep within a Shell: Paul de Man’s War,” in Responses: On Paul de Man’s Wartime Journalism , ed. Werner Hamacher, Neil Hertz, and Thomas Keenan (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989). 68. Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love , trans. Howard and Edna Hong (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 328. 69. Immanuel Kant, “Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History,” in Kant, Political Writings , ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 234. 70. Kant’s critical oscillation took place not only between Hume and Leibnitz but also contingency and Aristotelian teleology: “Whether we should should firstlybetween expect Epicurean that the states, by an Epicurean concourse of efficient causes, enter by random collisions (like those of small material particles) into all kinds of formations which are again destroyed by new collisions, until they arrive by chance at a formation that can survive in its existing form (a lucky accident which is hardly likely ever to occur); or whether we should assume as a second possibility that nature in this case follows a regular course in leading our species gradually upwards from the lower level of animality to the highest level of humanity through forcing man to employ an art which is nonetheless his own, and hence that nature develops man’s original capacities by a perfectly regular process within this apparently disorderly arrangement” Political Writings , ed. Hans (Immanuel for[Cambridge: a Universal History,” in Kant, Reiss, trans.Kant, H. B.“Idea Nisbet Cambridge University Press, 1970] p. 48). Standing in an Epicurean position, Kant avoided seeing history teleologically, yet at the same time he posed the idea that the teleology of history is permitted as a biological (organic) one and as a regulative idea (qua transcendental semblance).

71. Kant, “Idea for a Universal History,” p. 44. 72. Concerning this account, I received suggestions from Tetsuo Watuji’s essay, “Kant ni-okeru Jinkaku to Jinruisei” [Personality and Humanity in Kant], 1931. 73. See Herman Cohen (1842–1918), Einleitung mit Kritischen Nachtrag, zur Geschichte des Materialismus von Lange , S. 112ff; and Ethik des reinen Willens , S. 217ff. See John Rawls’s preface to the French version of A Theory of Justice [1987]. Belknap Revised Edition 1999. 74. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction” [1844], in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 182. 75. Ernst Bloch, On Karl Marx , trans. John Maxwell (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971). http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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4

Transposition and Critique

1. René Descartes, Discourse on Method [1637], ed. and trans. George Heffernan (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 49; pt. 3 sec. 7. 2. Immanuel Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View , trans. Victor Lyle Dowdell (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), pp. 4–5n. 3. See For Marx , trans. Ben Brewster (London: Verso, 1990), and Reading Capital , trans. Ben Brewster (London: Verso, 1979). 4. In his “Reply to John Lewis (Self-Criticism)” in Marxism Today (October 1972), Althusser admitted there was a tendency in his previous work to suggest that there was only one epistemological break in Marx, though he did not mean it. 5. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction” [1844], in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 175–187, here p. 175. 6. Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique,” p. 176. 7. Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach” [1845], in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 5 [New York: International Publishers, 1976], 6–8, here p. 5; translation slightly modified. This very ambiguity of Marx with respect to his appreciation of subject and its exterior, of active and passive moments, resurfaced as the conflict between materialists and formalists in the context of later Marxism. Contrary to what is commonly believed, formalists are not necessarily idealists through and through. Far from it, many sought out the active agent that constitutes phenomena and grasped linguistic form as its material. Thus this, too, is a kind of materialism. Indeed, if one overlooked this aspect, even Marxism would be a mere empiricism. Meanwhile, when formalism rejects the externality that offers the content of experience, it becomes idealism. This entire problematic formation was already prefigured in the Kantian Turn. Kant not only criticized rationalism as thought that lacks experience, but also warned that the starting point of empiricism, sense-datum, was always already constituted by a certain form. Emphasizing the primacy of the form of sensibility as well as the category of understanding, it might be said that Kant already had spoken to the materiality of language. At the same time, however, he insisted on the existence of the thing (in-itself) that persists no matter how one might think of and represent the world. Thus, in his Materialism and Em- pirio-Criticism (1909), Lenin pointed out that Marxism as well as neo-Kantianism had lost sight of the existence of things themselves by stressing the activity of form, and that Kant was to this extent more materialist than either of them (see V. I. Lenin, Collected Works , vol. 14 [Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971]). Nonetheless, whereas Marx had pointed to the materiality of the ‘symbolic form’ (under the concept of value form) that had been repressed in classical economics, Lenin ignored the formalist materiality entirely, thus rendering his own materialism into an unnecessarily impoverished empiricism. On the subject of the Kantian turn, I cannot ignore another example that has appeared recently—without even mentioning Kant—in the context of contemporary theory: Judith Butler’s Bodies That Matter (New York: Routledge, 1993). In her previTrouble ous work, Gender Routledge, Butler emphasized the precedence of gender as a(New social,York: cultural category1990), over sex as ahad biological category. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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There it became necessary to cast doubt on the sexual difference considered to be a biological Butifthis, inisturn, risks to being “Ifbygender social construction ofgiven. sex, and there no access this idealistic: ‘sex’ except meansisofaits construction, then it appears not only that sex is absorbed by gender, but that ‘sex’ becomes something like a fiction, perhaps a fantasy, retroactively installed at a prelinguistic site to which there is no direct access” (Bodies That Matter , p. 5). Because there is something in sex (apropos the body) that cannot be dealt with by simply shifting categories, Butler turns from a linguistic idealism to a ‘materialism’. In other words, she reintroduces sex (qua body) as an exteriority that gender (qua category) cannot absorb. In so doing, it is certainly not that Butler returns simply to a biological body (qua senses) insofar as she discovers the biological body itself to be a construct of the body nonetheless always social categories as a(qua given.sensuous In other form)—which words, Butler adapts a position thatappears criticizestoboth idealist and empiricist concepts, calling it ‘materialism’. The crux here is that this materialism could not be attained if not for critique as transposition—the transcritique. 8. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology , in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 28. 9. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology , trans. and ed. Wataru Hiromatsu (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1974). 10. In The German Ideology , Marx and Engels wrote: The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions of their life, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way. The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself—geographical, oro-hydrographical, climatic and so on. All historical writing must set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men (p. 31). In place of composing history by “a purely empirical way,” historical materialists nevertheless relied mainly on dogmas. Rather it was precisely the Annales School historians who sought to describe history by setting out from the kind of foundational domain from which Marx said, “could not here go into.” There is no reason for reject this attempt; yet neither is it a project that foundational goes beyond Marx. It is inMarxists a sense atoradicalization of historical materialism. But their domain itself has come to be distinct from the one that Marx assumed in Capital —that which involves both the logical and the empirical in a transcritical manner. 11. ”I shall in another discourse endeavor to give an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in what concerns justice but in what concerns police, revenue and arms, and whatever else is the object of law. I shall not, therefore, at present enter into any further detail concerning the history of jurisprudence” (Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments [London: A. Miller, in the Strand, 1759], p. 551). http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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12. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology , p. 30. 13. Karl Marx, The Holy Family , trans. Richard Dixon and Clements Dutt, in Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 4 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 185. 14. Marx, The German Ideology , in Collected Works , vol. 5, p. 62. 15. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , trans. Clements Dutt, in Collected Works , vol. 11 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 103–104. Wert derSchein Demokratie 16. Hans Kelsen, Vom (Tübingen: C. B. im Mohr, 1929), p. 30: “Anderseits aberWesen wollteund man den erwecken, als obJ.auch Parlamentarismus die Idee der demokratischen Freiheit, und nur diese Idee, ungebrochen zum Ausdrucke käme. Diesem Zwecke dient die Fiktion der Repräsentation, der Gedanke, daß das Parlament nur Stellvertreter des Volks sei, daß das Volk seinen Willen nur im Parlament, nur durch das Parlament äußern könne, obgleich das parlamentarische Prinzip in allen Verfassuungen ausnahmslos mit der Bestimmung verbunden ist, daß die Abgeordneten von ihren Wählern keine bindenden Instruktionen anzunehmen haben, daß somit das Parlament in seiner Funktion vom Volke rechtlich unabhängig ist. Ja, mit dieser Unabhängigkeitserklärung des Parla-

mentes gegenüber VolkeStändeversammlung entsteht überhaupt erst das moderne Parlament, löst es sich deutlich vondem der alten ab, deren Mitglieder bekanntlich durch imperative Mandate ihrer Wählergruppen gebunden und diesen verant wortlich waren.” 17. Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 212n8. 18. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire , pp. 130–131. 19. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire , pp. 169–170. 20. Karl Marx, “Preface to the Second Edition of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 21 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 56. 21. Friedrich Engels, “Preface to the Third Edition of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ,” in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York: International Publishers, 1963), p. 14. Reasoning of Marxism Marukusu-Shugi no Riro and On Engels 22. In texts as The [ Engels Ron ],such Wataru Hiromatsu stresses that [he who played “the first] violin” in constructing historical materialism was Engels. I agree with this opinion, except that my standpoint comes from the opposite direction from that of Hiromatsu, who speaks to the importance of Engels. I want to emphasize that Marx’s power as well as concern lay much less in conceptualizing historic materialism than often believed. Around the same time as The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte was published, Engels wrote Peasant War , in which what he called “the law of history” was already present. But this book cannot rival The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , because of its lack of concern for the system of representation/representatives, if not to say Marx’s genius.

23. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire , pp. 187–188. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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24. I propose to approach the political form that appeared out of the overall crisis of capitalism 1930s from the point of Bonapartism. So-called fascism or the collapseinofthe representation wasvantage not a phenomenon limited to Germany, Italy, and Japan. For instance, the American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was supported by all classes: from workers, peasants in the South, and even minorities, to capitalists, to the extent that the role of the party system became obsolete. Perhaps such a phenomenon occurred only once, not before and not after. He famously conducted the New Deal and, furthermore, shifted American foreign policy from isolationism to active interventionism: the engagement in war and imperialist world policy. 25. Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (New York: Orgone Institute Press, 1946). 26. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis , trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1965), p. 14. 27. Carl Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy [1923], trans. Ellen Kennedy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988), p. 16. 28. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract , trans. Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), pp. 70–71. 29. See Heidegger’s lecture “Declaration of Support for Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist State” (November 11, 1933): “German Volksgenossen and Volksgenossin- nen! The German people have been summoned by the Führer to vote; the Führer, however, is asking nothing from the people. Rather, he is giving the people the possibility of making, directly, the highest free decision of all: whether the entire people wants its own existence [ Dasein ] or whether it does not want it” (Richard Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controversy [Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993], p. 49). 30. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire , p. 185. 31. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire , p. 186. 32. David Ricardo, On The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation , 3d ed. (London: John Murray, 1821), p. 341. 33. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), pp. 236–237. 34. Crises occurred often during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Holland and England, including the famous Tulip Crisis, that stormed across Holland between 1634 and 1637. They were most certainly financial crises provoked by speculation; one cannot determine, however, whether they were superficial and incidental. Even the cyclic crises in the age of industrial capitalism that began in 1819 first appeared as financial crises and were then considered incidental. For industrial capital, credit and speculation are not merely secondary elements. Furthermore, it must be noted that the seventeenth-century crises in Holland and England were already “world crises.” 35. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. 2, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 137. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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36. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich 1976), p. 390. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 29 (New York: International Publishers, 37. In the beginning of Capital , Marx wrote: “The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities’.” Here, importantly, capital (stock) itself is included in the commodities. If so, the original commodity must be one that includes not merely various objects and services but capital itself. In this respect, the composition of Capital , which ends with the chapter “Classes,” is not consistent. In Principles of Political Economics [Keizaigaku Genri ] (1962), the Japanese political economist Koichiro Suzuki problematized this point and Capital commodity recomposed logically, presenting the completion of capital’s self-recursive de velopment wherein finally becomes share capital (the capital commodity).

38. Karl Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle, May 31, 1858, in Collected Works , vol. 40, p. 316. 39. Karl Marx, “Difference between Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 1 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 36. 40. See Marx, “Difference between Democritean,” pt. 2, chap. 1. 41. Kant’s transcritique was conducted not only in the interstice between Hume and Leibnitz, but also between Epicurean contingency and Aristotelian teleology. He said: “Whether we should firstly expect that the states, by an Epicurean concourse of efficient causes, should enter by random collisions (like those of small material particles) into all kinds of formations which are again destroyed by new collisions, until they arrive by chance at a formation which can survive in its existing form (a lucky accident which is hardly likely ever to occur); or whether we should assume as a second possibility that nature in this case follows a regular course in leading our species gradually upwards from the lower level of animality to the highest level of humanity through forcing man employ capacities an art which his own, and hence nature develops man’stooriginal by isa nonetheless perfectly regular process within that this apparently disorderly arrangement; or whether we should rather accept the third possibility that nothing at all, or at least nothing rational, will anywhere emerge from all these actions and counter-actions among men as a whole, that things will remain as they have always been, and that it would thus be impossible to predict whether the discord which is so natural to our species is not preparing the way for a hell of evils to overtake us, however civilized our condition, in that nature, by barbaric devastation, might perhaps again destroy this civilized state and all the cultural progress hitherto achieved (a fate against which it would be impossible to guard under a rule of blindthat chance, with which the state of by lawless freedom in fact identical, unless we assume the latter is secretly guided the wisdom ofisnature)—these three possibilities boil down to the question of whether it is rational to assume that the order of nature is purposive in its parts but purposeless as a whole” (Immanuel Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” in Kant, Political Writings , trans. H. B. Nisbet [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970], p. 48). On the one hand Kant, from the Epicurean stance, rejected the teleology of history, while on the other hand he thought it could be accepted as a regulative idea (or transcendental illusion)—namely as the teleological hypothesis with respect to life (organism). This acceptance of teleology is shared by Marx’s view of history. 42. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 89–90. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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43. Karl Marx, “Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich 1976), p. 335. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 1 (New York: International Publishers, 44. Michael Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy , trans. Marshall S. Shatz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 176. 45. Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel, Collected Works , vol. 24 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 93–94. 46. Karl Marx, The Civil War in France , in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 22 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 335.

47. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 567. 48. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 929. 49. Lorenz von Stein, Der socialismus und communismus des heutigen Frankreichs. Ein beitrag zur zeitgeschichte (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1842). 50. Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own , trans. David Leopold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 47. 51. Stirner, The Ego and Its Own , p. 46. 52. Stirner, The Ego and Its Own , p. 148. 53. As an example of the ego, Stirner named an artist, Raffaello Santi, instead of a common person. That was somewhat misleading. What is noteworthy in this respect is that in The German Ideology Marx stressed that Raffaello could not have created his masterpieces without the preceding historical context as well as social division of labor. In today’s this text—a corresponds to of thequotations. claim that the author is dead or that work is no discourse, less than the textile Nonetheless we still have to index a certain work by way of the author’s name. Why? It is not because it belongs to the author, but because the work as a singular event— this (deictic) way of weaving various texts—can be pointed to only by a proper name. The Marx that I am dealing with at this moment is also the proper name as an index. The work of Marx could not have existed without the precedents and contemporary context. And, with this way of assembling the external resources, the singularity of Marx remains. 54. Stirner, The Ego and Its Own , p. 42. 55. The socialism of Proudhon was ethico-economic. He said: “Instead of a million laws, a single law will suffice. What shall this law be? Do not to others what you would not they should do to you: do to others as you would they should do to you. That is the law and the prophets. . . . But it is evident that this is not a law; it is the elementary formula of justice, the rule of all transactions” (P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century , trans. John Beverley Robinson [New York: Haskell House, 1969], p. 215). Yet this “rule” is no other than Kant’s “law of morals.” Proudhon did not speak of it as an abstract category as it may seem; he envisioned an association wherein exchange itself was the ethics. And Kant, too, was interested in the economic system http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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where the law of morals was realized. Seen from this vantage point, it is possible to say that Stirner’s critique of Proudhon to radicalize ethical, Marx’s critique of Proudhon pushed the aspectsought of economy to the the limit. All in while all, however, these two aspects cannot be considered separately. Thus it is crucial for our scrutiny of the issues of socialism to return to Kant. 56. P.-J. Proudhon, The Principle of Federation , trans. Richard Vernon (Toronto: Uni versity of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 43. 57. What Stirner called Eigentrichkeit is the same as what Kierkegaard called Einzel- heit . They both point to singularity. Stirner maintained that only egoists could form unions (associations); this]perfectly to Kierkegaard’s claim only singular persons [ Einzelheiten could becorresponds Christian. Kierkegaard stressed thatthat Christianity did not exist in the churches; to him, Christianity existed in what he called the “ethics b,” which was distinct from the “ethics a” of the churches ( Philosophical Frag- ments ). There was a difference in their stance toward Christianity: Stirner attacked it, while Kierkegaard protected it. But the sameness in their stance toward singularity is what is more crucial. Kierkegaard published Either/Or in 1843, which showed his contemporaneity with Stirner. Independently and separately, they sought to exceed the circuit of the individual-genus of Hegelian philosophy. Meanwhile, criticizing Hegelian idealism, the Young Hegelians nevertheless remained in the Hegelian framework of thought.atIn Marx, sees a thinker who broke out of the circuit: individual-genus the samefinally, time asone persisting in materialism. 58. Stirner, The Ego and Its Own , p. 277. 59. Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” in Collected Works , vol. 5, p. 4. 60. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology , in Collected Works , vol. 5, p. 30. 61. Concluding The Ego and Its Own , Stirner wrote, “Ich have meine Sache auf Nichts gestellt” [I havetoposited affairs onover nothing]. was in position fact a parody Arnold Ruge’s words: posit my everything history.This Stirner’s is tooftake off from the existence of the I qua nothingness, which is not determined by historical relations. 62. In Communists Like Us (New York: Semiotext(e), 1990), Antonio Negri and Félix Guattari stated that communism is a liberation of singularity. I understand that this also presents the direction to synthesize, rather than oppose, the positions of Marx and Stirner. The Poverty of Philosophy , in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected 63. Karl Works , vol.Marx, 6 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 123–124.

63. Proudhon, The Principle of Federation , pp. 16–17. 64. Proudhon, The Principle of Federation , pp. 16–17. 65. “Instructions for Delegates to the Geneva Congress,” Karl Marx: The First Interna- tional and After. Political Writings , vol. 3, ed. David Fernbach (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 90. 66. Proudhon, The Principle of Federation , p. 11. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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67. Proudhon, The Principle of Federation , p. 66. 68. Proudhon, The Principle of Federation , p. 4. 69. Karl Marx, Ökonomische Manuskripte 1863–1867 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1992), p. 331. 70. Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Werke , vol. 25. (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1973), p. 267. 71. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 365. 72. These reflections owe much to Minoru Tabata’s book Marx and Association (Tokyo: Shinsen sha, 1994). 73. Karl Marx, “The Draft of The Civil War in France ,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 22 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 491. 74. Today the conflict between Bolshevism and anarchism is expressed less politically than philosophically. For instance, Deleuze’s work can be read as an anarchism. But Deleuze wrote closely on not only Hume and Bergson but also Spinoza and Leibnitz. I believe that Deleuze tacitly criticized both tendencies by way of affirming both. In this he did work was a as Kantian-Marxian transcritique. In Nietzsche and Philosophy , hesense, read what Nietzsche’s the sequel to Kant’s third critique; in Anti- Oedipus , he recognized the works of Marx and Freud as transcendental critique. Generally speaking, however, Deleuze became the darling of today’s aestheticized anarchists. The majority of Deleuzians ignore the fact that in his last interview, he professed himself to be “completely Marxist,” and in consequence, they regress to Bergsonism. 75. Bakunin insisted that revolution should be realized by the free association of workers themselves. But he could not do away with the leadership of reason or intellectuals. Though he sought toInorganize a secret (party) formed in denying the strictcentralist hierarchypower, of a tree-structure. this sense, he was society not so far from Branqui, according to whom revolution was of and by the masses themselves, but doomed to fail without the orientation of the awakening vanguards (i.e., party). In his The Catechism of the Revolutionist , Bakunin wrote that each comrade should have several second- or third-level activists, not fully engaged in the revolution, who help them out now and then; and these comrade-revolutionaries should consider the activists as part of their revolutionary capital. Nechaev acted on it. It is undeniable that this derived from Bakunin’s theory of organization. The Russian socialist movement thathimself began to in itthe 1840s influenced by Feuerbach. Young Dostoevski committed and was was deported to Siberia. It was there he wrote The Possessed . In any event, it is noteworthy that Dostoevski’s discernment of the revolutionary politics owed to the anarchist movement rather than to the Marxist’s. Anarchists deny the domination of reason. One should not forget, however, the paradox: Only reason can criticize reason. Even Bergson’s critique of intellect is a critique of reason by reason. Forgetting this paradox, one can easily and simplemindedly assert the predominance of intuition and life. That is a disguised “arrogance of reason.” For instance, Georges Sorel called state-power force —read oppressive intellect—and the general strike of workers violence —read pulse of life—based on Bergsonian philosophy. And it was not a coincidence that his theory http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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came to fruition under the fascism of Mussolini. Anarchists reject the leadership of intellectuals the party system; anarcho-syndicalists in particular professed themselves toand bedeny an autonomous movement of workers. But these ‘workers’ are nothing if not intellectuals; the group is nothing but a party. Trotsky pointed out the deception in this idea: “Above all in France, for French syndicalism—we must repeat this—was and is, in its organization and theory, likewise a party . This is also why it arrived, during its classical period (1905-07), at the theory of the ‘active minority,’ and not at the theory of the ‘collective proletariat’. For what else is an active minority, held together by the unity of their ideas, if not a party? And on the other hand, would not a trade union mass organization, not containing a class-conscious active minority, be a purely formal and meaningless organization?” (Leon Trotsky, On the Trade [New York:that Pathfinder Press, party 1969]). ButUnions I am not saying the centralist idea of Lenin and Trotsky was just.

What I doubt is the choice whether to accept or reject the centralist party. This is basically the same as the fatalistic idea about revolutionary politics: whether to accept or reject the bureaucratic system. What is necessary is to discover a system that can prevent the fixation of hierarchy, after once adopting the leadership of intellectuals, the representative system, and the bureaucratic system. 76. In his introduction to the third version of Marx’s The Civil War in France , published in 1891 in Germany, Engels degraded Proudhon in various ways. (See War in France ,” PublishFriedrich Engels, “Introduction to Works Karl ,Marx’s in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected vol. 27 The [NewCivil York: International ers, 1976]) As he said negatively , Proudhonists were certainly minorities in the Paris Commune. But, calling themselves minorities affirmatively, they protested against the centralist rule by the majorities. The majorities were Branquists and Jacobins, while the minorities consisted of the members of the International Working Men’s Association (for whom Marx wrote the essays). The leading ideal of the Paris Commune was evidently that of the IWA—namely, of Proudhonists. And Marx praised them. Meanwhile, Engels intended to degrade them by calling them minorities as if majorities were just. The Commune was shattered in two months.

If had lastedRevolution, longer, it would been his dominated Branquists Jacobins. In itthe Russian Lenin have associated party withbythe majoritiesand [Bolshevik], and repeated the same thing. I contest that it was due to Engels’s distortion of history. Furthermore, Engels attacked the Commune that it left the central bank alone. In fact, capitalism at the time would have been damaged more severely had the central bank been dissolved. On the other hand, however, Engels’s idea of state ownership of the economy, too, would have made the state endure. According to Charles Longuet, the husband of one of Marx’s daughters, Proudhonists such as Charles Besley intended, after the victory of the Commune, to organize la Banque nationale that need neither stockholders stocks, but still issue It bank notes guaranteed would only by securities, following thenorProudhonist agenda. requires further scrutiny to determine whether this idea could truly be an alternative to the currency and credit system of the capitalist state, but the point is that any association that would abolish the capitalist economy would still involve currency and a credit system of its own. I shall argue this point at the conclusion of the book. (See “A Few Comments on Engels’ Introduction” [Engels no jobun no jakkan no ten ni tsuite], in The Civil War in France [ France no Nairan ] [Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten].) 77. In Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), Benjamin Barber proposed a system that enables the participatory democracy (including lottery). Nevertheless, his “strong democracy” idea does http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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not consider the aspect of Proudhon’s “industrial democracy”—namely, the participatory democracy within corporations or workplace in general. If not for this aspect, the result would inevitably be a weak democracy.

5

The Crisis of Synthesis

1. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. 3, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 744. 2. Marx, Capital , vol. 2, p. 137. 3. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 163. 4. In the New Testament, the monetary economy appears as despised and denied, and yet it is used as a metaphor time and again. In Greek philosophy since Plato, this has also been the case. Both had to confront the theologico-metaphysical nature of money. Marc Schell offers a fascinating reflection on this topic in The Economy of Literature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). 5. “Christendom has abolished Christianity without really knowing it itself. As a result, if something must be done, one must attempt again to introduce Christianity into Christendom,” wrote Kierkegaard (Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity , trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991], p. 36). Political economists consider currency merely as a means of indicating the value of a commodity, though people inevitably repeat the salto mortale in order to grab it. Thus what Marx sought to do was to conceptually recapture the crisis or asymmetric relation that cannot be sublated in C-M (selling): “[The Political economy] has abolished [Currency] without really knowing it itself. As a result, if something must be done, one must attempt again to introduce [Currency] into [the political economy].” 

6. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 179–180. 7. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 200–201. 8. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 131. 9. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 29 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 275–276. 10. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 166–167. 11. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 174n34. 12. Marx appreciated that classical economists considered production as significant, counter to mercantilists and bullionists. Nevertheless, they could not see the value form that makes products either commodity or money. It was the physiocrat, François Quesnay (1694–1774), who first negated mercantilism in his Tableau économique . He attributed the source of profit to the natural power of the land. In other words, he denied the autonomy of a world organized by value form and attributed the source of wealth to the productive power of nature—more specifically, to http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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the gifts of nature. Classical economists basically followed this line, except that they replaced the productive of nature human division of labor. the conviction that value power is formed only bywith human labor. In Critique of theHere Gothaarose Pro- gramme , Marx criticized the classical economist stance of Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864) and emphasized that not only humans but also nature produce. This critique was not merely uttered for the sake of rebuking Lassalle’s tacit defense of the landowner class, but represented his consistent position throughout Capital : “When man engages in production, he can only proceed as nature does herself, that is, he can only change the form of the materials. Furthermore, even in this work of modification he is constantly helped by natural forces. Labor is therefore not the only source of material wealth, i.e., of the use-value it produces. As William Petty says,1,labor is the father of material wealth, the earth is its mother.” (Marx, Capital , vol. pp. 133–134) In other words, labor and land are the very things that capital cannot produce, although it relies on them, even lives off of them. But still the crux is that all products, whether man-made or natural, are organized by value form, and both physiocrats and classical economists disregarded this dimension. They considered value production and object production as one and the same thing. This stance also solidified the identification of the capitalist economy with industrial civilization. Therefrom derived the permeating fallacy that the problems of industrial capitalism are equal to those of modern industry and technology. Classical economists’ emphasis on labor was certainly anwidespread epoch-making turn of if one thinks about it. Nonetheless, it not only resulted in the neglect the dimension of money and credit—engendered by the difficulty and crisis of exchange—but also fostered the illusion that social exchange could be grasped transparently. This stance came to see the social division of labor that is constantly organized and reorganized by money, and the division of labor inside a factory, as one and the same. From this emerged the socialism (qua statism) that plans and controls the whole of society like a factory. History has proven that this works only locally and temporarily. In many cases, its failure has appeared most conspicuously in the agricultural sector—which is half based upon the “production by nature.” From adifficulty larger perspective, however, a naiveté vis-à-vis the essential of exchange. Todaythe it isfailure crucialcomes for usfrom to note that the tendency of mainstream Marxism since Engels—to rule the natural and anarchic elements and design a totally controlled society—stemmed from the ideology of classical economics. The idea of planning an economy by means of a centralized power is not solely derivative of classical economics, but of neoclassical economics that belittled the labor theory of value. They share the same stance in regarding money just as index of value or a means of exchange. For instance, Oskar Lange, who advocated market socialism, sought to present the possibility of a rational distribution of resources by a planned economy. Being a follower of Walras’s theory of general equilibrium, he held that it would be realized more suitably in the socialist than in the capitalist economy. In this idea, the central bureau of economic planning would play the role of overseeing the stock market, introducing the computerized informatic system. The market socialists, who appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more or less think the same way. On the other hand, Marx never believed in a planned economy or the state control of economy. His point was not to neutralize money but to sublate it. For further discussion, see section 5.2. 13. Samuel Bailey, A Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure, and Causes of Value: Chiefly in Reference to the Writings of Mr. Ricardo and His Followers. By the Author of Essays on the Formation, etc., of Opinions (London: R. Hunter, 1825), pp. 4, 5, 8. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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14. “The Quantitative Determinancy of the Relative Form of Value,” in Marx, Capi- tal , vol. 1, p. 146.

15. Bailey, A Critical Dissertation , p. 72. 16. Classical economists and their critics, neoclassical economists, overlooked the enigma as to why exchanges could occur only by way of money. For they took money either as a measure of value or as a means of exchange. Under such a belief in the “neutrality of money,” Walras’s theory of general equilibrium was established. Neoclassical economists consider the market to be a place where prices of commodities are adjusted under the auspices of an auctioneer. But, in the real market, selling and do not takeaccumulated. place at the same Asof Marx said, equilibrium selling and buying split buying by money being The time. theory general is just are an hypothesis, established by neutralizing (nullifying) money. Only Johan Dustaf Knut Wicksell among the neoclassical economists suspected the neutrality of money; see Vorlesungen über Nationalökonomie auf Grundlage des Marginalprinzipes , Bd, I, 1913, Bd, II, 1922; English translation: Lectures on Political Economy , 2 vols., 1934–1935. He said that the discrepancy between the market or money rate of interest and the natural or real rate of interest cumulatively invites the fall of value—in other words, that the monetary economy is originally disequilibrate. Hayek saw the market as a disperse and competitive place where the theory of general equilibrium was inapplicable. Meanwhile, this problem was already touched upon by Marx. In the first edition of Capital , Marx made an important suggestion concerning this. In the theory of value form, he explained the advent of the general equivalent form in ‘form III’ as follows: “In form III . . . linen appears as the generic form of the equivalent for all other commodities. It is as if, along with and aside from lions, tigers, rabbits and all other real animals that group together and make up the different genus, species, subspecies, families etc. of the animal world, there was also the animal , the incarnation of the entire animal world. Such a particular that comprises in itself all existing species of the same sort is a general, as animal, God and so on.” (“In der Form III, welche die rückbezogene zweite Form und also ihr eingeschlossen erscheint die Es Lein wand dagegen als die Gattungsform des in Aequivalents für alle ist, audern Waaren. ist als ob neben und ausser Löwen, Tigern, Hasen und allen andern wirklichen Thieren, die gruppirt die verschiednen Geschlechter, Arten, Unterarten, Familien u.s.w. des Thierreichs bilden, auch noch das Thier existirte, die individuelle Incarnation des ganzen Thierreichs. Ein solches Eizelne, das in sich selbst alle wirklich vorhandenen Arten derselben Sache einbegreift, ist ein Allgemeines, wie Thier, Gott u.s.w.”— Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie , vol. 1, Hamburg: O. Meissner; New York: L. W. Schmidt, 1867–1894, p. 27). This suggests a self-referential paradox akin to that of the theory of sets. The stance of classical and neoclassical economics— regarding just as medium-signifies positing money on the meta-level distinguishingmoney it from commodities on the object-level. But such logical typingand cannot be sustained. For, as shown by the fluctuation of the rate of interest, it so happens that money also becomes a commodity; that is to say that it so happens that what is in the meta-level (i.e., a class) at some point falls to the object-level and becomes a member. Notwithstanding the neutralization of money by classcial and neoclassical economics, however, money sustains itself. But more contemporary economists who criticize them consider Marx as an epigone of the Classical school, ignoring his theory of value form. In this aspect, Marxists think in the same way. 17. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 126. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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18. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 1015. 19. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 147. 20. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 140. 21. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 139–140. 22. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 187. 23. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations [1776], ed. Andrew Skinner (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1970). 24. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 182. 25. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (New York: Farrar & Reinhart, 1944). 26. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 178. 27. The capitalist economy cannot be overcome by the previously existing principles. Many antitheses that appear to counter the principles of the market economy are just reconfirming particular phases of economic the capitalist economy. For instance, Georges Bataille saw the postwar American policy, the Marshall Plan, as “expenditure.” His “general economics” appears to have been conceptualized in order to ground the Keynesian intervention of the state, rather than primitive societies. Meanwhile, the anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, who contributed revolutionary insights into the system of gifting in primitive societies, sought to draw a principle of cooperative society. 28. Marx’s stance that saw capitalists as “personifications” of capital is even more apropos when applied to this stage, when stock companies have become dominant. In this holders) system, aand splitexecutives. occurs between capital andexecutives management, capitalists (stock In consequence, comebetween to consider themselves as workers with complicated tasks. No matter what they think subjectively, they have to work effectively toward the self-reproduction of capital so that they are not fired. This situation is also true for the bureaucrats of socialist states, who subjectively negate profit making and exploitation. 29. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 92. 30. Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” p. 276. 31. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 211–212. 32. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 231. 33. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 254–255. 34. Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” p. 384. 35. Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Hegel, Collected Works , vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), pp. 175–176. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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36. Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law,” p. 176. 37. In The Coiners of Language (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), Jean Joseph Goux compares the gold standard with literary realism, and suggests a rapport between the collapse of the former and the decline of the latter, in reference to André Gide’s Faux-monnayeurs . But the termination of the conversion system in England and France came as a result of World War I and the weakening of the international hegemony of these nation-states. Thus the event was represented as the fall of the father. The fact was that at that time, gold (as world money) again became necessary for international liquidation, and the American dollar became the key currency convertible to gold. That is to say that the gold standard was not terminated at that in 1972, when the conversion system the dollar wasAccording terminated. Sincetime, then,but international financial trading has beenofmore volatile. to Goux, Gide’s Faux-monnayeurs pioneered the presentation of a world in which language (qua currency) is independent from referents and ideas. But Gide and other high modernists of that period were working in the sphere of modernism precisely corresponding to the Keynesian currency management of that time that tacitly relied on the gold standard for international settlement. If one continues the line of economic referents, it can be said that it was when America stopped the gold standard that the state of affairs called “postmodernism”—epitomized by the phrase the ‘original itself is copy’—began to emerge. It is impossible, however, for this situation to last forever. 38. Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 325. 39. Kant, Critique of Judgment , trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), p. 129. 40. Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View , trans. Victor Lyle Dowdell (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), p. 54. 41. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysic of Morals , trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 69–70, 6:287–6:288. 42. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (New York: International Publishers, 1989), pp. 56–57. 43. As I discussed in Architecture as Metaphor (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995), Marx used the term Naturwüchsigkeit [grown-by-nature-ness] often, beginning with The German Ideology . This indicates the force that forms human history as pure natural becoming, the force of which no planning and control are possible.

The fact that Marx retained the term was important especially in contrast to the lineage of Marxism (historical materialism) that has sought to plan the whole course of history. 44. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 236–237. 45. With respect to the credit system, Marx wrote; “If the credit system appears as the principle lever of overproduction and excessive speculation in commerce, this is simply because the reproduction process, which is elastic by nature, is now forced to its most extreme limit; and this is because a great part of the social capital is applied http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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336 Notes by those who are not its owners, and who therefore proceed quite unlike owners who, when they function anxiously weigh the limits of their private capital. This only goes to showthemselves, how the valorization of capital founded on the antithetical character of capitalist production permits actual free development only up to a certain point, which is constantly broken through by the credit system. The credit system hence accelerates the material development of the productive forces and the creation of the world market, which it is the historical task of the capitalist mode of production to bring to a certain level of development, as material foundations for the new form of production. At the same time, credit accelerates the violent outbreaks of this contradiction, crises, and with these the elements of dissolution of the old mode of production” (Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 572). 46. In fact there are many biblical references in Capital . It might be possible even to say that Marx saw industrial capital as the New Testament, and merchant capital or usurers’ capital as the Old Testament. Although the New Testament needs the Old inasmuch as it is the realization of the latter, it, as a new revision, also has to be a negation of the latter. The stance that classical economists took toward the previous economics was interestingly the same as this. 47. Matthew 34 in The New Oxford Annotated Bible , Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 48. Marx, “Economic Manuscripts of 1857–58,” a.k.a. “Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 28 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), p. 42. Marx developed his notion of the precapitalist forms of production based on his reflections on the capitalist economy in Grun- drisse . But this account does nothing to explain world history. It is rather a device to understand the historical peculiarity of capitalist production itself. So it is that there is no possible way to lay out a certain course or order of development as historical necessity , starting from the primitive community—and this was never Marx’s intention. The multifariousness of the production systems should be understood as variations of composite and“pre-capitalist not as historical necessity. For this reason, Maxime Rodinson proposedelements, to call them systems of exploitation.” See his Islam et Capitalism (Paris: Edition du Seuil, 1966); English translation, Islam and Capitalism trans. Brian Pearce (London: Allen Lane, 1974). As I said in section 5.3, the precapitalist system is based on the reciprocity between robbery (qua redistribution) and gift. And even in capitalist society, these have not been abolished but rather transformed into the form of the modern nation-state. Considerations of “the precapitalist systems of exploitation” are necessary, only because this persists today in metamorphosed form. 49. The theory reification tacitly takes for granted a stance which possible to grasp theofwhole relation of production. It follows that,from counter to ititsisintention, the theory would result in centralist power control. 6

Value Form and Surplus Value

1. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 266. 2. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 352. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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3. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, pp. 268–269. 4. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 472. 5. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 172. 6. Karl Marx, “Economic Manuscripts of 1857–58,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 28 (New York: International Publishers, 1976). 7. ”Economic Manuscripts of 1857–58,” in Collected Works , vol. 28, p. 159. 8. In a sense, it is correct to say that Marx sought to push the Ricardian labor theory of value even further than Ricardo. On the other hand, facing an impasse, Ricardo partly revised his theory and had it that value is not determined solely by invested labor, except for within those departments that have a standard composition of capital and a standard turnover term. As I have already said in the context of Bailey’s criticism of Ricardo, however, Marx was no longer of the opinion that each commodity internalizes its own value. The value of each commodity is given only when the relationship between commodities forms a system; if so, even if the value substance of a commodity is the invested labor, it would be the labor value that has been reposited and adjusted in the exchange with money. In other words, it is the “social labor-time” or the “abstract labor-time,” as Marx put it. Marx’s social labor time is distinct from the actual labor time expended to produce individual commodities; it is rather the labor time that is discovered belatedly within products after being socially constituted via the exchange with money. The value vis-à-vis labor time—either via commodity exchange or capitalist production—cannot be measured quantitatively by any means whatsoever. What we can know is only price. And what is certain is that capital is deadly serious about the reinforcement of productivity; that this is realized only by shortening the necessary labor time; and that the difference of productivity determines the hierarchy of value systems of world nations. Also in Capital , Marx says he assumes “simple labor”; this is for convenience’ sake and the “simple” has nothing to do with the kind of labor. The diversity and complexity of labor as use-value cannot be measured quantitatively. But it is in reality quantified—as the amount of wages—only after being socialized by the commodity exchange. Therefore, intellectual labor comes to be quantitatively compared with simpler labors. It is not that the labor time expended for the production of commodities places them in equivalency, but that placing them in equivalency determines the social labor time expended for the production. The quality of labor does not matter in this. And there is no need to revise the previous analysis; even in the face of a shift of major labor forms from, for instance, the second industry (manufacturing) to the third industry (service). Kozo Uno argued that Marx made a mistake in posing labor time as valuesubstance in the stage of the theory of value form, and that it rather should have appeared in the stage of the process of production in industrial capitalism, wherein labor power becomes commodity, and labor time is objectified to a certain degree because of mechanical production. This precisely points to the fact that a thing such as labor time is very much particular to the economy of industrial capital. Which is to say that the concept should not be applied to the noncapitalist economy, and furthermore, to an economy that is beyond capitalism. In this aspect, the idea of Owen and Proudhon, of labor money in particular, that was supposed to be beyond capitalism, was dependent upon and confined within the paradigm of the capitalist commodity economy. To sublate the capitalist economy is equal to sublating labor-value. Communism, according to Marx’s vision, is supposed to be a society where everyone http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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is given according to their need, and not a society where everyone is given according to the amount of their labor. to In labor otheritself. words, a society must abolish the determination (law) of value according Marx acknowledges the labor theory of value only for the sake of abolishing the economic system that imposes it. On the other hand, those ideologues who tend to disavow the labor theory of value are those who wish for the permanence of capitalism. In order to totally nullify labor value, it is imperative to have another form of exchange and money. 9. Samuel Bailey, A Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure, and Causes of Value: Chiefly in Reference to the Writings of Mr. Ricardo and His Followers. By the Author of Essays on the Formation, etc., of Opinions (London: R. Hunter, 1825), p. 72. 10. Roman Jakobson, On Language (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 462. 11. See Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics , trans. Roy Harris (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1972). 12. Karl Marx, “Economic Manuscripts of 1857–58,” in Collected Works , vol. 28, p. 99. 13. ”In answering this question, it is relevant to point out that even in non-linguistic cases values of any kind seem to be governed by a paradoxical principle. Value al ways involves: (1) something dissimilar which can be exchanged for the item whose value is under consideration, and (2) similar things which can be compared with the item whose value is under consideration. These two features are necessary for the existence of any value. To determine the value of a five-franc coin, e.g. what must be known is: (1) that the coin can be exchanged for a certain quantity of something different, e.g. bread, and (2) that its value can be compared with another value in the same system, for example, that of a one-franc coin, or a coin belonging to another system (e.g. a dollar). Similarly, a word can be substituted for something dissimilar: an idea. At the same time, it can be compared to something of like nature: another word. Its value is therefore not determined merely by that concept or meaning for which it is a token” (Saussure, Course in General Linguistics , pp. 113–114). Thus Saussure’s linguistics is not that of a unitary system; it takes as a premise the exchange (translation) with other languages. 14. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 209. 15. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology , trans. Gayatri Chacravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). 16. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 167. 17. Paul Valéry, “Reflections on Art,” in Paul Valéry, Aesthetics , trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Pantheon, 1964), pp. 142–143. Capital 18. Valéry wrote soir relu . . . (un peu) Das rares hommes quion l’aient lu.: Il“Hier parait que Jaurès lui-même . . . Kapital . Je suis un des http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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“Quant au Kapital , ce gros book contient des choses très remarquables. Il n’y a qu’à les trouver. C’est d’un Souvent trés sont insuffisant comme rigueur, ou ytrés pédant pour des orgueil prunes,assez mais épais. certaines analyses épatantes. Je veux dire que la manière de saisir les choses resemble à cell dont j’use assez souvent, et je puis assez souvent traduire son langage dans le mien. L’objet ne fait rien, et au fond c’est le même!” (A. Gide-P. Valéry, Correspondence 1890–1942 [Paris: Gallimard, 1955], pp. 472–473) “Last night, I read Capital a little. I am one of the few who actually read it. It seems that even Jaurès himself [has not read it]. . . . “Speaking of Capital , this big book includes quite remarkable things. All we have to do is find them. This is a product of tremendous confidence. Often insufficient in terms scholastic rigor pedantic for no reason, but certain analyses arequite brilliant. Iof want to say that theand method of grasping things resembles the one I use often, and in many cases I can translate his language into mine. The object does not matter, and ultimately it is the same!” 19. The first person to draw the theory of surplus value from Ricardo was Charles Wentworth Dilke; he wrote a pamphlet The Source and Remedy of the National Difficul- ties (1821). Then, Thomas Hodgskin wrote Labour Defended against the Claims of Capi- tal (1825). Ricardo’s The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation was published in 1817. So their responses were rather quick. Their work offered the theoretical ground British laborexploitation movement beginning in thediscovery. 1820s. It isMarx evident that the positionfor of the surplus value was not Marx’s himself admitted as much, and commented on Dilke’s pamphlet: “This scarcely known pamphlet (about 40 pages) . . . contains an important advance on Ricardo. It bluntly describes surplus value —or ‘profit’, as Ricardo calls it (often also ‘surplus produce’), or ‘interest ’, as the author of the pamphlet terms it—as ‘surplus labor ’, the labor which the worker performs gratis, the labor he performs over and above the quantity of labor by which the value of his labor capacity is replaced, i.e. by which he produces an equivalent for his wages . Important as it was to reduce value to labor , it was equally important to present surplus value, which manifests itself in surplus produce , as surplus 

labor . This was in fact already stated by Adam Smith and constitutes one of the main

elements in Ricardo’s argumentation. But nowhere did he clearly express it and record it in an absolute form ” (Karl Marx, “Economic Manuscripts of 1861–63—Theories of Surplus Value,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works , vol. 32 [New York: International Publishers, 1976], p. 374.). 20. Around 1960, Nobuo Okishio suggested that the proposition: “if the rate of profit is plus, surplus labor is necessarily involved” can be proven either in consideration of production price or more general price (Marx Keizai-gaku—Kachi to kakaku no Riron [Marxian Political Economy—the Theory of Value and Price] [Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 1977]). 21. Marx, “Economic Manuscripts of 1857–58,” in Collected Works , vol. 28, pp. 348–349. 22. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 443. 23. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 475. 24. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 451. 25. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 277. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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26. It is certain that technological innovation is motivated by capital’s need to achieve relative surplus-value. one should not that forget thenot following: even when a great technology isNevertheless, discovered, there is a chance it will be employed by capital immediately and buried for a long time. If it does not accrue profit or if there is a chance of losing vested interests, capital may not use it. As a recent example, take the oil crisis of the 1970s. The possibility of switching from gas to solar power was seriously considered, and the technological development was undertaken. But the project was crushed by international oil capitals. In consequence, global warming has worsened to this critical extent. Furthermore, as we all know, the greater part of technological innovation is made for unnecessary and even harmful things for our lives—as in military technology. 27. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 117. 28. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 134. 29. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 243. 30. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 145. 31. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 136. 32. Marx said, “Each individual capital forms only a fraction of the total social capital” (Capital , vol. 2, p. 427). And I suggest that total social capital be divided into two categories: “national total-social-capital” and “global total-social-capital.” Global total-social-capital treats individual national total-social-capitals in the same way that the national total-social-capital treats individual capitals. The advent of global totalsocial-capital was exemplified by the U.S. postwar foreign aid program, the Marshall Plan, and the establishment of the International Monetary Fund in 1944. 33. See Joseph Alois Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper & Bros., 1942). 34. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p. 170. 35. A typical example of labor reinforcement in America is Fordism (based upon Taylorism). By dividing work into small partitions and making production automated (i.e., assembly production), workers are deprived of their skills and the alienation of labor is pushed to the extreme. In contrast, the Japanese Toyota method began its own system for producing various products in response to fluctuating demand, and nurturing workers with various skills. Recently, the French school of régulation , praised Toyota-ism as post-Fordism. I disagree with Marxist economists, this. I believe Toyota-ism is just a cleverer version of Fordism, taking advantage of workers’ self-motivation. The success of Toyota-ism was really achieved by squeezing and exploiting the small to medium-sized enterprises that belong to Toyota’s keiretsu . The idea of régulation that defines the historical stage of capitalism by the style of labor reinforcement in mechanical production is one dimensional. It is an extension of the theoretical tendency that centralizes “absolute surplus value.”

36. At the time Marx was writing Capital , world crises occurred in approximately ten year cycles. This so-called Jugler cycle was in synch with technological innovation—the improvement of capital’s organic composition—in cotton manufacturing. That is, cotton machines lasted about ten years. As Marx said, “A machine also undergoes http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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what we might call a moral depreciation” (Capital , vol. 1, p. 528). But, as Engels pointed (Marx, Capital , vol. 3, p.“The 620 nacute 8), beginning in the 1870s,process turningwith points came to out be marked by great crises. form of the periodic its former ten-year cycle seems to have given way to a more chronic and drawn-out alternation, affecting the various industrial countries at different times, between a relative short and weak improvement in trade and a relatively long and indecisive depression.” Nikolai D. Kondratieff’s theory of the long wave was an answer to this problem. But whether or not this accompanies a crisis is a problem of the world credit system. 37. Marx, Capital , vol. 2, p. 136. 38. Marx, Capital , vol. 2, pp. 135–136. 39. For instance, those who praise the adjustment mechanism of the market economy tend to blame its malfunction on speculators, who are the merchant capitalists who earn surplus value from the difference of value systems—of capital commodities and money commodities in the stock and exchange markets. Herein persists the ideology of industrial capitalism-classical economics, claiming that manufacturers are healthy while speculators are not. This blurs capital’s own merchant-capitalist nature—earning surplus value by differentiation—by shifting it exclusively to the ostensible merchant capital. It is important to note that this ideology—the hatred of merchants—has been influential beyond the boundaries of ‘economy’; before World War II, it was heard as anti-Semitism. Against such a tendency, Marx says: “all nations characterized by the capitalist mode of production are periodically seized by fits of giddiness in which they try to accomplish the money-making without the mediation of the production process” (Capital , vol. 2, p. 137). 40. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 247. 41. In Aristotle’s cosmology, there is an indefinitely expanding chaos outside community. This idea was dominant throughout medieval Europe and more or less everywhere, including non-European communities, which did not know Aristotle. It was Giordano Bruno who overturned the idea and was burnt at the stake. Going far beyond the Copernican heliocentric theory, he conceptualized an infinite universe whose center was far beyond the sun. In his “On the Infinite Universe and Worlds,” he distinguished the ‘world’ from the ‘universe’, according to his recognition that if the universe is one infinity, it must include worlds. To Bruno, the universe is one, an infinite space that envelops worlds. See Giordano Bruno, “On the Infinite Universe and Worlds,” in Milton K. Munitz, ed., Theories of Universe (New York: Free Press, 1957). Tzvetan Todorov pointed out that Bruno’s idea was inspired by the fact that the world had been enclosed into one whole by the discovery and invasion of a new continent, as observed and recorded by Las Casas. See his The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other (New York: Harper & Row, 1984). That is to say that only when the indefinite exteriority came to disappear was infinity conceptualized. In our epistemology, world refers to community , while universe refers to society . Seen in this context, it might be said, Bruno’s concept of the infinite universal space that en velops worlds came from the real advent of the world market. 42. Immanuel Wallerstein, Historical Capitalism (London: Verso, 1983), pp. 22–23. 43. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 874. 44. The “Japan Capitalism Debate” is also called the “Feudal System Debate.” The background of this debate was that the group associated with the Japan Communist http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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Party (Koza-ha ) determined that the overthrow of the Emperor [ Tenno ] system— namely, a bourgeois revolution—was to remaining be their primary task, theylandlords. attributedThis the backwardness of Japanese society to the strength of for feudal agenda was in fact based upon the programs of Comintern. In opposition, Rono-ha — the Laborers-peasants Sect—insisted that these feudal remnants were, conversely, derivatives of the capitalist commodity economy, and that the primary task was a social democratic revolution backed up by universal suffrage and the constitutional monarchy that was, though weak, already established in Japan. In this manner, the harsh conflict vis-à-vis the political program was deeply etched in this long-lasting debate. Nonetheless, because this debate took place lawfully in public journals, it came to in volve a number of scholars and intellectuals outside the parties, and raised many important issues, thaton of this literary criticism included, concerning Japaneseproblematic modernity. Without reflecting debate, one cannot speak of the intellectual of modern Japan. Concerning this, see Germaine A. Hoston, Marxism and the Crisis of Development in Prewar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). 45. Uno Kozo, “Shihonshugi no Seiritsu to Noson-bunkai no Katei [The Establishment of Capitalism vis-à-vis the process of decomposition of agricultural villages ],” in Uno Kozo Chosakushu , vol. 8 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1974). 46. Marx, Capital , vol. 2, p. 546. 47. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, the importation of Indian cotton fabric into Great Britain had been restricted by mercantilist protectionism. While British products were sold to India with only a 2.5 percent duty, by 1812, Indian products were severely taxed—muslin at 27 percent and calico at 71 percent. In 1823, duties were lowered to 10 percent, but only because, by this time, the Indian cotton industries had collapsed and the high tariff was no longer necessary. See Sakae Kakuyama, “The Development of English Cotton Manufacture and the Advent of World Capitalism,” in The Formation of World Capitalism [Sekai-shihonshugi no Seir- itsu ] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1967). 48. Marx, Capital , vol. 2, p. 546. 49. In the early 1960s, the Japanese Marxian political economist, Hiroshi Iwata, elucidated the fact that the object of Capital is really world capitalism, except that it is internalized within the national economy of England. See his The Formation of World Capitalism (1964). 50. Marx, Capital , vol. 3, pp. 345–346. 51. Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class (London: Verso, 1991), pp. 123–124.

7

Toward Transcritical Counteractions

1. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , vol. 2, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 137. 2. Capital , vol. 2, pp. 133–135. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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3. Norbert Weiner, Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Ma- chine (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1961). 4. Mark Poster, Foucault, Marxism, and History: Mode of Production versus Mode of Infor- mation (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1984).

5. Walter Benjamin, “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” in Reflections , trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), p. 158. 6. The ideologues of the nation-state speak as if there were a nation and its homeland from the beginning, which then developed a feudal system and then absolutism, andwere finally becameata the modern nation-state. But, both theas nation andand its homeland articulated time of the absolutist monarchy its subject domain. It was the absolutist monarchy that gathered people who had been divided in tribes and fiefdoms in the feudal ages, and made them into a nation. People of modern nations, however, imagine their one continuous historical origin from an ancient dynasty when there was nothing like a nation. Nonetheless, the enduring power of nationalism is not solely due to the fact of representation. Representation persists in being strong inasmuch as it functions to fill in the gap left by the absence of the reciprocal community; it even becomes the ground to overcome, though temporarily and illusorily, the class conflict delivered by the industrial capitalism. 7. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political , trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 57. 8. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 149 n 22. 9. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 161. 10. G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right , trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), #301, p. 341. 11. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right , #302, p. 342. 12. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right , #314, pp. 351–352. 13. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right , #315, p. 352. 14. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right , #278, p. 315. 15. See Benedict Anderson, “Gengo to Kokka ” [Language and State] published in the Bungaku-kai Japanese literary 2000. In this essay, Anderson maintained that inmagazine, Indonesia, the identity, September of the nation was provoked and organized by the state, and that it was initiated by The Netherlands’ colonialist state apparatus. This proves the point that the absolutist state apparatus preceded the nation. The form of the absolutist states, which appeared in the West in the fifth to sixth centuries, is not obsolete today. The role they played has been repeated in various forms, in other regions, all over the world, and even today. Dictatorships in developing countries can be seen in this light. When a centralist state is being established in regions where different tribes, nations, and religious groups form a complex, it adopts the form of the absolutist state, be it monarchy or socialism. In this sense

what they think and say and what they actually do are two different things. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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In addition, the agents of a bourgeois revolution are not always bourgeoisie themselves. As Marx said, bourgeois thinkers andrevolution bourgeoisie are the twoMeiji different things. For instance, vis-à-vis the Japanese modern called Restoration (1868), many Marxist thinkers in Japan claimed that it was acted upon by lower class Samurais and intellectuals, so it was not a bourgeois revolution. If we take a look at modern revolutions in France and Great Britain, however, the actual bearers were also intellectuals, landowners, and independent producers. So revolutions that sufficiently realize the conditions of capitalist economies are bourgeois revolutions, no matter who the players. 16. The trinity of Capital-Nation-State consists of three mutually complementary forms ofall exchange. Corporatism, theand welfare state, and social democracy, for example, are end forms of the trinity, do nothing to abolish it. The globalization of capitalism won’t decompose it either. Look at the European Community. To the nations within Europe, it might be considered an overcoming of the nation-state, but from the outside, it exists just as a gigantic superstate. 17. According to Bob Jessop, from the 1970s on, Marxists have come to realize that the state is not just a reflection of an economic class structure, but has its own autonomy and functions as a regulator among various interests in civil society. See his State Theory (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990). But this interpretation is not new; it was already by Hegel. One must again. If not, thestressed previous recognition would give waytackle to theHegel’s idea of Philosophy regulationofinRight the sense of social democracy, omitting the scheme of abolishing the capitalist nation-state. 18. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks , ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), p. 283. 19. The reproduction of people and land is made possible by the production of nature, as it were, that is, the gift of nature. From this position, famously or infamously, anticapitalist nationalists stress “blood and land.” Because they are gifts [ Geschenk ] of nature, are alsoexpression destiny [Schicksal . Heidegger’s ontology in terms ofthey the German “es gibt ][there is],” which literallygrasps says “it“Being” gives,” implying that existence as destiny is equal to the gift of nature. In this manner, his thinking has been connected to the “agriculture-first” principle beginning at Quesnay. Yet he was not simply a “man of the forest.” Heidegger supported the National Socialist Labor Party a.k.a. the Nazi Party, because he believed that the party would solve the labor problems rooted in industrial capitalism. Heidegger’s brand of antiSemitism, which denied the Nazi’s biological theory of race, was rooted, in essence, in antimerchant capitalism (or anti-international financial capitalism), and a derivative of the theory of classical economics. His ideal was based upon the principles of a production-centered rather thanThe circulation-centered stance, and as he opposed sought totorealize it in harmony with nature. crux of fascist movements, its stereotypical image, lies in offering alienated workers a surplus of life by recovering the authenticity [ Eigentrichkeit ] of the natural environment. It is not the case that fascism always takes the form of jingoism; it is not always involved in the militaristic state. So it is that fascism is not obsolete. It is omnipresent; today its essence can also be found in certain radical ecologists. 20. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, p. 637. 21. Since the Puritan Revolution, bourgeois revolutions have always involved violent acts. Even some socialist revolutions have been violent, however, that is only because http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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they occurred in countries where the bourgeois revolution (read sweeping of feudal remnants) or the formation of nation-state had not yetis been completed. Still there are many regions on earth where violent revolution necessary. It is unjust and pointless for bourgeois ideologues to criticize this type of revolution. They are oblivious to their own pasts. But the point I want to make is that what abolishes—not just regulates—the bourgeois state (capital/state amalgamation) is no longer the violent revolution. I would call this other movement a counteraction rather than a revolution. 22. To be precise, socialism was rooted not only in the ethical but also the aesthetic stance. This is exemplified by John Ruskin, who impeached the loss of the pleasure of work Morris in capitalist production. Approaching Marxism from isthe aspect, William conceived communism as a utopia where labor art.aesthetic In this case, art must not be taken in a narrow sense. For instance, every labor can become play and similar to artistic activity—even if not institutionalized as art—when the interest in its purpose is bracketed. In The German Ideology Marx wrote, “While in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic” (p. 53). But this people is not totally the story ofthey an unreal dream world. Inthey whatwould is called volunteer activity, can do anything want, and sometimes rather do the kinds of work which have been deemed inferior and dirty in terms of the conventional value hierarchy, namely, in that system which holds brain work to be greater than physical work. In their volunteer or leisure time they can do hard, dirty, and inferior work with a sense of purpose, only because it is not their subsistence. This proves that what makes labor anguishing does not come from its inherent characteristics, but the economic interest that subordinates every labor to exchange value. 23. Karl Marx, Grundrisse , trans. Martin Nicolaus (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1973), pp. 420–421. 24. See Antonio Negri, Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse , trans. Harry Cleaver, Michael Ryan, and Maurizio Viano (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1991). 25. Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks , p. 110. 26. Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks , pp. 229–230. 27. In societies that existed previous to the stage of state, there was a division of labor between mentype andofwomen, butthat not patriarchy. It isrobbery since the early stage of state, namely, when the exchange is based upon and redistribution by violence became dominant that patriarchy came into existence. In contrast, commodity exchange realized the equality between men and women, but it also concretized the hierarchical division between value productive labor and nonvalue productive labor. In the modern capitalist nation-state, while there is no longer a conspicuous patriarchy, it is reinforced in the modern family with its masks of equality. As opposed to this, there is a movement that encourages women to launch into value productive work. Notwithstanding the importance of this idea, I have to point out that it simply follows the logic of capitalism. The true struggle against patriarchy should be the struggle against capitalism as a whole. Ivan Illich famously claims that capitalism destroyed the reciprocity and equality between men’s and women’s labor http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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observed in agrarian communities. Notwithstanding its correctness, one must also acknowledge the moment of thepeople capitalist economyAnd thatitreleased the bounds of the premodern community to make individuals. is impossible to overcome the masked patriarchy by returning to an agrarian community. This task can be achieved only by realizing the trade (exchange) as individuals’ association. 28. Concerning this kind of credit system, LETS (Local Exchange Trading System), started in the 1980s by Michael Linton, deserves mention. Beginning with Proudhon’s “mutualism”—free credit and exchange banks—there have been many attempts similar to this. LETS is not an anarchist project; it was formulated in order to protect regional economies from the forces of global capital. After examining local currencies that were tried the Depression of the 1930s—including theidea stamp money conceptualized by during Silvio Gesell (1862–1930)—Linton solidified his of exchange. This has been widely practiced in Canada, England, France, Argentina, and Japan. In most cases, it has been practiced to protect the local economy from global capitalism. However, LETS turned out to carry more revolutionary potential to counteract capital and state than Linton had expected. It is far beyond the local money, especially when it is combined with Internet. 29. In his afterword to Communists Like Us , Antonio Negri strictly distinguishes between socialism and communism. Socialism is the social system whereby individuals are compensated accordingare to what they work for, whiletocommunism social system whereby individuals compensated according their needs. isInthe Marxism in general, socialism is deemed a transitional stage toward communism. In other words, it is supposed that by an increase of productivity, socialist society be shifted to a society where individuals work according to their abilities and get what they need. Negri denies this. His point is that socialism is a form of capitalism that can never be shifted to communism. I totally agree with this. We both hold that the objective is communism and not socialism. However, in terms of the prospect, what Negri says is obscure to me. My conviction is that only by having LETS (which abolishes labor value itself) as a ground can communism be approached. 30. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political , trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 57. 31. Max Weber, Politik als Beruf (Berlin: Dunker & Humbolt, 1968), p. 8: “Heute dagegen werden wir sagen müssen: Staat ist diejenige menschliche Gemeinschaft, welche innerhalb eines bestimmten Gebietes—dies: das ‘Gebiet’, gehört zum Merkmal—das Monopol legitimer physischer Gewaltsamkeit für sich (mit Erfolg) beansprucht.” 32. For individual capitals, nothing is more damaging than boycotts. The most powerful campaign the Civil Rights movement of the late Alabama. 1950s wasItinitiated by the boycotting of theinsegregated bus services in Montgomery, is said that the leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., learned the spirit of nonviolent resistance from Gandhi. But what needs to be stressed here is that nonviolent resistance was done as a boycott. Without referring to Gandhi, Malcolm X, later in his life, sought to do what Gandhi did in his own context: He was trying to organize consumers’/producers’ cooperatives by and for the African American community. It was a tacit boycott against capitalist economy. Since his death, the social welfare system has begun to support many more impoverished, including African Americans; but it does not help their independence. What is imperative here is also not the social democracy that organizes the state’s redistribution of wealth, but the autonomous movement to create consumers’/producers’ cooperatives. http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kojin-karatani-transcritique-on-kant-and-marx

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33. Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 51 n 31. 34. Anarcho-syndicalists denied intellectuals’ representation and insisted on workers’ autonomous movements: Workers themselves should represent workers. The denial of representation results in the denial of political interventions other than those of workers. But what about the anarcho-syndicalists themselves? They were a small group of people and, after all, representing workers. Similar things can be said about minority movements. The persistent stance that minority liberation should be undertaken by minorities themselves is definitely correct in one aspect; but it also results in rejecting those who are not minor in the same category. So it is that the movement tends to be closed. Individuals living category. in variousThis dimensions; if one is minor in one category, he or she is not inare another further splits the minorities’ movements. 35. The multitude of associations that would be organized by LETS would have the same semi-lattice structure. About this structural characteristic, see my Architecture as Metaphor: Language, Number, Money , trans. Sabu Kohso (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995). 36. It is impossible to assure that the bureaucratic system won’t appear in the association theoccur division labor entrenchment of of producers’/consumers’ representative positionscooperatives; will inevitably dueof to the and difference of individual potency. To avoid this, it is necessary to employ both election and lottery. 37. As one example, I would like to mention the New Associationist Movement (NAM), which was launched in Japan in the year 2000.


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Index

Absolute Other, 126–127 Adorno, Theodor, 123–125

universal suffrage and, 183 Utopians and, 176–177

Aesthetics, 37–39, 133, 318n47 freedom and, 113–115 pleasure and, 40–41 socialism and, 345n22 Alienation theory defined, 192 money and, 213–214 self, 136–137, 169, 213–214 surplus value and, 238 Althusser, Louis, 4, 120, 136,

Anderson, 13–14, 277–278 AnthropologyBenedict, from a Pragmatic Point of View (Kant), 214–215 Antinomy, 61, 310n32 anarchism and, 177–178 capitalism and, 225 ego and, 90–91 LETS and, 298–301 Proudhon and, 177–178 money and, 298

147–148, 161 Analytic judgment, 188–189 Anarchism, 17 administrative power and, 183 antinomy and, 177–178 Bakunin and, 165, 178, 180–181 Bolshevism and, 329n74 Chartist movement and, 168, 292 democracy and, 182–184 economic issues and, 157

value form theory and, Apodictic judgment, 55 189–190 Apperception, 76–80 Arendt, Hannah, 42, 317n42 Art, 113–115 Associations, 17–18 Bakunin and, 284 Capital and, 284–285, 287–288, 290–292, 297–298 centralization and, 304–305

Hegel 171–172 Lassalleand, and,168–169, 165 Marx and, 165–184 Paris Commune and, 182 principle of association and, 283–284 production process and, 165–166, 177–184 proper names and, 171–172 property and, 166–167, 170 Proudhon and, 165, 173–184

communism and, 283–306 (see also Communism) consumers and, 293–296 Copernican turn and, 295–296 counteraction and, 298–306 Engels and, 286 First International, 284 Gandhi and, 292, 302 globalism and, 293 Gramsci and, 291–292

self-alienation and, 169172–173 Stirner and, 165, 169,

industrial capital Kautsky and, 286 and, 289–290


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Associations (cont.) labor LETS and, and, 288–290 298–301 M-C-M formula and, 296–297 Mill and, 287 money structure and, 297–298 Negri and, 290–291 nonviolence and, 302 Paris Commune, 284 revolutionizing of, 285–286 Ricardo and, 285

Capitalism, 5, 165 anarchic crises and,of,157 antideluvian form 186 antinomy and, 225 archi-form of, 266–268 associations and, 283–306 autonomous power of, 281–282 barter and, 200–201 boycotts and, 346n32 Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 circulation process and, 11, 207–208,

Say’s Law of Market and, Second International, 283,290 286–287, 296 subjectivism and, 288, 290–291, 293–294 surplus value and, 291 Third International, 287 Third World and, 295 total social capital and, 292–293 Assozierter Verstand (associated understanding), 178, 180, 183

also 224–225 (see Circulation process) commodity and, 9–15, 200–211 (see also Commodity) cosmopolitanism and, 211–212 counteraction to, 298–306 credit and, 156, 217–222, 335n45, 346n28 crisis in, 231–232 depression and, 220–221 driving mechanisms of, 200–211

Bacon, Francis, 42 Bahktin, 70 Bailey, Samuel, 5–7 surplus value and, 228 value form theory and, 193–196 Bakunin, Mikhail, 17–18, 329n75 anarchism and, 180–181 Marx and, 178 principle of association and, 284

ethics and,issues 216–217 exchange and, 200–211 foreign trade and, 260–261 French Revolution and, 14–15 globalism and, 11–12, 15–16, 251–263 historical materialism and, 140 imagined communities and, 12–14 imperialism and, 266 individual distribution and, 246–247 individual subordination and, 171

Barter, Bataille,200–201, George, 232 204, 210 Beauty, 41–42 Being, 97–100 Benjamin, Walter, 268 Bernstein, Edouard, 16, 287, 302 Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche), 122–123 Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud), 123–124

industrial and, 234–241, 251–283, capital 289–290 interest and, 156 LETS and, 23–25, 298–301 linguistic approach and, 228–234 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20 (see also M-C-M formula) merchant capital and, 234–241, 262, 266 metaphysics and, 211–217

Blankenburg, W., 92–93 Bonaparte, Louis, 145–146, 150 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 143 Bourbaki, Nicolas, 78 Bourgeois, 145, 150 Boycotts, 346n32 Bracketing, 117–120, 160–161 Bullionists, 6–7 Burke, Kenneth, 144

miser and,18–19 7 moral analogy issues and, natural environment and, 282–283 nonviolence and, 302 origin and, 223 parallax and, 152–161 plunder and, 202–203 Polanyi and, 302–303 production control and, 166 profit and, 168, 241–251

Candide (Voltaire), 45

putting-out system and, 223 reciprocity and, 202–203

Cantor, Georg, 61–62


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351 Index

redistribution and, 202 religion and, 221, 266 and, 150–151 representation systems revolution and, 16–17 self-realization and, 21 speculation and, 156 state regulation and, 11–12 surplus value and, 223–251 value form and, 7–12, 185–211 Wallerstein and, 268 Capital (Marx), 3–6, 303 associations and, 284–292, 297–298 Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 Democritus and, 161–162 Epicurus and, 161–162 freedom and, 119–120 globalism and, 259–260, 263 Hegel and, 157–159 individuality and, 105–106 landowner personification and, 164 logic and, 160

Schmitt and, 271 transcritique of, 265–283 value form theory and, 203–204, 221 Wallerstein and, 268–269 Cartesian method. See Descartes, Rene Cassirer, Ernst, 102 Causality, 139 Chartist movement, 168, 285, 292 Circulation process, 8, 11, 215–216. See also Money cosmopolitanism and, 211–212 LETS 23–25, 298–301 M-C-Mand, formula and, 9–10, 20, 154–156, 207–208 profit and, 241–251 stockpiling and, 210 surplus value and, 223–228, 241–251 value form theory and, 185–211 Civil War in France, The (Marx), 17, 330n76 Class struggle

money and, 21–23 moral issues and, 18–19 Proudhon and, 175 representation systems and, 150–151 revolution and, 16–17 state regulation and, 11–12 surplus value and, 241 transcritique and, 163 value form and, 7–12, 185 (see also Value form theory)

anarchism and, 165–184 (see also Anarchism) associations and, 283–306 bourgeois and, 145, 150 Capital and, 150–151 Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 capital’s drive and, 200–211 commodity and, 145–146 economic issues and, 152–161 globalism and, 251–263

Capital-Nation-State, 17 Anderson and, 277–278 associations and, 283–306 counteraction to, 298–306 economic issues and, 221 (see also Economic issues) exchange forms and, 276–277, 344n16 fetishism and, 271 feudalism and, 278 French Revolution and, 278–279

individual and, 166–167 landownersproperty and, 150–151 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20, 154–156 overdetermination and, 147–148 production process and, 177–184 (see also Production process) profit and, 168, 241–251 representation systems and, 145–152 state embodiment and, 150 surplus value and, 223–228, 241–251

globalism and,275, 281280–281 Gramsci and, Hegel and, 273–275, 279–280 Hobbes and, 272 imperialism and, 266 Lenin and, 265–266, 276–277 loans and, 266 M-C-M formula and, 265 monarchical states and, 270–275 natural environment and, 282–283 nonviolence and, 302 primitive accumulation and, 270

transformation problem and, 243–244 value form theory and, 185–211 wage workers and, 150–151 (see also Labor) Clifford, James, 84 Cogito, 83–85 God and, 91–92 Marx and, 134 skepticism and, 95–98 (see also Skepticism) thinking/doubting 86–88 understanding and,and, 102–103


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Cognition. See Judgment

synthesis of, 189–190

Cohen, Hermann, 128 Colonialism, 258–259 Commodity, 9–10, 12–13. See also Capitalism accumulation and, 211 agent consciousness and, 241–243 aggregation and, 231 alienation theory and, 192 associations and, 283–306 Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283

trade cycles and,problem 247–251and, 243–244 transformation value form theory and, 185–211, 215–216 Common sense, 44 aesthetics and, 39–40, 113–115 daydreams and, 45–47 Kantian turn and, 38–39 reflection and, 47–53 synthesis and, 189

colonialism equivalency and, and, 258–259 191–193 e-trade and, 266 exchange and, 198–211, 225–226, 276–277, 344n16 ex post facto observation and, 191–193, 222 fetishism and, 6, 196, 208–209, 271, 298 as fictitious institution, 197–198

Communism associationism and, 17–18, 283–306 economic issues and, 8, 17–19 freedom and, 129–130 future and, 217 Left Hegelians and, 168–169 moral issues and, 129–130 production process and, 165–166, 177 Community aesthetics and, 113–115

foreign trade and, 260–261 French Revolution and, 14–15 generalism and, 205 globalism and, 251–263 hierarchical structures and, 205–206 historical materialism and, 4–8, 133, 139–140, 163, 322n7 Hobbes and, 272 illusion and, 219–220 industrial capital and, 234–241

associations and, 283–306 Being and, 97–100 capital’s drive and, 200–211 class struggle and, 145–152 cosmopolitanism and, 211–212 enlightenment and, 100–103 exchange and, 225–226, 276–277 ex post facto observation and, 191–193, 217–218 fantasy and, 169

intrinsic value of, 268 LETS and, 23–25, 298–301 manifold system analysis and, 228 mercantilism and, 153 merchant capital and, 234–241 metamorphosis of, 190 metaphysics of, 211–217 money and, 145 (see also Economic issues) moral issues and, 216–217

freedom globalismand, and,112–130, 251–263118 imagined, 12–14 individuality and, 100–112, 171 intermundia of, 201–202 isolation and, 140–141 Kripke and, 109–111 LETS and, 23–25, 298–301 levels of, 202 nation-states and, 101

natural and, 282–283 plunderenvironment and, 206 position and, 199–200 price and, 241–244 principle of association and, 276–277, 283–306 profit and, 241–251 reciprocity and, 202–203 religion and, 139, 212 social equilibrium and, 206

plunder and, 202–203, 206 proper names and, 109–112 redistribution and, 202 religion and, 171 representation systems and, 142–152 responsibility and, 126 social equilibrium and, 206 sociality and, 100–112 Socrates and, 98–99 Constitutability, 62–63

as social hieroglyphic, 232 surplus value and, 223–251

Constructivism, 129–130 Consumers, 20–21, 235–236, 293–296


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353 Index

Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Rorty),

106 Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, A (Marx), 5, 163, 193,

solipsism and, 82

206–207 Copernican turn, 136 Freud and, 32–35 Jung and, 32–35 Kant and, 29–35, 42, 295–296 Marx and, 137–138 Corporatism, 16

Spinoza and, 95–96 and, 86–88, 91–92, thinking/doubting 95–98 (see also Skepticism) unconscious structure and, 85–86 Determinism, 162 Dialectics, 133 Dictatorships, 182 Diderot, Denis, 148 Difference and Repetition (Deleuze), 101–102

Cosmopolitanism, 211–212 Creative destruction, 248 Critique of Judgment (Kant), 2 freedom and, 127 reflection and, 49 transcritique and, 35–44 value form theory and, 187–188 Critique of Practical Reason (Kant) freedom and, 117–118 thing-in-itself and, 50–52

“Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature in General” (Marx), 161 Discourse on Method (Descartes), 42, 81–83, 86–88, 96 Doctrinal faiths. See Religion Doubting. See Skepticism Dreams daydreams, 45–47, 129 dreamwork and, 147

transcritique 35–44 Critique of Pure and, Reason (Kant), 2 aesthetics and, 115 apperception and, 76 Copernican turn and, 29–35 freedom and, 117–118, 121 parallax and, 44–53 transcritique and, 35–44 value form theory and, 188 Darstellung (ideological

representations), 142–152 Darwin, Charles, 31–32 Daydreams, 45–47, 129 Deleuze, Gilles, 101–102, 112–113 Democracy, 182–184 Democritus, 161–162 Derrida, Jacques, 48, 91, 232

Der Verlust der natürlichen Selbstverständlichkeit (Blankenburg),

92–93 Rene, 42 Descartes, Amsterdam and, 134 cogito and, 83–88, 91–92, 96, 134 ego and, 5–6, 81–88, 91–92 God and, 91–92 Hume and, 93 Kant and, 81–88, 91–92 Lévi-Strauss and, 83–85 methodology of, 42, 81–88, 91–92, 96 representation systems and, 149 skepticism and, 134

Freud and,45–47 147 Kant and, Marx and, 147 representation systems and, 147 Dreams of a Visionary Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics (Kant), 1–4, 45–46 Drive (Trieb ), 6, 215

surplus value and, 223–228, 241–251 Duchamp, Marcel, 113, 119 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

(Marx), 136, 161, 163, 212–213 Economic issues agent consciousness and, 241–243 alienation theory and, 192 associations and, 283–306 auto–adjustment and, 155 barter and, 200–201 capitalism and, 200–211 (see also Capitalism)

Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 categorization and, 18–19 circulation process and, 11 (see also Circulation process) classical economics and, 153–154, 193, 200, 268, 331n12, 333n16 class struggle and, 145–152 colonialism and, 258–259 communism and, 17–19 cosmopolitanism and, 211–212 crisis and, 231–232, 325n34 depression and, 220–221


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354 Index

Economic issues (cont.)

Ego, 169, 236. See also Individuality

determinism and, 139 203, 205–206 domain and, 186–187, exchange and, 12–13, 185, 276–277 (see also Commodity) ex post facto observation and, 191–193, 222 fetishism and, 6, 196, 208–209, 271, 298 foreign trade and, 260–261 French Revolution and, 14–15

antinomy 90–91 Being and,and, 97–100 Cartesian method and, 5–6, 81–88, 91–92 community subordination and, 171 freedom and, 112–130 God and, 91–92 Hume and, 94 Husserl and, 88–91 intentionalism and, 89

globalism and, 11–12, Great Depression, 236,15–16, 250 251–263 Hegel and, 158–160 hierarchical structures and, 205–206 Hobbes and, 272 illusion and, 219–220 imagined communities and, 12–14 (see also Community) individuality and, 106 labor value and, 6 (see also Labor)

intuitionism and, 90–91 M-C-M formula and, 155 plural, 195–196 property and, 170 schizophrenia and, 92–93 singularity and, 100–112 specter and, 172–173 Stirner and, 327n53, 328n57 superego, 123–124 synthesis and, 189

LETS and,approach 23–25, 298–301 linguistic and, 228–234 logic and, 157–159 market economy and, 186 masochism and, 215 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20 (see also M-C-M formula) miser and, 7 natural environment and, 282–283 overdetermination and, 147–148

value form theory and, 189–190, 195–196 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, The (Marx), 175, 256

Capital-Nation-State and, 269, 271, 275 representation systems and, 142–143, 147–151 Element of Criticism (Home), 37 Elements (Euclid), 58–59 Emmanuel, Arghiri, 259

parallax plunder and, and, 152–161 202–203, 206 political issues and, 221 price and, 243–244 problem of sublime and, 215 profit and, 241–251 reciprocity and, 202–203 redistribution and, 202 religion and, 221 representation systems and, 145

Empiricism, Logic, 4, 139The (Hegel), 121, 158 Encyclopedia

revolution and, 14–17 Ricardian socialism and, 152–161 Say’s Law of Market and, 290 social equilibrium and, 206 spirit development and, 158 state regulation and, 11–12 stockpiling and, 210 surplus value and, 223–251 synthetic judgment and, 185–193 trade cycle and, 247–251

Epicurus, 215, 225 Ethics. See 98, also 161–162, Moral issues aesthetics and, 113–115 counteraction to capitalism, 298–306 Kantian, 112–130 LETS and, 298–301 money and, 216–217 nature/freedom and, 112–130 Stirner and, 171 E-trade, 266

value form theory and, 7–12, 185–211

Euclid, 32–35, 121 58 Eudemonism,

Engels, Friedrich, 3, 8 anarchism and, 179 class struggle and, 145–146 Germany and, 138–139 materialism and, 133 socialism and, 16 systemizing of Marx and, 133, 139–140 Enlightenment, 100–103


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355 Index

Evolution, 31–32 See Commodity Exchange. Existentialism, 105 Experience aesthetic judgment and, 37–38 singularity and, 100–112 Externalization, 48–49

masochism and, 215

Faith. See Religion Fascism, 146–147, 255–256 Fetishism, 6, 196, 271, 208–209, 298

superego and, 123–124 Galileo, 42 Gandhi, Mahatma, 292, 302 Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 57 Generality, 38, 42–43 commodity and, 205 community and, 12, 100–112 Deleuze and, 101–102 freedom and, 112–130

Feudalism, 222,Debate, 255, 278 Feudal System 255 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 105 alienation theory and, 213–214 anarchism and, 171 Left Hegelians and, 168–169 religion and, 213 Feyerabend, Paul, 43 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 155 Fordism, 236, 286, 340n35

individuality and, 100–112 understanding and, 102–103 Geocentrism, 42 Copernican turn and, 29–35 Geometry, 32–35, 57 proof and, 58–59, 61–65 German-French Annual Journal (Marx and Ruge), 138 German Idealism, 141 M-C-M formula and, 155

Formalism, 60–61,and 68 History (Poster), Foucault, Marxism,

representation system and,and 142–152 German Ideology, The (Marx Engels),

267 Foundations of Geometry (Hilbert),

63–64 France, 152, 280 Freedom, 112–116 Adorno and, 123–125 antinomy and, 177–178 bracketing and, 117–120 communism and, 129–130 and, 171 community subordination constructivism and, 129–130 cross-generational issues and, 127–128 Hegel and, 121 Kierkegaard and, 126 Marx and, 119 Nietzsche and, 122–123 production process and, 128–129 religion and, 120 theoretical, 120–121 thing-in-itself and, 122 Frege, Gottlob, 60 French Revolution, 14–15, 278 representation systems and, 142–146 Saint-Simonism and, 279 universal suffrage and, 143–144 Freud, Sigmund, 157–158 consciousness and, 33 Copernican turn and, 32–35 dreams and, 147 language and, 73–74

3–4, 105, 217, 323n10 Althusser and, 161 anarchism and, 167 Hiromatsu and, 139 historical materialism and, 140 proper names and, 172 transposition and, 136, 138–139 Germany, 320n66 associations and,and, 284 152 economic issues Engels and, 138–139 Idealism and, 141–142 Marx and, 138 political issues and, 142–152 religion and, 212 representation systems and, 142–152 socialism and, 16–17 World War I, 146–147 Gemeinschaft , 226 Gesellschaft , 226

Globalism, 11–12, 15–16, 304–305 associations and, 293 capitalism and, 251–263 Capital-Nation-State and, 281 colonialism and, 258–259 foreign trade and, 260–261 four commodity exchanges and, 276–277 Glorious Revolution, 272 God. See Religion


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Gödel, Kurt, 64–68

Marx and, 133, 139–140, 163

Gold, 209,17 218, 226–227 Gotha195–197, Programme, Grammar of Motives (Burke), 144 Gramsci, Antonio, 256, 275, 280–281, 291–292 Great Britain, 16–17, 280 colonialism and, 258–259 globalism and, 256, 260, 262–263 Great Depression, 236, 250 Great Transformation, The (Polanyi), 202

miser form and, 7and, 7 value Hitler, Adolf, 146–148 Hobbes, Thomas, 272 Hodgskin, Thomas, 168 Holy Family (Marx), 136, 140–141 Home, Henry, 37–38 Hugo, Victor, 145 Humanism, 1 Hume, David, 5, 272–273

Grundrisse (Marx), 5, 159, 163, Gunzo (literary magazine), xiii 193

ego and,turn 93–94 Kantian and, 36–37 mathematics and, 56–57, 60 Husserl, Edmund antinomy and, 91 ego and, 88–91 Kant and, 88–91 skepticism and, 95

Habermas, 180 Hacking, Ian, 108 Hamann, J. G., 108 Hegel, Georg, 3, 9, 99 alienation theory and, 213 anarchism and, 168–169, 171–172, 180–181 Capital and, and, 157 101 community

economic issues and, 157–160 Estates and, 273–274 freedom and, 121 imagination-power and, 36 individuality and, 107–108, 111 Left Hegelians and, 168–169 monarchical states and, 273–274 proper names and, 111–112 religion and, 189 representation systems and, 142–143 singularity and, 107 system of, 133, 279 understanding and, 103 value form theory and, 188–189 Heidegger, Martin, 50 imagination-power and, 36 representation systems and, 149 skepticism and, 97–98 Heliocentrism, 29–35, 42 Heraclitus, 98–99 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 103, 316n34 Hess, Moses, 136 Hilbert, David, 63–64 Hippasos, 57 Hiromatsu, Wataru, 139, 145–146, 324n22 Historical materialism, 322n7. See also Economic issues Engels and, 139–140 historical, 4–8

Idealism, 141–142 Illusion, 195–196, 219–220 Imagination individuality and, 100–112 Kant and, 102–103 Imagination-power, 35–36 Imagined communities. See Community Imagined Communities (Anderson), 13–14 Incompleteness Theorem, 66 India, 258 Individual capitals, 246–247 Individuality, 169. See also Subjectivism alienation theory and, 192 bracketing and, 117–118 class struggle and, 145–152 economic determinism and, 139 Hegel and, 107–108, 111 Kripke and, 109–111 language and, 108–109 LETS and, 23–25, 298–301 Marxian representation and, 142–152 nature/freedom and, 112–130 perverted form and, 192 proper names and, 109–111, 171–172 property and, 166–167, 170 representation systems and, 142–152 Russell and, 109–110 self-alienation and, 213–214 singularity and, 100–112 social equilibrium and, 206 specter and, 172–173 subordination of, 171


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surplus value and, 236 will and, 164 Industrial bourgeoisie, 145 Industrial capital associations and, 289–290 Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 globalism and, 251–263 value form theory and, 234–241 Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth, An (Thompson), 168 Interpretation of Dreams, The (Freud), 147

Introspection, 2–4 90–91 Intuitionism, 60–63, Jakobson, Roman, 77, 79, 229–230 Jameson, Fredric, 21, 291, 304–305 Janik, Allan, 73 Japan, 146 Japan Capitalism Debate, 255–257 Jaspers, Karl, 124, 320n66 Judgment aesthetics and, 37–41, 113–115 analytic, 188–189 apodictic, 55 Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 determinative, 187–188 expansive, 65 Husserl and, 88–91 Kantian ethics and, 112–130 linguistic turn and, 65–76 mathematical foundations of, 55–65 M-C-M formula and, 154–156 pedagogy and, 68–70 reductionism and, 56 reflection and, 187–188 (see also Reflection) speculation and, 51–52 synthetic, 51, 55–80, 185–193 thing-in-itself and, 44–53 thinking/doubting and, 86–88, 91–92 (see also Skepticism) transcendental apperception and, 76–80 unconscious structure and, 86 undecidability and, 64–67 understanding and, 102–103 value form theory and, 185–193 Juglar cycle, 248–249 Jung, Carl, 32–35 Kant, Immanuel aesthetics and, 113–115 alienation theory and, 213–214

anarchism and, 180 antinomy and, 61, 90–91 (see also Antinomy) apperception and, 76–80 bracketing and, 117–120 Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 constructivism and, 129–130 Copernican turn and, 29–35, 295–296 cosmopolitanism and, 4, 211–212 ego and, 5–6, 81–92 enlightenment and, 100–103 Epicurean and, 326n41 ethics and, contingency 112–130, 216–217 Husserl and, 88–91 imagination scheme and, 102–103 individuality and, 100–112 judgment and, 55–80, 187–188 language and, 65–80 literary criticism and, 35–44 Marx and, 163 mathematics and, 55–65 metaphysics and,and, ix–x 112–130 nature/freedom reflection and, 2–4, 47–53 singularity and, 100–112 skepticism and, 94 sociality and, 100–112 subjectivism and, 1, 3, 81–92 surplus value and, 227–228 throwness and, 30 transcendentalism and, 1, 5–6 transversalism travel and, 135and, 92–100 understanding and, 102–103 universality/generality and, 100–112 value form theory and, 187–188, 216 Kantian turn, 136 aesthestics and, 37–38 common sense and, 38–39, 44 Copernican turn and, 29–35 daydreams and, 45–47 imagination-power Lisbon earthquake and, and, 35–36 45 literary criticism and, 35–44 metaphysics and, 44–53 parallax and, 44–53 pleasure and, 40–41 reflection and, 47–53 regulative Idea and, 51 speculation and, 51–52 transcendental critique and, 35–44 transcendental structures and, universality/generality and, 38,31–32 42–43


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Karl Marx and the Close of his System

surplus value and, 223–251

(von Böhm–Bawerk), 243 Kautsky, Karl Johann, 286–287 Kelsen, Hans, 144 Keynsianism, 236 Kierkegaard, Søren, 8 freedom and, 126 individuality and, 104–105 religion and, 331n5 value form theory and, 189 Knowledge

transformation problem transposition and, 20–21 and, 243–244 value form theory and, 185–211, 215–216 wages and, 150–151 Labor theory, 215–216, 337n8 Lacanian theory, 148 Lambert, Johann Heinrich, 57 Landowners, 164 class struggle and, 150–151

Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 individuality and, 100–112 judgment and, 112 (see also Judgment) Kantian ethics and, 112–130 manifold system analysis and, 237–238 nature/freedom and, 112–130 Nietzsche and, 112–113

value form335n37 theory and, 197–198 Language, apperception and, 76–80 Cartesian method and, 82–83 Freud and, 73–74 games of, 71, 73, 82–83 Gödel and, 65–67 grammar and, 74–75, 82 individuality and, 108 linguistic turn and, 65–76

Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Vaihinger), 36–37

Kondratieff’s wave, 250 Königsberg, 135 Koza-ha school of thought, 255 Kripke, Saul, 72, 109–111 Kuhn, Thomas, 30–32 Labor, 6, 17 alienation theory and, 192 anarchism and, 165–184 (see also Anarchism) associations and, 283–306

Marx and, 138 and, 68–69 Meno’s paradox origin theories and, 200–201 parental training and, 71–72 pedagogy and, 68–72, 75–76 phonemes and, 77–78 political issues and, 143 proper names and, 109–112, 171–172 realists and, 108–109 representation systems and, 142–152

capitalism and, 19–20and, 265–283 Capital-Nation-State capital’s drive and, 200–211 consumers and commodity, 235–236 (see also Commodity) Copernican turn and, 295–296 Gandhi and, 302 gender and, 345n27 globalism and, 251–263 individuality and, 105–106

Saussure and, 79–80 singularity and, 107 solipsism and, 73–74 structure and, 76–80 undecidability and, 65–67 understanding and, 103 Valéry and, 232–233 value form theory and, 197–200, 228–234 Wittgenstein and, 65–74, 82–83

industrial capitalism and, 234–241 language and, 228–234 LETS and, 23–25, 298–301 Marxian representation and, 142–152 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20, 154–156 merchant capital and, 234–241 profit and, 168, 241–251 prolonged workday and, 249 representation systems and, 142–152, 347n34

Lassalle, Ferdinand, 17, 159 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy

revolutionizing of, 285–286 state control of, 165

l’histoire (Lyotard), x Leviathan (Hobbes), 272

(Arendt), x Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 56, 188 Lenin, Vladimir, 287, 302 anarchism and, 181–182 Capital-Nation-State and, 265–266, 276–277 dictatorships and, 182 L’enthousiasme: La critique kantienne de


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Lévi-Strauss, 83–85, 204–205

foreign trade and, 260–261

Liberalism, 270 23 Linton, Michael, Lisbon earthquake, 45 Local Exchange Trading System (LETS), 23–25, 298–301 Locke, John, 272–273 Logic, 213 apperception and, 76–80 Capital and, 160 economic issues and, 157–159

France 142–144 freedomand, and,136, 119–120, 129–130 German-French Annual Journal and, 138 German Idealism and, 141–142 globalism and, 251–263 individuality and, 105–106 industrial capital and, 234–241 isolation and, 140–141 Kant and, 163 (see also Kant, Immanuel)

Gödel and, 64–66 language and, 65–76 mathematics and, 55–65 pedagogy and, 68–70 unconscious structure and, 86 universality-generality and, 12, 100–112 Love, 202 Lukács, Georg, 102–103, 222, 305 Lyotard, Jean-François, x, 42

labor and, 215–216, LETS theory and, 23–25, 298–301 337n8 linguistic approach and, 228–234 London and, 135–136 manifold system analysis and, 228, 237–238 materialism and, 133, 136, 163, 322n7 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20 ( see also M-C-M formula) merchant capital and, 234–241

Maistre, Marie Compte 103 ManifestoJoseph of the Communist Party de, (Marx), 165 Manifold system analysis, 228, 237–238 Market economy, 186 Marruyama, Masao, 255 Martin, Gottfried, 57–59, 62 Marx, Karl alienation theory and, 161, 169 anarchism and, 165–184

miser and, 7 overdetermination and, 148 parallax and, 152–161 Paris Commune and, 182 production process and, 177 (see also Production process) profit and, 241–251 proper names and, 172 property and, 166–167 Proudhon and, 173–180, 183

antinomy and, 298 (see also Antinomy) associations and, 17–18, 283–306 Bakunin and, 17–18, 178 bracketing and, 160–161 Brussels and, 136 capitalism and, 200–211 (see also Capitalism) Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 circulation process and, 8, 11 class struggle and, 145–152 communism and, 17–19 (see also Communism) as critic, 161–165 Democritus and, 161–162 doubt and, 134 dreams and, 147 economic issues and, 3–4, 152–161 ego and, 5–6 Epicurus and, 161–162 exchange theory and, 72 fetishism and, 6, 196, 208–209, 271, 298 Feuerbachian theory and, 136

religion and, 174–175 4–5, 137 Ricardo and, skepticism and, 98, 134 socialism and, 16–17 stance change of, 161–165 Stirner and, 172–173 surplus value and, 223–228, 241–251 synthetic judgment and, 185–193 system of representation and, 142–152 transformation problem and, 243–244 transposition and, 133–142 unconscious structure and, 86 value form theory and, 7–10, 185–211 Marxian turn, 5, 136 Copernican turn and, 137–138 Engels and, 138–139 Masochism, 215 Mass production, 236, 286. See also Production process Mathematics antinomy 61and, 63–65 axiomatic and, system


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Mathematics (cont.)

capitalism and, 211–217

as basis of truth,and, 56–57 constitutability 62–63 formalism and, 60–61, 68 geometry and, 32–35, 57–59, 61–65 Gödel and, 64–67 Hilbert and, 63–64 Hume and, 56–57, 60 intuitionism and, 60–63 judgment and, 55–65 Kant and, 55–65

daydreams and, ego and, 5–6 (see45–47 also Ego) ex post facto observation and, 191–193, 217–218 freedom and, 112–130 money and, 211–217, 232 parallax and, 44–53 value form theory and, 185–193 Mill, John Stuart, 287 Misers, 7

lingustic turn and, 65–76 Meno’s paradox and, 68–69 non-Euclidean geometry and, 57–59 parallel postulate and, 59–60, 63–64 phonemes and, 77–78 proof and, 58–59, 61–68 reductionism and, 56 set theory and, 57, 60–62, 67 spatial expansion and, 58–59 undecidability and, 64–67

See also Money, 297.theory Economic issues alienation and, 213–214 antinomy and, 298 barter origin of, 200–201 capitalist crisis and, 231–232 Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 classical economics and, 153–154, 333n16 class struggle and, 145–152 as commodity, 145 (see also

Mazzini, Giuseppe, 29220, 268 M-C-M formula, 9–10, associations and, 296–297 Capital-Nation-State and, 265 circulation process and, 207–208 commodity metamorphosis and, 190 credit and, 218–219 industrial capital and, 235 linguistic approach and, 231 parallax and, 154–156, 159–160

Commodity) credit and, 217–222 exchange issues and, 200–211, 276–277 ex post facto observation and, 222 fetishism and, 6, 196, 271, 208–209, 298 as fictitious institution, 197–198 globalism and, 251–263 gold, 195–197, 209, 218, 226–227 hierarchical structures and, 205–206 Hobbes and, 272

surplus value and, and, 223 186, 210 value form theory Mechanical determinism, 162

as illusion, 195–196, 219–220 LETS and, 23–25, 298–301 magic of, 207 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20, 154–156 (see also M-C-M formula) metaphysics and, 211–217, 232 origin theories of, 200–201 plunder and, 206 position and, 199–200 power of, 212–213

Meditations on the First Philosophy

(Descartes), 91–92 Meno’s paradox, 68–69 Mercantilism, 6–7, 153. See also Economic issues Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 drive and, 206 money surplus and, value212, and,216 223–228, 241–251 Merchant capital e-trade and, 266 globalism and, 262 (see also Globalism) value form theory and, 234–241 Meta-mathematical critique, 64–65 Metamorphosis, 142 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20, 154–156 Metaphysics acceptance of, 46–47 analytic judgment and, 188–189

profit and, 241–251 reciprocity and, 202–203 Ricardian socialism and, 153 social equilibrium and, 206 stockpiling and, 210 value form theory and, 185–211 Moral issues aesthetics and, 113–115 capitalism and, 18–19, 298–306 commodity and, 216–217 communism eudemonismand, and,129–130 121


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freedom and, 112–130 Kant and, 112–130 nature/freedom and, 112–130 Nietzsche and, 122–123 Morishima, Michio, 234 Mortality, 61 Multiple language games, 71, 73, 82–83 Nazism, 146–147 Negri, Antonio, 290–291, 300

common sense and, 38–39 community and, 12, 100–112 (see also Community) ego and, 81–92 (see also Ego) Frankfurt School and, 147 Gödel and, 64–65 imagination-power and, 35–36 judgment and, 55–80 (see also Judgment) mathematics and, 55–65 Meno’s paradox and, 68–69

Netherlands, 280Lectures on Psychoanalysis New Introductory (Freud), 147 Newtonian physics, 32–35 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 112–113 freedom and, 122–123 value form theory and, 188–189 Non-Euclidean geometry, 57 proof and, 58–59, 61–65

overdetermination and, pedagogy and, 68–72, 75147–148 philosophia scholastica and, 82 pleasure and, 40–41 plurality and, 41–42 reflection and, 2–4, 47–53 skepticism and, 86–88, 91–92, 96–98 (see also Skepticism) speculation and, 51–52 thinking/doubting and, 91–92

Objectivism, 1–3 234 Okoshio, Nobuo,

Parallax, 2–4

triad system of, and, 279 102–103 understanding universality-generality and, 38, 42–43 Philosophy of Right (Hegel), 181, 279, 280 Philosophy of Spirit (Hegel), 157–158 Phonemes, 77–78 Platonism, 66 linguistic approach and, 232 pedagogy and, 68–72, 75 recollection and, 75

economic issues and, 152–161 Kantian turn and, 44–53 M-C-M formula and, 154–156 skepticism and, 95 Parallel postulate, 59–60, 63–65 Pareto, Vilfredo, 229–230 Paris Commune, 165–166, 182 Pedagogy, 68–72, 75 Phenomenology reductionism and, 92–93

skepticism and, 214–215 98–99 Pleasure, 40–41, aesthetics and, 113–115 freedom and, 112–130 Plunder, 13, 202–203, 206 Polanyi, Karl, 202, 204, 302–303 Political Economy (Hodgskin), 168 Political issues anarchism and, 165–184, 283–284, 329n74

On the Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche),

122–123 Ontology, 97–98 Ortega Y Gasset, Joséhosa, 98 Overdetermination, 147–148 Owen, Robert, 17, 156, 176–177

transcendentalism and, 92–100 (see also Transcendentalism) Philosophical Investigations

(Wittgenstein), 73 Philosophy. See also Kant, Immanuel; Marx, Karl aesthetics and, 38–39 apperception and, 76–80 Being and, 97–100 bracketing and, 117–120 Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 causality and, 139

associations and,329n74 283–306(see also Bolshevism and, Communism) Capital-Nation-State and, 13–16, 265–283 capital regulation and, 11–12, 298–306 class struggle and, 145–152 (see also Class struggle) dictatorships and, 182 economic issues and, 221 (see also asEconomic exchange,issues) 185


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Political issues (cont.) feudalism and, 222,and, 255,14–15, 278 French Revolution 142–146, 278–279 globalism and, 11–12, 15–16, 251–263, 276–277, 281, 293 Hegel and, 133, 142–143 imagined communities and, 12–14 (see also Community) labor theory and, 215–216 language and, 143 LETS and, 137, 23–25, 298–301 Marx and, 142–152 (see also Marx, Karl) metamorphosis and, 142 monarchical states and, 270–275 Nazism, 146–147 representation systems and, 142–152 self-alienation and, 136 state embodiment and, 150 value form theory and, 185–211 WorldalsWar I, 146–147 Politik Beruf (Weber), 182 Popper, Karl, 42–43 Portugal, 258 Poster, Mark, 267 Poverty of Philosophy, The (Marx),

173–175 Price, 241–244 Principle of Federation, The (Proudhon),

171, 175

natural environment and, 282–283 profit and, 168, 241–251 putting-out system and, 223 specialization and, 261–262 state control of, 165–166 surplus value and, 223–228, 241–251 trade cycles and, 247–251 transformation problem and, 243–244 value form theory and, 208 (see also Value form theory) Profit agent consciousness and,223–224 241–243 classical economics and, creative destruction and, 248 extra, 247–248 foreign trade and, 260–261 globalism and, 251–263 price and, 241–242 prolonged workday and, 249 rate of, 244–246 surplus value and, 223–251 technological innovation and, 247–248 theft, 168 Proof Gödel and, 64–68 language and, 65–76 mathematics and, 58–68 pedagogy and, 68–72, 75 Proper names, 171–172 Property, 166–167, 170

Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, The (Ricardo), 153–154

Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, The (Weber), 139, 266

Private property, 166–167

Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, 5, 17, 327n55 anarchism and, 169–170, 180–181, 183–184 democracy and, 183–184 economic parallax and, 156 freedom and, 129 individual property and, 167

Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (Bahktin), 70

Production process, 11, 17, 128–129, 222, 331n12 agent consciousness and, 241–243 anarchism and, 165–184 associations and, 283–306 autonomous power and, 281–282 Capital-Nation-State communism and, 177and, 265–283 difference and, 267–268 Fordism and, 236, 286, 340n35 foreign trade and, 260–261 globalism and, 251–263 individual property and, 166–167 industrial capital and, 234–241 LETS and, 23–25, 298–301 M-C-M formula and, 9–10, 20, 154–156

individual subordination and, 171 linguistic approach and, 232 Marx and, 173–180, 183 money and, 22–23 profit-theft and, 168 religion and, 179–180 surplus value and, 238 value form theory and, 196 Psychoanalysis. See Freud, Sigmund Ptolemy, 30–31

(see also M-C-M formula) merchant capital and, 234–241

Puritan Revolution, 272 Putting-out system, 223


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Qua essence, 32 aesthetics, 133 129 associationism, Capital-Nation-State and, 265–283 German Idealism and, 141–142 specter and, 172–173 surplus value and, 223–228, 241–251 value form theory and, 185–211 world money and, 226 Rawls, John, 129

Lisbon earthquake and, 45 love and, 169 Proudhon and, 179–180 Reformation and, 139 Spinoza and, 96 surplus value and, 236 thing-in-itself and, 53 value form theory and, 189 Representation systems arbitrary relations in, 144–145 Capital and, 150–151

Realism, 108–109See also Kant, Reason, 316n34. Immanuel Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 cogito, 83–88, 91–92, 95–98, 102–103, 134 ego and, 81–88, 91–92 (see also Ego) Husserl and, 88–91 judgment and, 44–53, 55–80 (see also Judgment)

Cartesian method dreams and, 147 and, 149 Engels and, 151 four commodity exchanges and, 276–277 French Revolution and, 142–146 globalism and, 251–263 Heidegger and, 149 industrial bourgeoisie and, 145 labor and, 347n34

Meno’s paradox and, 68–69 pedagogy and, 68–72, 75 rationalism, 4, 7 recollection and, 68–69 speculation and, 51–52 thinking/doubting and, 86–88, 91–92 (see also Skepticism) unconscious structure and, 86 Reciprocity, 202–203 Recollection, 68–69

money and, 145 and, 147–148 overdetermination political issues and, 142–152 Rousseau and, 148–149 state embodiment and, 150 Rescher, Nicholas, 69 Ricardo, David, 5–7, 10 anarchism and, 167–168 associations and, 285 Capital and, 162

Redistribution, 13,92–94 202 Reductionism, 56, Reflection, 2–4 judgment and, 187–188 Kantian turn and, 47–53 origin theories and, 200–201 Reich, Wilhelm, 146–147 Religion, 4–5, 70 abolishment of Christianity and, 331n5 alienation and, 137, 213–214 capitalism theory and, 266 commodity and, 212 criticism of, 212 Descartes and, 91–92 divinity and, 169 economic issues and, 221 as exhange, 185 freedom and, 116, 118, 120 Hegel and, 104, 168–169, 189 as illusion, 212 Kant and, 115–116

capitalism colonialismand, and,234 258–259 economic parallax and, 152–161 labor theory and, 337n8 linguistic approach and, 232 Marx and, 174–175 M-C-M formula and, 154–156 specialization and, 261–262 surplus value and, 227–228, 238 transformation problem and, 243–244 value form theory and, 193–194, 196 Romanticism, 33–34, 102–104 Rono-ha school of thought, 255 Rorty, Richard, 106 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 86, 148–149 Ruge, Arnold, 138 Russell, Bertrand, 60, 73 individuality and, 109–110 linguistic turn and, 65–67 proper names and, 109 realists and, 109


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Saint-Simonism, 279

representation systems and, 151

Sartre, Jean–Paul, 120de, 74 Saussure, Ferdinand linguistic approach and, 229–231 transcendentalism and, 77, 79–80 unconscious structure and, 86 Say’s Law of Market, 290 Schizophrenia, 92–93 Schmitt, Carl, 148, 271, 301 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 30 Schumpeter, Joseph Alois, 239, 248

Ricardian, Socialism and152–161 Communism in France Today

Science Copernican turn and, 29–35 Kantian turn and, 35–44 nature/freedom and, 112–130 Self-alienation, 136–137, 169, 213–214 Set theory, 57, 60–62, 67 Shakespeare, William, 212–213 Skepticism. See also Judgment Cartesian method and, 86–88, 91–92 cogito and, 95–96

Speculation, 51–52 Speech and Phenomenon (Derrida), 91 Spinoza, Baruch, 95–96, 100, 115, 120 Spirit development of, 158 M-C-M formula and, 155–156 value form theory and, 188 Sraffa, Piero, 234 State-in-itself, 150 Stiebeling, George C., 245

Descartes Heideggerand, and,95–98, 97–98134 Hume and, 94 Husserl and, 95 Kant and, 94 (see also Kant, Immanuel) Marx and, 98, 134 (see also Marx, Karl) ontology and, 97–98 reductionism and, 93–94 Socrates and, 94–95, 98–99 Spinoza and, 95–96 Wittgenstein and, 65–71, Smith, Adam, 4, 139, 236 74, 82–83 capitalism and, 154, 200 colonialism and, 258–259 ethics and, 216–217 exchange origin and, 225–226 labor theory and, 215–216 lingusitic approach and, 229 M-C-M formula and, 154–156 money origins and, 200–201 profit-theft and, 168 surplus value and, 227–228 transformation problem and, 243–244 value form theory and, 193, 204 Social capital, 292–293 Social democracy, 16 Socialism, 10, 16 aesthetics and, 345n22 economic issues and, 152–161 Marx and, 16–17 profit-theft and, 168

(von Stein), 168 Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Engels),

151 Socrates, 61, 68–69 skepticism and, 94–95, 98–99 Solipsism, 73–74, 82 Soviet Union, 304 Specter, 172–173

Stirner, Max, 104–106, 165, 169, 316n35 ego and, 327n53, 328n57 ethics and, 171 individual subordination and, 171 Marx and, 172–173 proper names and, 172 religion and, 170–171 specter and, 172–173 Stoicism, 214–215 Structuralism, 76–80 Subjectivism, 1–3, 319n60 aesthetics and, 113–115 associations and, 288, 290–291, 293–294 Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 common sense and, 38–40 Copernican turn and, 29–35 ego and, 81–88, 91–92 externalization and, 48–49 Husserl and, and, 88–91 individuality 100–112 mathematics and, 55–65 pleasure and, 40–41 plurality and, 41–42 proper names and, 109–112 reductionism and, 56 reflection and, 47–53 self-alienation and, 136–137 singularity and, 100–112 synthetic judgment 55–80 understanding and,and, 102–103


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universality-generality and, 12, 38, 42–43,value, 100–112 Surplus 339n19 absolute/relative, 236–237, 249–250 agent consciousness and, 241–243 alienation theory and, 238 associations and, 291 Capital and, 241 capturing of, 250 globalism and, 251–263 industrial capital and, 234–241 linguistic approach and, 228–234 manifold system analysis and, 228, 237–238 margin and, 234 M-C-M formula and, 223 merchant capital and, 234–241 price and, 243–244 profit and, 241–251 transformation problem and, 243–244 value form and, 223–228 (see also Value form theory) Synthetic judgment, 51 expansive, 65 language and, 65–76 linguistic turn and, 65–76 mathematical foundation of, 55–65 pedagogy and, 68–72, 75 transcendental apperception and, 76–80 undecidability and, 64–67

Throwness (Geworfenheit ), 30 Total social capital, 73 292–293 Toulmin, Stephen, Trade cycle, 247–251 Transcendentalism, 1 apperception and, 76–80 Blankenburg and, 92–93 bracketing and, 117–120, 160–161 Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 Copernican turn and, 29–35 ego and, 81–88, 91–92 (see also Ego) ex post facto freedom and,observation 112–130 and, 191–193 Husserl and, 88–91 Kantian ethics and, 31–32, 112–130 language structure and, 76–80 pedagogy and, 68–72, 75 skepticism and, 96–98 (see also Skepticism) thing-in-itself and, 44–53 thinking/doubting and, 86–88 transformation problem and, 243–244 transversalism and, 92–100 value form theory and, 185–211 Transcritique aesthestics and, 37–38 Capital-Nation-State and, 13–16, 265–283 circulation and, 8 (see also Circulation process) communism and, 283–306

value form theory and, 185–193 Tabata, Minoru, 179 Teaching domain and, 101 enlightenment and, 100–103 Platonic pedagogy and, 68–72, 75 sociality and, 100–112 Technology, 162, 247–248 Theory of Moral Sentiments, The (Smith), 139

economic issues 6–14, 17–25 ego and, 5–6 (seeand, also Ego) exchange and, 12–13 (see also Commodity) German Idealism and, 141–142 historical materialism and, 4–8, 133, 139–140, 163, 322n7 Kantian turn and, 35–44 (see also Kant, Immanuel) language and, 65–80

Theses on Feuerbach (Marx), 136, 140

Thing-in-itself absolute Other and, 126–127 Copernican turn and, 29–35 daydreams and, 45–47 freedom and, 122 generality and, 38, 41–42 judgment and, 44–53 literary criticism and, 35–44 parallax and, 44–53

LETS 23–25,and, 298–301 literaryand, criticism 35–44 Marx and, 15–17, 161–165 (see also Marx, Karl) mathematics and, 65–75 nature/freedom and, 112–130 pronounced parallax and, 2–4 reflection and, 1–4, 47–53, 187–188, 200–201 representation systems and, 142–152

universality and, 38, 42–43 Thompson, William, 168

singularity and, 100–112 sociality and, 100–112


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Transcritique (cont.)

linguistic approach and, 228–234

subjectivism and, 81–92 (see also Subjectivism) transversalism and, 92–100 Transformation problem, 243–244 Treatise of Human Nature, A (Hume), 36 Tristes tropiques (Lévi-Strauss), 84–85 Truth Cartesian method and, 81–88, 91–92 enlightenment and, 100–103 God and, 91–92

manifold system margin and, 234 analysis and, 228 M-C-M formula and, 186 natural form and, 198–199 position and, 199–200 profit and, 241–251 realization and, 197–198 reciprocity and, 202–203 Ricardo and, 196 state regulation and, 11–12

Husserl and,and, 88–91 Lévi-Strauss 84–85 pedagogy and, 68–69 reductionism and, 56 skepticism and, 65–71, 74, 82–83, 86–88, 91–92 thinking/doubting and, 91–92 Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, 229 Undecidability, 64–67

stockpiling and, 210 surplus value and, 223–228, 241–251 synthetic judgment and, 185–193 Vertretung. See Representation systems Voltaire, 45 von Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen, 243 von Stein, Lorenz, 168 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 253, 268–269 Weber, Max, 139, 182, 266

United States,38, 304–305 Universality, 42–43 community and, 12, 100–112 Deleuze and, 101–102 freedom and, 112–130 individuality and, 100–112 proper names and, 109–112 singularity and, 100–112 suffrage and, 143–144, 183 understanding and, 102–103

Weil, André, 78 16 Welfare society, What Is Property? (Proudhon), 170

Uno, Kozo,176–177 11, 250, 256 Utopians,

Toulmin), 73 Workers. See Labor World War I, 146–147

Vaihinger, Hans, 36–37 Valéry, Paul, 232–233 Value form theory, 7–11 alienation theory and, 192 analytic judgment and, 188–189 antinomy and, 189–190 Bailey and, 193–196

Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy?

(Hacking), 108 Wiener, Norbert, 52, 267 Wittgenstein, Ludwig judgment and, 74 language and, 65–74, 82–83 Wittgensteins’s Vienna (Janik &

Yoshimoto, Takaaki, 255

capital’s drive and, 200–211197 equivalency and, 191–193, exchange and, 198–200 expanded form and, 198


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