Signature of the world
Started reading Eric Alliez’s The Signature of the World - though, not yet past Alberto Toscano’s preface (also online). The conceptual vitalism is rather rampant. But, for the moment I’m wondering about the genealogy of the phrase ’signature of the world’.
In The Fold, Deleuze writes
if it is true that appertaining - belonging to - is the key to allegory, then Leibniz’s philosophy must be conceived as the allegory of the world, the signature of the world, but no longer as the symbol of a cosmos in the former manner. In this respect the formula of the Monadology, that ‘components symbolize with simple units,’ far from marking a return to the symbol, indicates the transformation or translation of the symbol into allegory.
A search turned this this up:
Many Bible students believe that four is the number of the world. It marks God’s creative works. We might say that it is the signature of the world, or the universal aspect.
And this, from Alfred Edersheim’s The Life and Times of Jesus (1883): “in the feeding of the Gentiles we mark the number four, which is the signature of the world.” Being rather ignorant of biblical hermeneutics, I was also surprised to discover a course in some Christian school titled, ‘World History and the signature of the World’. Is it really a commonplace of a certain kind of Christianity, and if so, what kind?
Obviously, this means re-reading some Leibniz for his understanding of God but also mathematics, but for the moment I’m reminded - although to what effect I’m not sure - of this tweak/remark of Benjamin’s in the The Arcades Project, who was no doubt familiar with hermeneutics, if only via Scholem:
Is it correct to say that the ‘bad infinity’ that prevails in idleness appears in Hegel as the signature of bourgeois society?
If you want maths, plus weird signatures, the absolute ne plus ultra on infinity has to be: G. Cantor, trans. U. Parpart “Foundation of the theory of manifolds,” The Campaigner (The Theoretical Journal of the National Caucus of Labor Committees), 9 (January and February 1976), 69-96.
Yes, that’s Lyndon LaRouche’s organ.
TCO [May 14, 2006 @ 3:14 pm]
I do remember the LaRouchites being into the ‘mark of the beast’ and all. Which is apparently upon us next month - unless it’s 616, which doesn’t have quite the same ring about it.
s0metim3s [May 14, 2006 @ 4:31 pm]
“Is [a concern with ‘the signature of the world’] really a commonplace of a certain kind of Christianity, and if so, what kind?”
Having also been lately perusing The Fold and The Signature of the World, a very similar thought occurred to me during Mass this morning. (Don’t ask.)
In any case, I’ve felt a need to reacquaint myself with differential calculus. What do the approaches to “the world” in calculus have to do with totalisation? Most recently recalled by Neal Stephenson, volume 2 of Newton’s Principia was The System of the World. What relationship does allegory have with totalisation and totality? Not a Jamesonian one, I’d think. And of course, I’m also thinking of Samuel R. Delany’s modular calculus — a kind of magic that allows one to instantly arrive at a Geertzian “thick description” by way of fragmentary narratives — as allegorically strategic totalisation of the world as well. Hmmm…
jebni [May 15, 2006 @ 1:13 am]
Ok, I see the threads.
Came across this (though, epochal assertions have their limits, imo). And I’m wondering how it might be possible to parse, or not, this stuff with that of Lucretius, Machiavelli, Althusser, et al on the ‘void’. Benjamin, also, but perhaps with regard to creation ex nihilo.
And, yeah, but Mass in Hong Kong, Ben - for brownie points, you should have mentioned the latter …
s0metim3s [May 15, 2006 @ 6:03 pm]
hello i was struck by yer phrase ‘conceptual vitalism is rather rampant’ . What do you mean by this? I happen to be reading the same book and find Alliez so refreshing and such a positive thinker and a relief to read someone who thinks about Deleuze and Guattari positively and not negatively and with depression like Zizek or Badiou and their endless efforts to drag the whole joyous DeleuzeoGuattarian project into shambles. He’s wonderfully inventive and that’s as it ought to be working the becomigs of language as much as the authors of A/O creating a programme balance sheet and not overly concerned with wishing to justify anything to imaginary interlocuters with superego machinery. His essay about A/O is rampant with love and energy . It’s nice to be back here at your blog; it’s been redesigned and it swings like they say in music and it swings period like a good blog should doing its own work of deterritorialing and hookin g in the smooth and striated spaces. Have a good day.
clifford duffy [June 14, 2006 @ 4:59 am]
Ps _ o you will also find this image of signature of the world spoken by Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses as he trods the beach at Sandymount. Whilst doing so he ponders Aristotle and B. Berkeley’s queries of entelechy and perception “Signature of all things I am here to read”./ I’m citing that quote from memory but it’s a sweet moment in the book and well worth reading.
clifford duffy [June 14, 2006 @ 5:02 am]
I’m not quite persuaded by the Bergsonian vitalism, I guess.
But, yes, it is good to see someone read D&G, in some important respects very differently to the Leninesque renditions we’re getting from Badiou and Zizek.
And thanks so much for the Ulysses reference! (and for the nice words on the blog.)
s0metim3s [June 14, 2006 @ 5:23 pm]
Yes, the Proteus episode. I’d forgotten. So beautiful. Also, he ponders/question/denies the supremacy of the visual. Tellingly, these are the first words after the episode of his encounter with the nationalist Deasy, his employer from whom he must grovel for money and for whom he must submit to a newspaper a pro-Ireland screed.
Anyway, I’ve typed up those first two paragraphs for anyone interested.
Eric [June 15, 2006 @ 1:55 am]