{"id":769,"date":"2018-11-26T11:45:54","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T09:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/?p=769"},"modified":"2025-03-03T13:43:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T11:43:18","slug":"siarhei-biareishyk-the-overdetermination-of-the-whole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2018\/11\/26\/siarhei-biareishyk-the-overdetermination-of-the-whole\/","title":{"rendered":"Siarhei Biareishyk: THE OVERDETERMINATION OF THE WHOLE"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conception of the whole as a system, that is, as a totality determined by one principle or idea, has dominated the philosophical tradition from Kant and Hegel to Marxism\u2014and, as Louis Althusser\u2019s critique of Hegelianism shows, not without implicit social, political, and ideological consequences. The possibility of breaking with the idealist tradition in all of these respects rests on the articulation of an alternative conception of the whole. Althusser advances the notion of the social whole as a complex unity that is constituted through its own effects\u2014what he calls \u201coverdetermination.\u201d Such overdetermination of the whole displaces the conception of the whole as totality (Hegel) in favor of Spinoza\u2019s notion of modal unity\u2014the whole as singularity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idealist tradition knows two forms of the relation of parts to the whole. In the aggregate<\/em>, according to Kant, the parts precede the whole; in the system<\/em>, the whole precedes the parts. While an aggregate is a contingent whole, the system is characterized by necessity, insofar as the form of the whole is constituted by one principle<\/em> or one idea. <\/em>Whereas Kant is concerned with the idea of the whole solely as an epistemological category, for Schelling, this conception of the whole gains ontological significance. For Schelling, not only is the whole of nature determined by one principle, but this principle animates each of its parts:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnimation is the imprinting of the whole in the individual.\u201d[1]<\/a> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Formally, Hegel\u2019s whole is also such a totality constituted by a single principle as essence [Wesen<\/em>] (whether as Idee<\/em> or Geist<\/em>). Hegel\u2019s decisive intervention, however, consists in thinking the whole as a specifically social <\/em>whole, and thus as a historical product: the existence of each part of the social totality is the expression of the historically unfolding essence of the whole. As Althusser characterizes it, <\/span>\u201cthe Hegelian whole has a type of unity in which each element of the whole, whether a material or economic determination, a political institution or a religious, artistic or philosophical form, is never anything more than the present of the concept with itself at a historically determined moment.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, the whole is not only substance, it is also subject;[3]<\/a> what for Kant is the necessity of the system, in Hegel, due to temporalization of the whole, becomes its teleology<\/em>. Hegel\u2019s whole, in turn, implies a conception of historical time characterized by contemporaneity and homogeneous continuity: it is \u201ca continuum in which <\/em>the dialectical continuity of the process of the development of the Idea is manifest\u201d (RC 104). Each moment of this development entails an existence of social totality that is contemporaneous with itself: \u201call the elements of the whole always co-exist in one and the same time, one and the same present,\u201d while each element \u201ccontains in the immediate form of its expression the essence of the totality itself\u201d (RC 104).<\/span><\/p>\n

As an alternative, Althusser posits a plurality of relatively autonomous structured levels in the social whole\u2014e.g., the economic, the political, the aesthetic\u2014each of which comprises its own particular causal and historical existence. Each structured level entails its own singular historicity, \u201ca peculiar time, <\/em>relatively autonomous and hence relatively independent\u201d; this means that<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cit is no longer possible to think the process of the development of the different levels of the whole in the same historical time<\/em>\u201d (RC 110-111). <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet, the analysis of different temporal rhythms risks losing sight of the social whole itself, if this plurality comprises a mere aggregate (in the Kantian sense) of different times. For this reason, Althusser insists on the relative<\/em> autonomy of structured levels: their peculiar historicities must be grasped differentially <\/em>with respect to the whole through their encounters and harmonizations. Thus, Althusser advances the notion of the whole as \u201ca structure in dominance\u201d: in their temporal and causal differentiations, some levels prove to be dominant over the others (e.g., industrial production over simple commodity production). In order to think temporal torsions and displacements of the semi-autonomous levels as functions<\/em> of the whole, Althusser puts forth the thesis of the \u201cdetermination in the last instance\u201d by the economy (RC 111). Thus, the social whole, though decentered in the plurality of semi-autonomous levels, is in this way nonetheless structured.<\/span><\/p>\n

The demand to think the coexistence of differential temporalities and <\/em>to maintain their articulation in a social whole poses a problem of the specific unity of this whole and its own temporality. In thinking \u201cbackwardnesses, forwardnesses, survivals or unevennesses\u201d of different levels of the whole, does one not necessarily \u201cinstitute a reference time in the continuity of which we should measure these unevennesses\u201d (RC 118)? How can one think a social whole as a \u201cstructure of structures,\u201d as Althusser sometimes puts it, without instituting a single base time, i.e., without assuming Hegelian homogeneity and contemporaneity of time? Does the notion of \u201cthe determination in the last instance\u201d not indicate an instance of closure akin to Hegel\u2019s totality? And if not, what would be the form of such a whole?<\/span><\/p>\n

Althusser offers a notion of the social whole as conjuncture<\/em>\u2014the binding of elements into an uneven and overdetermined complex social unity. For Hegel, the form of the whole is determined by a principal contradiction: the ideological, political, and aesthetic levels of the whole are mere phenomena<\/em> of this one overarching contradiction. As opposed to this, Althusser argues that the determinate<\/em> contradictions (as opposed to a principle contradiction) existing in their peculiar temporalities are the very conditions of the existence of the social whole. As such, the whole is nothing other than an accumulation and fusion of determinate historical contradictions in their unevenness.[4]<\/a> In this way, the form of the social whole is overdetermined<\/em>: the whole as totality gives way to \u201cthe structured unity of a complex whole\u201d (FM 168). This decentered conjunction of disparate social elements does have a structure, but this structure consists in the \u201cdisplacements and condensations of its contradictions and their paradoxical unity\u201d (FM 143). Thus, the \u201cstructure\u201d of the whole is no longer conceived as a \u201chidden order\u201d regulating the diversity of its particular phenomenal manifestations; as a fusion of contradictory elements, structure consists in the persistence of a complex whole in its actual disorder<\/em>. This means that the structure of the whole does not pre-exist the conjunction of its contradictory elements. Rather, the complex unity,\u00a0as Althusser writes, is <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201ca cause immanent in its effects in the Spinozist sense of the term, [while] the structure, which is merely a specific combination of its peculiar elements, is nothing outside its effects\u201d (RC 209).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With Spinoza, one can further specify Althusser\u2019s understanding of the whole as a structure in dominance and elucidate its inherent difficulties. The overdetermined whole in Althusser, Warren Montag points out, \u201cnames the possibility of thinking the peculiar conjunction of contradictory elements as an individual in Spinoza\u2019s sense.\u201d[5]<\/a> This is because for Spinoza a mode\u2014an individual or a singularity\u2014is always a composite individual, which can combine with other individuals to comprise a greater singularity without any change in its form<\/em>. Unlike substance, which is conceived through itself, a mode or an individual is conceived through something else: it is determined and reproduced deferentially through the relations to other individuals. Insofar as the individual preserves its form, it is considered a whole in its peculiar temporality;[6]<\/a> insofar as the reproduction of its form depends on differential relations with other individuals in a greater whole, it is considered a part. The individual, thus, is inherently internally agonistic and constitutively unstable. The relative stability of the individual depends solely on its effectivity. When the constituent parts cease to combine in a way that produces a unity through the overdetermined effects of this binding, the singular whole is dissolved. Considered on this level, Althusser\u2019s conception of the whole as structure in dominance means that the dominance of a certain element (e.g., of the economic over the political) does not comprise an absolute or normative hierarchy, but a \u201chierarchy of effectivity\u201d (RC 110). Read through Spinoza, this means: the form of Althusser\u2019s overdetermined whole is unstable, while its dominant element is itself subject to variance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Althusser\u2019s overdetermined whole, thus, must be located on the level of modes in Spinoza\u2019s ontology. Spinoza\u2019s fundamental distinction between substance and modes (or individuals) undermines Hegel\u2019s identification of the whole with substance as subject. The whole is no longer associated with totality, but with modal unity. Neither should one locate totality on the level of Spinozan substance, since it is not a total sum of its modes; rather, substance designates nothing other than the process<\/em> of perpetual individuations in its inherent instability.[7]<\/a> Hence, Althusser\u2019s designation of the social whole as a \u201cstructure of structures,\u201d likewise, must be displaced. The social whole as a composite singularity is irreducible to a structure of all structures, since its location on the modal level renders it inherently provisional. The form of the whole is not only decentered and unstable, but this instability and dynamicity is the very condition of its persistence in being\u2014the process that Spinoza understands under the category of substance. If the articulation of the overdetermined social whole for Althusser depended on the thesis of \u201cthe determination in the last instance\u201d by the economy, then the function of Spinozan substance can be located in Althusser\u2019s following claim:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cthe lonely hour of the \u2018last instance\u2019 never comes.\u201d (FM 76)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> \u201eBeseelung ist Einbildung des Ganzen in ein Einzelnes.\u201d F. W. J. von Schelling, S\u00e4mmtliche Werke<\/em>, ed. by Karl-Friedrich-August Schelling, 13 vols. (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1856), I, II, p. 364, my translation.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital <\/em>(RC), trans. Ben Brewster (New York: Verso, 2009), p. 105.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> G. W. F. Hegel, Ph\u00e4nomenologie des Geistes<\/em> (=<\/em> Werke 3)<\/em> (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), S. 22-24.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Louis Althusser, For Marx <\/em>(FM), trans. Ben Brewster (London: Verso, 2005), S. 171.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Warren Montag, Althusser and His Contemporaries: Philosophy\u2019s Perpetual War<\/em> (Durham: Duke UP, 2013), S. 95. See further Montag\u2019s analysis on the significance of the debates around Spinoza for Althusser\u2019s shift in his conception of structure.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> On the theory of plural temporality in Spinoza and its relation to Althusser\u2019s conception of the social whole see Vittorio Morfino, Plural Temporality: Transindividuality and the Aleatory between Spinoza and Althusser<\/em> (Leiden: Brill, 2014), S. 148-64.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> See Etienne Balibar, Spinoza: From Individuality to Transindividuality<\/em> (Delft: Eburon, 1997).<\/span><\/p>\n

Siarhei Biareishyk is research associate for the project Formen und Funktionen von Weltverh\u00e4ltnissen<\/a>. His essay was first published in German in the ZfL\u2019s brochure on the annual topic of 2018\/19, \u201cForms of the Whole\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VORGESCHLAGENE ZITIERWEISE: Siarhei Biareishyk: The Overdetermination of the Whole, in: ZfL BLOG, 26.11.2018, [https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2018\/11\/26\/siarhei-biareishyk-the-overdetermination-of-the-whole\/<\/a><\/span>].<\/span>
\n<\/span>DOI: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.13151\/zfl-blog\/20181126-01<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The conception of the whole as a system, that is, as a totality determined by one principle or idea, has dominated the philosophical tradition from Kant and Hegel to Marxism\u2014and, as Louis Althusser\u2019s critique of Hegelianism shows, not without implicit social, political, and ideological consequences. The possibility of breaking with the idealist tradition in all Weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[181,98,184,187,188,194],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jahresthema-formen-des-ganzen","tag-das-ganze","tag-einheit","tag-hegel","tag-louis-althusser","tag-spinoza","tag-zeitlichkeit"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2003,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/2003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}