Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Summer 1-1-2017 Theory of Subjectification in Gilles Deleuze: A Study of the Temporality in Capitalism Boram Jeong Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Jeong, B. (2017). Theory of Subjectification in Gilles Deleuze: A Study of the Temporality in Capitalism (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/170 This One-year Embargo is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THEORY OF SUBJECTIFICATION IN GILLES DELEUZE: A STUDY OF THE TEMPORALITY IN CAPITALISM A Dissertation submitted to The McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, Duquesne University & École doctorale: Pratiques et théories du sens (Discipline: Philosophie), Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Boram Jeong August 2017 Copyright by Boram Jeong 2017 THEORY OF SUBJECTIFICATION IN GILLES DELEUZE: A STUDY OF THE TEMPORALITY IN CAPITALISM By Boram Jeong Approved July 12, 2017 ________________________________ ________________________________ Fred Evans, Ph.D Éric Alliez, Ph.D Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Jay Lampert, Ph.D Daniel Selcer, Ph.D Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Philosophy (Committee Member) (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Leonard Lawlor, Ph.D Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc, Ph.D Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Philosophy (Committee Member) (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ James Swindal, Ph.D Ron Polansky, Ph.D Dean, McAnulty College & Graduate Chair, Department of Philosophy School of Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT THEORY OF SUBJECTIFICATION IN GILLES DELEUZE: A STUDY OF THE TEMPORALITY IN CAPITALISM By Boram Jeong August 2017 Dissertation supervised by Dr. Fred Evans and Dr. Éric Alliez This dissertation looks at time as a socially or psychologically imposed ‘structure’ that determines the ways in which past, present and future are weaved together in the subject. This inquiry presents (1) a critical role of temporality in the formation of the subject, (2) a specific temporality characteristic of contemporary financial capitalism, and (3) the pathologies of time found in the subjects of capitalism. The first two chapters provide an extensive analysis of Deleuze’s passive syntheses of time given in Difference and Repetition, which reveals the subject’s passive relation to time as a structure of ‘becoming.’ The following chapters examine how this ontological structure of time interacts with socio- economic temporalities in its production of the subject. I particularly focus on the temporal structure of debt, which has become a general condition of the subjects in the current economic system. I claim that the debt-based economy produces ‘melancholic subjectivity,’ characterized by a dominance of the past and the inhibition of becoming. iv DEDICATION To my parents, to whom I am infinitely indebted. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to first express my most sincere gratitude and appreciation to my director, Fred Evans, for his incredible support, encouragement and friendship. I must also thank my co- director, Éric Alliez, for his insightful feedback, guidance and extraordinary generosity. I am deeply grateful for the extremely helpful contributions and intellectual inspiration provided by the two other members of the committee at Duquesne, Jay Lampert and Daniel Selcer. I would also like to acknowledge the thoughtful input offered by my external readers, Leonard Lawlor, Tamsin Lorraine and Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc. In addition, many thanks go out to the Philosophy Department at Duquesne University and École doctorale Pratique et théories du sens at Université Paris 8 for their administrative support, which allowed me the privilege of earning a dual degree. For their financial support including the dissertation fellowship, I am grateful to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts. I would also like to thank Ronald Polansky, Joan Thompson and Kelly Arenson, whose guidance and generosity were invaluable in making my job search successful. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to David H. Kim for his exceptional support, intellectual guidance and faith in me. Thanks also to Constantin V. Boundas for encouraging me to publish an earlier version of the chapter on time and capitalism in Deleuze Studies. Finally, I would like to thank my dear friends and family, whose love sustained me and kept me sane throughout my graduate studies. I will never forget the groceries, the care packages and good laughs brought to me by them in hard times. Special thanks to J for walking alongside me on this journey. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Time, Subject and Capital .................................................................................. 1 I. Time and Movement: Deleuze’s Critique of ‘Time Subordinated to Movement’ .................... 5 1. Zeno’s Paradox: Confusion of time with space ................................................................. 6 2. Bergson’s view of movement and time ............................................................................. 10 2.1 Bergson’s theory of multiplicities ............................................................................ 10 2.2 Bergson’s analysis of movement ............................................................................. 13 3. Deleuze’s view on time and movement: Subordination of time to movement .................... 18 3.1 Time in antiquity: Circular movement ....................................................................... 19 3.2 Time as a succession of instants ................................................................................. 22 3.3 Time as an empty form .............................................................................................. 27 4. Deleuze’s notion of time: Temporalized difference ........................................................... 31 4.1. Time and the notion of difference: Time as self-differentiation .................................... 32 4.2. Time as internal difference: Auto-affection ................................................................ 39 II. Time and Subjectivity: Deleuze’s Three Syntheses of Time .................................................. 48 1. Deleuze’s reading of Kant’s syntheses .............................................................................. 52 2. The Passive Syntheses of Time: The Formation of the Subject .......................................... 68 2.1 Time and Subjectification: Memory as Auto-affection ................................................. 68 2.2 The first synthesis of habit: Originary subjectivity ....................................................... 72 2.3 Second synthesis of memory: Bergson’s pure past – the unconscious ........................... 79 2.4 Third synthesis of the future ...................................................................................... 93 3. Time and the Production of the Subject ........................................................................... 106 3.1 The virtual as a new transcendental: Critique of the ‘possible’ ..................................... 106 3.2 Subjectification in time .............................................................................................. 108 III. Time in Contemporary Capitalism: A System of Debt ........................................................ 111 1. Time and Capitalism ...................................................................................................... 113 1.1 Time and the movement of capital ............................................................................. 113 1.2 Deleuze’s reading of Marx through Suzanne de Brunhoff............................................ 117 1.3 The power of financial capital: Fictitious capital ......................................................... 128 2. Force of time: Temporal Structure of Debt ....................................................................... 134 2.1 Time value of money: Time subordinated to monetary movement ............................... 135 2.2 Debt and Memory ..................................................................................................... 141 IV. The Production of Melancholic Subjects: Subjectification through Debt .............................. 147 1. The Problem of Subjectification in Deleuze...................................................................... 148 1.1 Foucault-Deleuze Encounter: Power and Subject Formation ....................................... 148 1.2 Subjectification in A Thousand Plateaus: Capital as a point of subjectification ................ 155 2. Subjectification in the time of debt ................................................................................... 160 2.1 Debt as an instrument of power: From subjectification to subjection ............................ 161 2.2 Subjectification through debt: Melancholic temporality ..............................................