Auto-affection and the Curvature of Spacetime: Derrida Reading Heidegger Reading Kant

ABSTRACT

This paper has a twofold objective. First, it engages with the interrelation of time, space, and matter in Kant, Heidegger, and Derrida and questions whether and how this interrelation effects the possibility of self-relation. In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics Heidegger suggests that the very structure of subjectivity is constituted by what he calls the ‘pure self-affection’ of time and thus the possibility of self-relation is intimately bound up with the temporalizing of time. In his 1964–65 seminar, Heidegger: the Question of Being and History, Derrida translates this pure affection of time into the more generic term ‘auto-affection,’ which will remain a pivotal reference point for his deconstruction of the metaphysical privileging of time as presence. Derrida shows how the (im)possibility of auto-affection is bound up not only with time but also with space, or rather with the ‘spacing of time’ that he also refers to as ‘the trace.’ Second, the paper moves across the frontiers of philosophy and physics posing anew the question concerning the interrelations of temporality, spatiality, and materiality. With reference to what in general relativity is called ‘the curvature of spacetime,’ the efficacy of materiality in the movement of auto-affection is called into question.

KEYWORDS:

• Temporality
• spatiality
• materiality
• transcendental aesthetics
• deconstruction
• general relativity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The exchange between Hyppolite and Derrida in 1966 practically triggered the so-called ‘Science Wars’ of the 1990 s, which consisted in a series of intellectual exchanges, but mostly attacks, between so-called ‘scientific realists’ and ‘postmodern critics.’ In 1994, biologist Paul R. Gross and mathematician Norman Levitt published their Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science in which they provide their response to what they call ‘the systematic disparagement of modern science’ carried out by an ‘intellectual left’ that propounded all kinds of ‘anti-scientific nonsense’ into the ‘academic bloodstream.’ In their book, Gross and Levitt very briefly mention Derrida’s response to Hyppolite regarding the ‘Einsteinian constant’ and, in my reading, misinterpret it as referring to the numeric constant of the speed of light rather than the mathematical concept of spacetime. In their view, Derrida’s ‘verbiage’ is nothing but a pretentious attempt ‘to claim familiarity with deep scientific matters’ and thus ultimately a ‘sheer bluff’ (Gross and Levitt 1998, 79). What is astonishing about Gross and Levitt’s book is that it is full of refutations without any rigorous arguments or demonstrations and hardly any textual support for their claims. Thus, they hardly live up to the scientific standards that they portend to defend. For instance, one of their few references to an example of Derrida’s ‘abuse’ of scientific concepts is simply cited wrongly; Gross and Levitt claim that Derrida’s employment of the syntagma ‘differential topology’ in his reading of Kafka’s Before the Law is yet another attempt by Derrida to borrow from scientific terminology in order to ‘create the impression of rigor and congruity with “cutting edge” science’ (Gross and Levitt 1998, 293). However, as Plotnitsky has pointed out, Derrida never employs the term ‘differential topology’ but instead writes ‘differantial topology [topique differantielle]’ (Derrida 1992, 208), which, if Gross and Levitt had bothered to read the text, would of course have proven to have a very specific and subtle point to it. The point, namely, that the ‘differantial topology’ of Kafka’s law is actually an ‘atopology – a “topology” without its own place or without the possibility of linking it to a place or a space’ (Plotnitsky 2002, 170). As far as I am aware, Derrida published only a short and somewhat discouraged comment on the whole ordeal in Le Monde in 1997 as a response to the so-called ‘Sokal-hoax’ of 1996, in which the physicist Alan Sokal published a sham article claiming that quantum mechanics was but a linguistic and social construct that ultimately supported the postmodern critique of the possibility of attaining objective scientific knowledge. Cf. Sokal (1996).

2. It is a well-known problem in physics that gravity cannot be quantized without entailing serious theoretical and mathematical inconsistencies. This is one of the major obstacles for combining general relativity and quantum mechanics, since the quantizing of gravity ‘predicts nonsense, if it predicts anything at all’ (Carroll 2019, 274). Recently, however, there have been attempts at reversing the order of procedure so that, instead of beginning with a relativistic theory of gravity and then quantizing it, we begin with the quantum state of the universe and then see how the classical and relativistic notions of space and time may be derived from this state. As Carroll explains it, the rather mind bending task is ‘to contemplate the idea that spacetime isn’t fundamental, but emerges from the wave function’ (Carroll 2019, 285).