Idealism without Absolutes: Philosophy and Romantic Culture

Conclusion: Without Absolutes

241 Conclusion: Without Absolutes
Arkady Plotnitsky The title of this volume, “Idealism without Absolutes,” is a conjunction of two apparent opposites, idealism and the lack of absolutes accompanying it, since idealism is customarily conjoined or even defined by one or another form of absoluteness. As, however, the essays here assembled argue, individually and collectively, the opposition is only apparent, at least in certain, but, philosophically and culturally (including politically), arguably decisive, circumstances. Indeed these circumstances make idealism without absolutes not only possible but also rigorously inevitable. The same argument may also, and correlatively, be made concerning the other pair of apparent opposites that define the argument of this volume, idealism and materiality, if not materialism. This opposition is more common and persistent but is also more radically subverted by this argument. (I would be hesitant to speak of deconstruction in this case, although certain deconstruction[s], in their various senses, are involved in this subversion.) It may be recalled that materiality itself is broadly defined by this volume as the subversion (it can take diverse forms) and the ultimate suspension of absolutes, idealist, or materialist , or at least absolute absolutes, since certain limited, relative absolutes remain inevitable and some of them useful and effective. The volume’s title is also a peculiar but (this case would be easier to argue) inevitable mixture of history and philosophy, with culture and specifically Romantic culture added on courtesy of the subtitle, “Philosophy and Romantic Culture” (a similar mixture of its own) and further complicating the mix. More rigorously, one ought to speak of a cluster or mixture of mixtures. For each of these denominations—history, philosophy, and 242 Arkady Plotnitsky culture—is already a mixture, including, as Hegel taught us, by virtue of ineluctably involving two other terms of this triad. The mixing and denominative expansion hardly stop there, however, and are ultimately uncontainable. Most immediately, “idealism” is an historical reference to a certain postKantian or post-Cartesian philosophical tradition, usually named “idealism,” or “German Idealism,” also known as critical philosophy. The latter is arguably a better name, especially if one fundamentally links, as this volume does, the critical force of this philosophy to materiality, with or without matter (as the readers of this volume would know, it may be both). There are, however, good reasons for the using the name “Idealism” for this tradition, although it is also used, indeed more often, for wrong reasons as well. So much depends here on how one conceives of idealism, in particular whether it is defined as being with or, conversely, without absolutes, and on how one reads the key figures involved. “Idealism without absolutes” is primarily a philosophical concept or set of concepts, collectively developed in this volume , including in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s sense or concept of (philosophical) concept, introduced in their book What Is Philosophy? which defines philosophy itself as invention of new concepts.1 From this perspective , this volume is both an exploration and a practice of philosophy, and I would like by way of conclusion to outline the structure or architecture of the concept of “idealism without absolutes” here developed as I see it. It is fitting to begin by observing that, as must be apparent from the foregoing essays (beginning with the introduction), the dissolution of absolutes is where critical idealism and critical materialism, indeed many a critical materialism and many a critical idealism, interactively work together or against each other, but always, jointly, against absolutes. In the idiom of this volume, they are joined in a certain form of materiality, rather than materialism, unless the latter involves the same type of materiality as well, in other words, is coupled to idealism without absolutes. The plurality just invoked is essential and ultimately irreducible (Jacques Derrida would speak of dissemination ) and is part of the critical force of idealism(s), materialist idealism(s), and idealist materialism(s), without absolutes. Whatever the initial term or cluster of terms (e.g., that of ideality and materiality), the workings of this irreducible multiplicity inevitably bring other terms into play and, equally inevitably, prevent any actual or potential conceptual or phenomenal (en)closure. Such an enclosure would inevitably reinstate an absolute, however (humanly) inaccessible it might be. One can put it more strongly and rigorously as follows. Once we suspend absolutes, the irreducibly multiple also entails and possibly results from the irreducible loss in knowledge in all our theorizing and indeed in all cognition. This loss...