There are many doorways through which one may enter. I choose the one that excavates the fundamental relation between ontology and politics. In this context, I want to explicate the relation between inequality and non-being. I will identify three important ideas that mediate this relation. They are: negation, permanence, and hierarchy.
Inequality is part of a larger whole; that is, hierarchy. Therefore, to understand the nature of inequality better, we need to step inside hierarchy. One way of problematising hierarchy is to scrutinise its ontological status and explicate its foundations and the conditions that make it possible. This line of inquiry can throw more light on political discussions, as well as the social phenomenon of inequality. For instance, there is a possibility to better understand the underlying philosophical foundations of Aristotle, who defended inequality as natural, as opposed to Rousseau, who claimed equality to be so.
Both Aristotle and Rousseau evoke nature to justify inequality and equality respectively. For Aristotle, among the “barbarians, however [contrary to the order of nature], the female and the slave occupy the same position” (1986: 3). On the contrary, civilised people do and should practice inequality. In contrast, Rousseau says in his now famous statement that man is born free but everywhere he is in chains (1952: 3). While agreeing with Aristotle that there is inequality all around us, he differs from Aristotle when he says that this inequality is not the cause but the effect. To quote Rousseau, “Aristotle, before any of them, had said that men are by no means equal naturally, but that some are born for slavery, and others for dominion” (1952: 5). The inequality that is before us is not due to inequality at the outset. In other words, according to Rousseau, there is no continuous relation between the past and the present. In fact, he looks at this relation as discontinuous. For him, unlike Aristotle, it is a case whereby the original state of equality was converted into a state of inequality.
While their political stands are diametrically opposed to each other, they have two things in common. One, both use nature, albeit diametrically opposed interpretations of it; two, both follow a homogenous movement – that is, a movement from inequality to inequality (Aristotle), and movement from equality to equality (Rousseau). It is in Hegel where the movement is from inequality (real) to equality (rational). This movement is a historical and a long one, empirically difficult but not logically impossible, and the process is governed by dialectics.
Similarly, there is a possibility to better understand anthropological studies such as Louis Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus, which cogently contrasts the hierarchy in Indian society with the egalitarianism of modern European society. Contrasting hierarchy from equality, Dumont says, “castes teach us a fundamental social principle, hierarchy. We, in our modern society, have adopted the principle contrary to it” (2013: 2). Clarifying the status of the objects of his study, he says, “The principle of equality and the principle of hierarchy are facts, indeed they are among the most constraining facts, of political and social life” (2013: 3). His “first aim”, he declares, is to “understand the ideology of the caste system. This ideology is directly contradicted by the egalitarian theory which we hold” (2013: 4).
Hierarchy is sustained by permanence. That which is in a state of flux cannot provide conditions for the formation, sustenance, and growth of hierarchy. The hierarchical model of polity suggested by Plato in his Republic is sustained by his obsession with permanence, or rather his rejection of anything that changes. Remove permanence from Plato’s philosophy, and his political order in the Republic collapses. Similarly, there are clear and complex portrayals of non-being in classical Indian philosophies that also promote hierarchy. Thus, there is a close and necessary relation between permanence and hierarchy. To continue the exploration along these lines, I would like to argue that permanence is made possible by non-being. Non-being is the resource for permanence. In the relation between being and non-being, the former is identified with change and the latter with permanence. Non-being, in turn, is made possible by negation – non-being is the negation of being. With this project of excavating the relation between ontology and politics in the context of explicating the relation between non-being and inequality that can shed different – if not better – light on the political discussions of equality and inequality, this chapter discusses the Vedas, Upanishads, Bergson, Deleuze, and Chandidas on non-being. The views of Henri Bergson (1859–1941) and Vaddera Chandidas (1937–2005) on negation will also be discussed. I will return to the relation between ontology and politics in the conclusion at the end of a philosophical discussion on the concept of non-being.
Let me now identify the wall on which I would like to hang my chapter, much like a painting. This chapter seeks to extend Deleuze’s account of Bergson’s philosophy of non-being. This is undertaken by bringing into the discussion different versions of non-being from some Indian philosophical traditions including the Vedas, Upanishads, and Chandidas. The views of Bergson and Chandidas on negation will also be discussed. The first section will discuss different versions of non-being in classical Indian philosophy. The reason is twofold: (1) the variety that is available, and (2) classical Indian philosophy propounds non-frozen and clearly distinguished dimensions of non-being, presented as pre-existence, post-existence, and non-existence. The next section will discuss Deleuze’s interpretation of Bergson on non-being and negation. This will be followed by a discussion on a form of permanence other than non-being, namely, certainty, in rationalists like Descartes, and its rejection by Hume. The chapter finally discusses rejection of negation, a mere project of intellect that clouds reality, which is in constant process and change in Chandidas.
There are different versions of non-being in classical Indian philosophical theories; most of these converge on the notion of non-being as pre-existence, except Buddhism and Carvaka. Buddhism, however, converged with them on the notion of post-existence, which is another form of non-being. So, there is a classical convergence on the notion of pre-existence and/or post-existence, though with some exceptions. Both these states are identified with permanence. Let me identify some versions of non-being from classical Indian philosophy here. (Some part of the following discussion is from my book [Raghuramaraju 2009a].)
An earlier formulation of non-being is available in the ·Rgveda, where it is claimed that void or absolute absence preceded existence. This idea of absence is expressed in negative terms. It is said in Songs of Creation that “Then there was neither Aught nor Nought, no air nor sky beyond” (Muir 1868: 129).2 So this state of pre-existence, in which nothing whatsoever ‘is’, is designated as a state where there is no trace of ‘change’. It is from this state of pre-existence or non-being that existence is formed. According to the ·Rgveda, it is from this void-like situation that existence first arose. To quote:
Who knows, who ever told, from whence this vast creation rose?
No gods had then been born – who then can e’er the truth disclose?
Whence sprang this world, and whether framed by hand divine or no –
Its Lord in heaven alone can tell, if ever he can show.
(Muir 1868: 129)3
So, existence or being came out of non-being. However, being and non-being are heterogeneous and mutually exclusive. Hence, the difficulty in explaining such a process, is taken to be a mystery.
The problem regarding the relation between non-being and being recurs subsequently in Taittirīya Upanis·ad where it is maintained that in the beginning “this [world] was non-existent” and from this “Being (sat) was produced” (Hume 2003: 287). In Muṇḍaka Upanis·ad, non-being in the form of pre-existence is referred to as “invisible, ungraspable, without family, without caste (a-varna). Without sight or hearing is It, without hand or foot”. It is eternal, “all-pervading, omnipresent, exceedingly subtle”, and imperishable.4 The state of affairs of pre-existence is mostly the opposite of what is found in existence. The first phase of this transition into the opposite is variously interpreted. There are different versions of creation. The first form of creation is water, and everything else subsequently emerges from it. In Chāndogya Upanis·ad, there are two contrasting versions of non-being. One version depicts it as non-being, and another as being. The first version says that in the “beginning this world was merely non-being”. Explaining the evolutionary process of this state of non-being it details the various stages as it first “turned into an egg”. After “a period of a year. It was split asunder. One of the two eggshell-parts became silver, one gold”. A cosmological explanation is offered:
That which was of silver is this earth. That which was of gold is the sky. What was the outer membrane is the mountains. What was the inner membrane is cloud and mist. What were the veins are the rivers. What the fluid was within is the ocean.
Reporting further developments, Chāndogya Upaniṣad says, “When it was born, shouts and hurrahs, all beings and all desires rose up toward it” (Hume 2003: 214–215).5
These accounts bring some philosophical ideas from classical Indian philosophy into discussion of non-being. To return to the argument, while the concept of non-being as pre-existence is not accepted by Buddhism and Carvaka, post-existence – a form of non-being – is accepted by Buddhism and is named Nibbana. Another form of non-being is non-existence.
Thus, there is a larger convergence on the concept of non-being, as most Indian philosophical schools – with the exception of Carvaka – accept at least some form of it. Despite these different versions and dimensions of non-being, I would like to claim that the very acceptance of non-being by these philosophical schools quietly privileges it. That is, non-being is not accepted per se, but because it is permanent. Alternatively, permanence gives credibility to non-being. Having introduced the ideas of non-being from Indian philosophy, now let me analyse in the next section Deleuze’s discussion of the concept of non-being in Bergson. The reason for undertaking this task is that in his short book entitled, Bergsonism, Deleuze lucidly analyses various aspects of Bergson’s philosophy of non-being. As my discussion is confined to non-being, I refrain from highlighting both the differences between Bergson and Deleuze on non-being as well as the different versions of non-being from the history of Western philosophy.6
Deleuze creates a wonderful frame or scaffolding for Bergson’s idea of non-being and attendant philosophical problems in his short book Bergsonism (1991). Let me begin by closely analysing the idea of non-being in Bergson as presented by Deleuze. Before discussing non-being in Bergson, Deleuze creates a frame in the form of questions and answers; that is, the idea of non-being is discussed within the frame of questions and answers. He claims that the frame prevails over the idea. He cautions that if one discusses the idea, that is, the idea of non-being, without paying attention to the frame, one may not be able to understand the idea, particularly a radical aspect of the idea that is controlled by the frame. He observes that this outcome occurs not because the ideas themselves lack radicalism, but because the underlying frame prevents them from being expressed. Let us discuss the nature of this frame before addressing the problem of non-being.
Tracing the roots of this frame, Deleuze points out that the habit of answering questions is inculcated in childhood and institutionalised at school. He clarifies that this begins very early in a child’s life when “the school teacher… ‘poses’ the problems; and the ‘pupils’ task is to discover the solutions” (1991: 15). While many see this as a ladder to success or a scale for ascertaining progress, he, on the contrary, identifies two important issues: first, the control exerted by questions; and second, the slavishness of giving answers. The point Deleuze makes is that answers are in reality controlled by the questions asked. If one gives answers that are controlled by the questions, the truth or falsity of the answers are dependent on the questions. So, truth or falsity is controlled by the paradigm of the question. Questions, thus, limit the universalism of the enquiry. According to Deleuze, one way of seeing the limitation of the restricted domain of truth or falsity within the confines of the question is to interrogate the question. This, he says, is true freedom: “True freedom lies in a power to decide, to constitute problems themselves. And this ‘semi-divine’ power entails the disappearance of false problems as much as the creative upsurge of true ones” (1991: 15). This shifts the focus from answers to questions.
Extending Bergson’s take on this, Deleuze writes, “The truth is that in philosophy and even elsewhere it is a question of finding the problem and consequently of positing it, even more than of solving it” (in Deleuze 1991: 15, original emphasis).7 Perhaps most critically, Deleuze says that the difficulty with speculative thinking is that problems are solved not when answers are found, but when questions are ‘properly stated’. So, our analysis must move from a focus on answers to the questions themselves. When questions are properly interrogated and properly stated, we get solutions, which may have remained ‘hidden’ or ‘covered up’ until then. Embedded within the twin concepts of covering and uncovering are the ideas of not merely discovering what is already there, but also inventing what “did not exist” and what “might never have happened” (1991: 15).
To reinforce his claim about questions, Deleuze quotes Marx, who declared “Humanity only sets itself problems that it is capable of solving” (1991: 16). Deleuze claims that according to both Bergson and Marx, problems are not the shadows of pre-existing solutions. He sums up, saying:
the history of man, from the theoretical as much as from the practical point of view is that of the construction of problems. It is here that humanity makes its own history, and the becoming conscious of that activity is like the conquest of freedom.
(1991: 15–16)
Having laid bare the relative relation between the answer and the question, Deleuze considers the more substantial difficulty between the problem and the truth: “how can this constitutive power, which resides in the problem, be reconciled with the norm of the true?” (1991: 16). This is a significant issue in comparison with the one between the problem and the solution. While handling the relation between the problem and the solution, where problems have already been stated, it is “relatively easy” to say “in what the true and false consist when applied to the process of stating problems” (1991: 16). Deleuze also points out, for those who become conscious about the need to “take the test of true and false beyond the solutions into problems themselves” that “many philosophers fall into circular arguments” (1991: 16) while undertaking this task. Distinguishing them from Bergson, he says that the latter’s great virtue lies in attempting an “intrinsic determination of the false in the expression ‘false problem’ ” (1991: 17).
Having moved the focus from ideas to structure, and within the structure, from solutions to problems, Deleuze says that Bergson classified problems into two categories: true problems and false problems. False problems again are of two kinds: non-existent problems, and badly stated problems. The terms of non-existent problems are indicative of confusion between more and less. On the other hand, badly stated problems or questions represent badly analysed composites.
Having laid bare the larger frame, Deleuze discusses the realm of ideas, namely, the problem of non-being. (Along with non-being, he also discusses two other problems; namely, disorder and possible. I will not discuss them here except those that are relevant to non-being, as my focus is on non-being.) Let me caution here that unless one takes into consideration these clearly classified levels and realms, distinctions, and their relations, one will miss seeing the complexity of the issue. We will not be able to capture the underlying politics if we begin to discuss the idea of non-being directly. Deleuze sees this danger and devotes key parts of his short book in analysing the frame before he brings into the discussion the idea of non-being.
In the section “COMPLEMENTARY RULE”, Deleuze writes: “False problems are of two sorts, ‘nonexistent problems’, defined as problems whose very terms contain a confusion of the ‘more’ and the ‘less’; and ‘badly stated’ questions, so defined because their terms represent badly analyzed composites” (1991: 17; original emphasis). He says that Bergson cites the problem of non-being, of disorder, or of the possible as examples of the first set of problems; namely, the problem of more or less. In cases such as that of non-being, the issue is with regard to more and not less. Let me now discuss the problem of non-being.
Similar to the idea of non-being is the idea of disorder in which there is order plus its negation. There is more in the idea of the possible than there is in the idea of the real.
Hanging the three ideas of non-being, disorder, and the possible on the same string, he speaks of the common feature in questions such as “Why is there something rather than nothing?” or “Why is there order rather than disorder?” or “Why is there this rather than that (when that was equally possible)?” (1991: 18). He contends that all these questions converge on the same error; namely, mistaking less for more. It is as though non-being existed before being; disorder before order; and the possible before existence. That is, at first, there was void and being came to fill that void; disorder was replaced by order; and the possible by the real. In addition to the opposition or negation between these three contra pairs, the falsity of this problem, according to Deleuze’s estimate, lies in the idea of temporality. It is assumed that non-being, disorder, or the possible, existed primordially. Therefore, there are two crucial issues: one is the temporality where non-being, disorder, and the possible preceded being, order, and the real, respectively; then there is the fundamental problem of each of the pairs negating the other, which is the source of the false problem identified by Bergson.
Having set out the first part of the false problem, that is, mistaking more for less, I will now discuss another part, that is, mistaking less for more – the outcome that results when problems are badly stated. For instance, the question of reducing or not reducing the concept of happiness to that of pleasure, where pleasure is subsumed under happiness. Having discussed these two kinds of problems – of taking more for less and less for more – Deleuze highlights how Bergson at times says that ‘the less’ is mistaken for more. For instance, a doubt about an action only adds to it in so far as it is an additional aspect about that action, whereas in reality it only indicates a weakness in “the person who denies” (1991: 19; original emphasis). Bergson gives the example of a divinely created will or thought that is complete in itself. These thoughts are examples of less being mistaken for more. Doubt adds more but performs the role of less – it reduces the idea that is stated. Though it is an addition, it reduces the strength of the idea instead of contributing to more. What results is not something more, but something less: it is a deficit of the will.
So, the relation between non-being that denies being is either more or less. If it is both, then there is a contradiction. According to Deleuze, there is no contradiction if we “bear in mind that what Bergson is condemning as non-existent problems is the obsession in all its aspects with thinking in terms of more or less” (1991: 19). He says about the falsity of the problem.
The idea of disorder appears when, instead of seeing that there are two or more irreducible orders (for example, that of life and that of mechanism, each present when the other is absent), we retain only a general idea of order that we confine ourselves to opposing disorder and to thinking in correlation with the idea of disorder. The idea of non-being appears when, instead of grasping the different realities that are indefinitely substituted for one another, we muddle them together in the homogeneity of a Being in general, which can only be opposed to nothingness, be related to nothingness. The idea of the possible appears when instead of grasping each existent in its novelty, the whole of existence is related to a performed element, from which everything is supposed to emerge by simple ‘realization’ (1991: 19–20).
Thus, for Deleuze, the problem, as stated in Bergson, is the attempt to homogenise diversity in being, in the order, and in the actual; a hasty presentation of totality with its opposites, namely, non-being, disorder, and the possible, respectively, in order to establish a contrast. There are two things at work here: one, wrapping up diversity to homogenise; and two, contrasting it through its negation. Deleuze points out that each time we think in terms of more or less, we convert the differences in kind and render them into mere differences in degree. This rendering for Deleuze shows how “the first type of false problem rests, in the final analysis, on the second” (1991: 20; original emphasis).
This rendering of difference in kind into mere difference in degree is the pervasive problem. According to Deleuze, it “is perhaps the most general error of thought, the error common to science and metaphysics” (1991: 20). This state of affairs forces us to be “victims of a fundamental illusion that corresponds to two aspects of the false problem”. This illusion, says Deleuze, is based on the “deepest part of the intelligence”, according to Bergson, and cannot be dispelled; it can only be repressed. Bergson finds the solution to this predicament in the domain of epistemology, in the hands of intuition. The passage where Deleuze paraphrases Bergson is worth quoting:
We tend to think in terms of more or less, that is, to see differences in degree where there are differences in kind. We can only react against this intellectual tendency by bringing to life, again in the intelligence, another tendency, which is critical. But where, precisely, does this second tendency come from? Only intuition can produce and activate it, because it rediscovers differences in kind beneath the difference in degree, and conveys to the intelligence the criteria that enable it to distinguish between true and false problems. Bergson shows clearly that the intelligence is the faculty that states problems in general (the instinct is rather a faculty for finding solutions). But only intuition decides between the true and the false in the problems that are stated, even if this means driving the intelligence to turn back against itself.
(1991: 21)
Thus, according to Deleuze’s rendering of Bergson, there is the intellectual tendency that reduces difference in kind into difference in degree. The solution to this problem for Bergson does not lie within the realm of intellect, but within intuition. He sees the solution to the perennial philosophical problem – rather, the two false problems, of taking more for less and taking less for more, that are created by the intellect – outside intellect and in intuition. It is only intuition that can restore the balance by recognising and rediscovering the difference in kind. Three important philosophical moves are made here: one, there is an issue of false problems, which are of two kinds; these problems are created by the intellect; and this accumulated and pervasive impasse is then overcome by the shift to the domain of intuition, as proposed by Bergson.8
At this point, after having examined the problem of non-being as perceived by the intellect and intuition, I would like to excavate the foundation of non-being. Before I begin, however, I will traverse another discourse where one finds a disguised aspect of non-being. Through a flashback, I will attempt to locate Bergson in a larger discussion that preceded him, but of which he is in reality a part.
The classical obsession with permanence surfaces, though in a disguised form, as certainty in Descartes. The Cartesian obsession with certainty is the modern secular infatuation with disguised divinity. The transcendental notion of permanence – in the form of non-being – is sought in the immanent. Descartes takes the relation between permanence and God as contingent. He seeks permanence or certainty within the empirical domain. He does not consider if there is a close and inseparable relation between permanence and God. Descartes seeks to secularise certainty by making it part of immanence, in contrast to the classical notion of certainty that is transcendental. However, the classical urge for certainty that remained at the back of his mind needs scrutiny that is more philosophical. We will understand Descartes and the project of modernity better if we see the relation between certainty and God as necessary and inseparable. From this point of view, can one ask for certainty that is necessarily related to God and yet leave God behind? Not confronting Descartes through this counterfactual made the discourse of counter-tradition initiated by Hume superficial. I will come to this matter later.
Descartes argues that reason can attain certainty. Here, I want to claim that Cartesian certainty is a modern form of permanence. Let us view his moves from the point of view of certainty, rather than rationality or individuality. He categorically rejects or excludes emotions, feelings, desires – anything falling outside reason. He embarks on excluding non-reason at the outset. This sharp demarcation achieved through the logic of exclusion between reason and emotion prompts him to demarcate sharply between man and animal, adult and child. Consequently, the reason why animals and children are excluded and man, the adult, is included, is that Descartes identifies the former combination with non-reason, which is not permanent, and the latter combination with reason, which is the domain that is permanent. Setting aside any scope for overlapping between man and animal, he says in Part Five of Discourse on Method:
For it is quite remarkable that there are no men so dull-willed or stupid – and this includes even mad men – that they are incapable of arranging various words together and forming an utterance from them in order to make their thoughts understood; whereas there is no other animal, however perfect and well-endowed it may be, that can do the like. This does not happen because they lack the necessary organs… . On the other hand, men born deaf and dumb, and thus deprived of speech-organs as much as the beasts or even more so, normally invent their own signs to make themselves understood by those who, being regularly in their company, have the time to learn their language. This shows not merely that the beasts have less reason than men, but that they have no reason at all.
(1985: 140)
Therefore, at the outset he rules out any possibility of an overlap between man and animal, thus instituting a clear demarcation between them. As referred to earlier, establishing another major distinction which has a far-reaching consequence, Descartes says that:
I reflected that we were all children before being men and had to be governed for some time by our appetites and our teachers, which were often opposed to each other and neither of which, perhaps, always gave us the best advice; hence I thought it virtually impossible that our judgments should be as unclouded and firm as they would have been if we had had the full use of our reason from the moment of our birth, and if we had always been guided by it alone.
(1985: 117)
Here, he is excluding childhood and appetites, as they are unreliable and impermanent. He privileges adulthood and reason as they promise certainty. The ‘I’ – which is the mind for him – is certain, and hence permanent; whereas the ‘non-I’ – the body and other things – is not certain, as they can be in principle be doubted and hence are impermanent.
David Hume challenges the centrality of reason championed by rationalists. There are two aspects that underlie Hume’s most famous statement, “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions” (1960: 415). In this statement, he is attacking the philosophical position whereby reason is placed higher in the hierarchy; here it is worth noting that he does not attack the hierarchy; rather he retains it, thereby merely inverting the position of the contents in the hierarchy. That is, he is restoring to passion what is assigned to reason by rationalists like Descartes; thus, he is relegating reason to the lower position. This move of relieving passion from the servitude of reason provides relief to many.
However, two structural limitations surround this counter-tradition from Hume. Hume’s inversion of hierarchy, in an important respect, is parasitical on Descartes’s programme of instituting the hierarchy. While he succeeded in stunning this rationalist programme in the process of restoring centrality to passion, he did not pay attention to the problem of evanescence closely associated with passion. While passions are real and deeply human, they are fleeting in nature and were thus not taken into reckoning by the rationalists.
The inability of appetite to lend consistency, reliability, clarity, and firmness to one’s sense of judgement is the reason why rationalists dispensed with it. This objection continues to haunt attempts to privilege desire. Judgements, both adjudicating what is good and bad as well as constituting or formulating dos and don’ts, have to be certain and not fleeting in nature. This forms the basis of Robert C. Roberts’s criticism of Martha Nussbaum’s work, where the former argues that “emotions are not judgments” (1999: 795). Rationalists do not reject emotions because they do not exist as descriptions, but because they are not capable of normative certainty. They cannot be judgements, because they are not rational. In contrast to reason which is claimed to be certain and permanent, emotions are fleeting and evanescent in nature. Thereby, reason is prized and emotions denied, because reason is certain and can give us certainty and permanence. In other words, there is a background to reason, which provides it with a justification; namely, permanence. Reason derives its centrality through permanence. So, the battle is to be shifted from reason-emotion to permanence-evanescence. And permanence is identified with non-being, which is a product of negation.
This shift is significant. So, it is permanence, which gives strength to reason and denies status to emotions. On the other hand, the empiricist response takes the form of an assertion of the primacy of emotions, experience, desire, and suchlike, outside the domain of reason. Further, following Hume’s assertion that reason is the handmaid of passion, the claim for passions falls outside reason. This claim is internally validated. Rationalists do not deny the facticity of passions. They reject them because they are fleeting in nature, and hence cannot provide a reliable foundation to those that need permanence and certainty. In contrast, reason is claimed to provide this assurance. Unless this fleeting nature of passions is thoroughly addressed, the success of the Humean project in upsetting the rationalist project may remain within Cartesian hierarchical structure.
Hume is more interested in depriving reason of status than in identifying the source from which reason derives its strength and resources. Therefore, the justification for passions or emotions is either self-justification or non-rational justification. This, as already pointed out, is negotiated within the parameters of passion-reason, where these are sustained by evanescence and permanence respectively. As a result, the empiricist attack remains at the surface and does not reach permanence.
Now, that I have brought permanence to the center stage and highlighted the larger convergences, I wish to claim that we need to move the site of our discussion from non-being to permanence; and from reason and non-reason to permanence. Permanence privileges non-being or reason. The ontology of non-being or reason is sustained by permanence. Here, let us consider a counterfactual: is non-being or reason acceptable if neither assures permanence? The answer is no. The question that needs to be asked here is if there is a concept of non-being that is not permanent. This will reveal the necessary relation between non-being and permanence, and more importantly, how non-being is founded on permanence. Bergson, and those who came before him – both rationalists and empiricists – are working around the phenomenon of non-being or reason, without recognising permanence as the foundation. In addition, without permanence, hierarchy cannot be sustained; hierarchy, in turn provides foundation to inequality.
Therefore, there are three types of philosophers: those who accept non-being, which is permanent; those who accept permanence without non-being, such as certainty and rationality; and those who reject reason but continue to accept hierarchy. This brings us to the modern Indian philosopher, Chandidas, who has dealt with this problem. Let me discuss how he brings into the forefront new dimensions of the problem of non-being.
I will now compare Deleuze’s Bergson and Chandidas. Before that, I would like to present a brief background of Chandidas and his place in Indian philosophy. A twentieth-century philosopher and a well-known Telugu novelist from Andhra Pradesh, a state in southern India, he authored a philosophical text titled Desire and Liberation: The Fundamentals of Cosmicontology, with an introduction by Kalidas Bhattacharyya. Bhattacharyya, who discovered this metaphysical text, wrote a long introduction, and was instrumental in its publication in 1975. He compared this book to the writings of other modern Indian philosophers like Sri Aurobindo and K. C. Bhattacharyya. According to Bhattacharyya, this work presents “a completely new system of metaphysics, presented though in an extraordinarily concise form, almost in the way of ancient Indian Sutras” (in Chandidas 1975: v, original emphasis). However, no one took note of this work. In my book Enduring Colonialism (Raghuramaraju 2009a), I placed the radical philosophical views of Chandidas within Indian and Western philosophy. The following discussion is an extension of this work.
To return to the main argument, though Chandidas did not directly discuss Bergson, I would like to use his insights to compare them. Like Bergson, Chandidas sees non-being as the product of negating being. Further, like Bergson, he too understands negation as a product of intellect. However, unlike Bergson, he does not see the solution as lying with intuition. Instead of looking for solutions to the problems created by non-being in intuition, as suggested by Bergson, Chandidas, to use Deleuze’s insight, seems to focus on the very site of the problem; that is, the problem of non-being. While Bergson related non-being to negation, in Chandidas, an intermediary in the form of permanence is introduced between non-being and negation. Non-being gains prominence and acquires an ontological status because it is claimed to be permanent. Non-being merely having an ontological status is not attractive enough. Non-being gains credence because it is seen as unchanging and permanent. In contrast, being is the site of change. Looked at from this perspective, anything that is not permanent but fleeting in nature and evanescent, is treated as unreliable. Those numerous aspects – such as desires or emotions – that are not permanent lose their importance. Here, non-being not only gains ontological precedence; it relegates all those that are changing to the status of the unreliable.
The ordering of pre-existence preceding existence makes it possible to look at existence as transitory and vulnerable. In fact, it has already made place for liberation from existence, which is post-existence. Therefore, the root that enables existence and post-existence is the formation of pre-existence, which is a form of non-being. Conceding this state in a way made it possible to see the relation between human beings and desires as contingent.
It is the changing nature of being that restricts it to the marginalised predicament where being is rendered dependent on non-being. That is, permanence provides foundation to non-being. This dependency of non-being on permanence needs to be recognised in order to expose the claims of non-being. Claiming, as Bergson did, that non-being is a product of the intellect or that it is related to negation is not enough. There is a further need to show why non-being is privileged. According to Chandidas, non-being is privileged because it is permanent. In comparison to permanence, all those who are not permanent but changing are rendered unreliable. This is the major move advanced by Chandidas.
Having brought permanence into the discussion, let me now explicate the sources of permanence. One might echo Plato’s position that permanence is self-sustained and is the basis of reality. Following this commitment, any change, for someone like Plato, is decay. In addition, emotions are by nature bereft of permanence. Chandidas lays bare further ground on permanence; namely, the negation that sustains it. While Bergson relates non-being with negation, Chandidas relates negation to permanence. Permanence, not non-being, is based on or is sustained by negation. Pre-existence, non-existence, or post-existence are the negation of existence. Without further explication, we will not be able to unravel the conceptual prison that holds what belongs to being, including desires and emotions that are fleeting in nature. Here there is a closer resemblance between Chandidas and Bergson. However, Chandidas’s contribution to this problem lies in dislodging permanence as a core feature of reality. As already pointed out, for him, permanence and non-being – both consisting of pre-existence and post-existence – are the projections of intellect and are sustained by negation. Chandidas goes beyond Bergson when he claims that contradictoriness is the inherent tinge of reality. Acceptance of contradictoriness dislodges the entire species that consist of non-being, permanence, negation, and intellect. Chandidas says of contradictoriness:
Contradictoriness is an inherent structural tinge of reality. Contradictoriness is not a functional juxtaposing. Functional juxtaposing is a derivative of intellection. Contradictoriness is the ontic structurality. In so far as ontic structurality is fusable through ontological functionality, contradictoriness contradicts itself. This functional contradicting of itself is the reason of its identity.
Contradictoriness is not denying or negating.
(1975: 1)
A close reading of this dense philosophical prose written in an aphoristic manner reveals that contradictoriness, constituting the core of reality, privileges change. It renders those who do not change, like permanence, as marginal and not the core of reality. Once contradictoriness is seen in the privileged position, change acquires more respectability. From this point of view, existence is in continuous process. As Chandidas says, process is the “continual passage of reality. Process is the pulse of reality. It is multi-dimensional variableness”. Ultimate reality “is an accomplished fact of perpetual making” (1975: 24). Unlike in Hegel, where this continuous process is unidirectional, in Chandidas it moves multi-directionally. While negation institutes limits to existence in the form of pre-, post-, and non-existence, it is contradictoriness that releases it and discloses the eternality of process and existence, cleansing it of any such associations that obstruct it.
To reiterate, Chandidas embarks on this by first moving permanence to the margins. He discloses that permanence is in fact sustained by negation. It is, according to him, the projection of intellection and not a characteristic feature of reality. For him, negation and permanence are mere projections of the intellect. Reality is essentially in continual process, moving multi-directionally. This movement is governed by contradictoriness. Having disclosed this false identification pervading the history of philosophy, Chandidas depicts being and whatever is associated with being, such as emotions and desires as real and are eternally continuous. To reiterate, this continuation is sustained by contradictoriness. Contradictoriness circumvents any move towards permanence that is final. In circumventing the claims towards permanence that is final, in the form of post-existence, Chandidas liberates reality from the substratum of stasis that beginning and ending would otherwise require.
In exposing the marginal status of negation that makes pre- existence, an aspect of it is non-being, as sustained by negation,9 which in turn is a mere projection of intellect, and claiming contradictoriness as a core of reality that is in continual process, moving multi-directionally, Chandidas seems to unveil different way of looking at reality.
This chapter sought to excavate the relation between inequality and non-being. I discussed different versions of non-being and its different aspects including pre-, post- and non-existence that draw on resources from the idea of permanence in classical Indian philosophical schools. Then I moved on to analyse non-being in Deleuze’s presentation of Bergson. To thicken the plot, the discussion identified the insufficiency in the treatment of the problem of reason and non-reason in the debates between Descartes and Hume, who provide dominant and counter-traditions in the West. I have identified permanence as sustaining both non-being, reason, and have discussed Chandidas, who sought to historicise the human craving for permanence by relegating it to the margins as a projection of intellection, sustained by negation. He claims contradictoriness to be the pulse of reality. This gives a new lease of life to those aspects belonging to non-reason that suffered or were merely put aside as belonging to a counter-tradition bereft of a positive programme. I concluded by claiming that this rendering is more powerful in dethroning non-being than that attempted by Bergson, who leaves it to intuition. Thus, following this path of scrutinising the philosophical foundations of inequality – through hierarchy, permanence, non-being, and negation – provides a better understanding of the socio-political debate between equality and inequality. Instead of paying attention to the ontological foundation of non-being and inequality mediated by negation and hierarchy, modern political philosophy beginning with Rousseau has conducted the discussion on the level of politics. In order to understand the foundations of inequality, there is a need to excavate its ontological foundations. From this perspective, there is a need to revisit the debate between equality and inequality, Aristotle, and Rousseau to understand this perennial political problem better. This chapter made attempts in this direction.
को अद्धा वेद क इह प्र वोचत्कुत आजाता कुत इयं विसृष्टिः ।
अर्वाग्देवा अस्य विसर्जनेनाथा को वेद यत आबभूव ।। 6।।
यथोर्णनाभिः सृजते गृह्णते च
यथा पृथिव्यामोषधयः सम्भवन्ति ।
यथा सतः पुरुषात्केशलोमानि
तथाक्षरात्सम्भवतीह विश्वम् ।। 7।।
As a spider emits and draws in [its thread],
As herbs arise on the earth,
As the hairs of the head and body from a living person,
So from the Imperishable arises everything here.
(Hume 2003: 367)
आदित्यो ब्रह्मेत्यादेशस्तस्योपव्याख्यानमसदेवेदमग्र
आसीत् । तत्सदासीत्तत्समभवत्तदाण्डं निरवर्तत
तत्संवत्सरस्य मात्रामशयत तन्निरभिद्यत ते आण्डकपाले
रजतं च सुवर्णं चाभवताम् ।।3.19.1।।
तद्यद्रजतँसेयं पृथिवी यत्सुवर्णँ सा द्यौर्यज्जरायु
ते पर्वता यदुल्बँसमेघो नीहारो या धमनयस्ता
नद्यो यद्वास्तेयमुदकँस समुद्रः ।।3.19.2।।
अथ यत्तदजायत सोऽसावादित्यस्तं जायमानं घोषा
उलूलवोऽनूदतिष्ठन्त्सर्वणि च भूतानि सर्वे च
कामास्तस्मात्तस्योदयं प्रति प्रत्यायनं प्रति घोषा
उलूलवोऽनूत्तिष्ठन्ति सर्वाणि च भूतानि सर्वे च कामाः ।।3.19.3।।
world of unchanging Forms or Ideas, of which the world of changing things in space and time is the offspring. The Forms or Ideas are not only unchanging, indestructible, and incorruptible, but also perfect, true, real, and good… . The perfect and good Forms or Ideas are prior to the copies… . For if the starting point of all change is perfect and good, then change can only be a movement that leads away from the perfect and good; it must be directed towards the imperfect and evil, towards corruption.
(2007: 36)
Thus, Form is associated with permanence and empirical reality is vulnerable to change. Open society calls for freedom and change and rejects any attempt to hold permanent ideas that smack of essentialism.
While Plato privileged the non-empirical transcendental that is permanent and rendered the empirical world as ever-changing and unreal, a careful reading of modern Western philosophy revealed to me that instead of rejecting the transcendent along with its associate ideas, modern philosophers, beginning with Descartes, have been attempting to secularise these metaphysical or theological concepts like Form or non-being. For instance, Descartes, as rightly pointed out by J. P. Sartre, “sought for solution, in imagination, for the union of ‘thinking substance and extended substance’ ” (2012: 27). This is not satisfactory for Sartre. Similarly, you have Kantian noumena, or transcendental self in different forms in the phenomenological tradition. Hegel tried to save this project by locating these transcendental ideas within the historical process and dialectical mode. However, the problem with him is that he posits a unidirectional historical process that defies the actual developments of the world that seems to be moving in a multi-directional trajectory.
Like Bergson, Sartre traces the relation between negation and non-being. He says that “non-being does not come to things by a negative judgement; it is the negative judgement, on the contrary, which is conditioned and supported by non-being” (2012: 31). He, however, concedes that “nothingness haunts being” (2012: 35). While non-being that is derived from negative judgements haunts being, Sartre confronts the question, “where does Nothingness come from?” (2012: 46). His answer is, “Man is the being through whom nothingness comes to the world”. He is then confronted by another question that is a corollary to this one, namely, “What must man be in his being in order that through him nothingness may come to being?” (2012: 48). Since my focus in this chapter is not to discuss non-being in Western philosophy, but on juxtaposing philosophical ideas of the relation between non-being and being in classical Indian philosophy, Bergson, and Chandidas, I have not elaborated on this in the main body of the chapter.