DRIVES AND THEIR ROTARY MOTION

驅力及其旋轉運動

How, then, does Schelling succeed in accounting for this inherent inversion of the Absolute? Perhaps the most appropriate way is by focusing on the problem of Beginning, the crucial problem of German Idealism - suffice it to recall Hegel’s detailed elaboration of this problem and all its implications in his Science of Logic. Schelling's fundamental thesis is that, to put it bluntly, the true Beginning is not at the beginning: there is something that precedes the Beginning itself - a rotary motion whose vicious cycle is broken, in a gesture analogous to the cutting of the Gordian knot, by the Beginning proper, that is, the primordial act of decision. The beginning of all beginnings is, of course, the “In the beginning was the Word” from the Gospel according to St.John: prior to it, there was nothing, that is, the void of divine eternity. According to Schelling, however, "eternity" is not a nondescript bulk - a lot of things take place in it. Prior to the Word there is the chaotic-psychotic universe of blind drives, of their rotary motion, of their undifferentiated pulsating, and the Beginning occurs when the Word is pronounced that "represses", rejects into the eternal Past, this self-enclosed circuit of drives. In short, at the Beginning proper stands a resolution, an act of decision that, by way of differentiating between past and present, resolves the preceding unbearable tension of the rotary motion of drives: the true Beginning is the passage from the “closed” rotary motion to the “open” progress, from drive to desire, or, in Lacanian terms, from the Real to the Symbolic. The beginning occurs when one "finds the word” that breaks the deadlock, the vicious cycle, of empty and confused ruminations.?

那么，謝林是如何解釋絕對者的這一內(nèi)在顛倒的呢？或許，最佳的途徑是聚焦于開端問題，它是德國唯心論的關鍵問題——回想一下黑格爾在《邏輯學》中對這個問題及其含義的詳盡闡述。直白地說，謝林的基本論點是，真正的開端不在開端處：有某些比開端還早的東西——一種旋轉運動，它的惡性循環(huán)被真正的開端，也就是原始的決斷行為，以一種類似于斬斷戈迪烏斯之結的姿態(tài)打破。當然，根據(jù)約翰福音，一切開端的開端是“太初有道”，在它之前，一無所有There was nothing，或者說是神圣永恒的虛空。然而，根據(jù)謝林，“永恒”并非無可名狀的龐然大物——大量的事情在其中發(fā)生。在道之先，有一個混沌的、精神病的宇宙，它是盲目的驅力、驅力的旋轉運動和它的無差別的搏動，當“壓抑”且拒絕進入永恒的過去（驅力的自我封閉的循環(huán)）的道被說出時，開端出現(xiàn)了。簡言之，真正的開端是一個決心，一個決斷行為，它通過區(qū)分過去和現(xiàn)在，解決了先前驅力的旋轉運動所無法承受的張力：真正的開端是從“封閉的”旋轉運動到“開放的”前進運動的轉變，是從驅力到欲望的轉變，或者用拉康的話說，是從實在到符號界的轉變。當某人“發(fā)現(xiàn)了道”，從而打破了空洞且混亂的思維反芻（譯者注：“思維反芻”指人反復地思考消極事件及其可能的原因與后果，陷入其中無法自拔，是強迫癥的表現(xiàn)）的僵局及其惡性循環(huán)時，開端出現(xiàn)了。

In this precise sense, the problem of the Beginning is the problem of “phenomenalization”: how does it happen that God pronounces the Word and thereby discloses himself, appears to himself? We must be careful not to miss this crucial point: as with Hegel, the problem is not how to attain the noumenal In-itself beyond phenomena, the true problem is how and why at all does this In-itself split itself from itself, how does it acquire a distance toward itself and thus clear the space in which it can appear (to itself).

由此而言，開端問題是“現(xiàn)象化”的問題：上帝說出了道從而自我解蔽并向自己顯現(xiàn)，這是如何發(fā)生的呢？我們千萬不要忽略這一關鍵點：和黑格爾一樣，問題不在于如何超越現(xiàn)象而到達自在的本體，真正的問題是：自在的本體究竟如何及為何自我分裂？它如何與自身拉開距離，從而開辟出一個能在其中向它自己顯現(xiàn)的場域呢？

How, then, can this phenomenalization of God, this pronunciation of the Word in him that magically, in an unfathomable way, dispells the impenetrable darkness of drives, occur? It can only occur on condition that the rotary motion of drives that precedes the Beginning is itself not the primordial, unsurpassable fact. That is to say, the notion of the vortex of drives as the ultimate foundation, the "origin of all things", renders inconceivable the fact of Freedom: how can a Word emerge out of this vortex and dominate it, confer on it its shape, "discipline" it? Consequently this ultimate Ground of reality, the primordial vortex of drives, this Wheel of Fate that sooner or later engulfs and destroys every determinate object, must be preceded by an unfathomable X that in a way yet to be explained "contracts" drives. Is, however, the primordial vortex of drives not the ultimate ground that nothing can precede? Schelling would entirely agree with that, adding only that the point in question is precisely the exact status of this “nothing": prior to Grund, there can only be an abyss (Ungrund); that is, far from being a mere nihil privativum, this “nothing” that precedes Ground stands for the “absolute indifference” qua the abyss of pure Freedom that is not yet the predicate-property of some Subject but rather designates a pure impersonal Willing (Wollen) that wills nothing. At the outset of his "prehistory", prior to the Beginning itself, God unavoidably, of blind necessity that characterizes the workings of Fate (according to the first draft of Weltalter), "contracts" Being, that is, a firm, impenetrable Ground. (Schelling, of course, plays upon the double meaning of the term contraction: to tighten-compress-condense and to catch, to be afflicted with, to go down with [an illness]; the primordial Freedom "contracts” Being as a painful burden that ties it down.) Prior to this primordial contraction, to this act of engendering-ejecting one’s Ground, God is, as Schelling puts it in an unsurpassed way in the second draft of Wehalter; a pure Nothingness that “rejoices in its nonbeing”. (Significantly, Schelling resorts to the same formulation when, in his Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism, he describes the falsehood of a person entertaining the notion of his own death: when indulging in fantasies about one's own death, one always imagines oneself as miraculously surviving one's death and being present at the scene of one's own funeral in the guise of a pure gaze that observes the universe from which one is already absent. relishing the imagined pathetic reactions of the relatives, etc. We are thereby at the fundamental time-loop of fantasy: to be present as a pure gaze prior to one's own conception or decease. Is therefore the God prior to the primordial contraction, this pure gaze that finds enjoyment in contemplating its own nonbeing, also not a fantasy formation at its purest? Schelling emphasizes again and again that the passage of the pure Seinkoennen of the primordial Abyss into the contracted Ground cannot be accounted for or deduced: it can only be described (narrated) post festum, after it already took place, since we are not dealing with a necessary act but with a free act that could also not have happened - however, does this not amount to an implicit admission of the fact that its status is that of a retroactive fantasy? )

上帝的現(xiàn)象化，即對在他之內(nèi)的道的言說，以一種神秘莫測的方式，驅散了驅力那不可透視的黑暗，這是如何發(fā)生的呢？它只能在以下條件下發(fā)生：先于開端的驅力的旋轉運動本身并非原始的、無法超越的事實。也就是說，“驅力的漩渦”這一概念作為“終極的根據(jù)和”萬事萬物的源頭”，使自由的事實變得無法想象：道如何能從這個漩渦中出現(xiàn)并反過來支配它、賦予它形狀和“規(guī)訓”它呢？因此，這個現(xiàn)實的終極根據(jù)、這個驅力的原始漩渦、這個遲早會吞噬和毀滅一切確定對象的命運之輪，必定以一個深不可測的未知之物為先導，后者以一種尚待解釋的方式“收縮”驅力。然而，既然原始的驅力漩渦是終極的根據(jù)，那么在它之前不是什么都沒有nothing嗎？對此謝林完全同意，但他補充道：問題的關鍵正是這個“無nothing”的地位：先于根據(jù)的只能是一個深淵（無根據(jù)），也就是說，這個先于根據(jù)的“無”絕非一個“空乏的無”，而是代表著“絕對的無差別”——一個純粹自由的深淵，它尚不是某個主詞的謂詞屬性，而是標示著一種純粹的、非人格化的意愿，這個意愿無所欲求。在比開端還早的“史前史”的開始處，上帝作為盲目的必然性（根據(jù)《世界時代》的初稿，這個詞用來描述命運的運行），不可避免地把存在收縮成一個堅實的、不可穿透的根據(jù)（當然，謝林利用了“contract”這個詞的雙重含義：收緊、壓縮、凝結和遭受、被…折磨、染病，原始的自由把存在“收縮”成了一個束縛著它的痛苦的負擔）。在這原始的收縮之前，在這產(chǎn)生并排斥出存在之根據(jù)的行動之前，正如謝林在《世界時代》第二手稿中以一種無與倫比的方式指出的：上帝是“在其非存在中享樂”的純粹的無Nothingness。（作者注：值得注意的是，謝林在《關于獨斷論和批判主義的哲學書信》中描述一個人關于自己的死亡的異想天開時，采取了同樣的表述：當某人沉浸在自己死亡的幻想中時，他總是想象自己雖然死了，卻還不可思議地“存在著”，在自己葬禮的現(xiàn)場，作為一種純粹的凝視，觀察著那個他已然不在其中的宇宙，欣賞著親戚們悲戚的反應等等。故而，我們處于幻想的基本時間循環(huán)之中：在自己出生之前和死亡之后，作為純粹的凝視而在場。因此，先于原始收縮的上帝，作為純粹的凝視——凝視自己的非存在并以此為樂——不也是一個最最純粹的幻想嗎？謝林一再強調(diào)，原始深淵的純粹“能在”轉變成收縮性的根據(jù)，這一過程無法被解釋或推斷：它只能在事后——在它已然發(fā)生之后被描述或講述，因為我們所討論的不是一個必然的行動，而是一個不可能發(fā)生的“自由的”行動——然而，這不等于默認了這樣一個事實，即它不過是一個回溯性的幻想嗎？）

God qua pure Freedom that hasn't yet contracted being thus stricto sensu doesn’t exist. The spontaneous, self-generated “breach of symmetry” (we are tempted to say: the primordial “Vacuum fluctuation”, which sets in motion the development of the Absolute) is the primordial contraction by means of which God acquires being. This contraction of/into being is necessarily followed by a counterstroke of expansion - why? Let us step back for a moment and reformulate the primordial contraction in terms of the passage from a self-contented Will that wants nothing to an actual Will that effectively wants something. The pure potentiality of the primordial Freedom, this blissful tranquility, ?this pure enjoyment, of an unassertive, neutral Will that wants nothing actualizes itself in the guise of a Will that actively, effectively, wants this “nothing,” that is, the annihilation of every positive, determinate content. By means of this purely formal conversion of potentiality into actuality, the blissful peace of primordial Freedom thus changes into pure contraction, into the vortex of “divine madness” that threatens to swallow everything, into the highest affirmation of God's egotism, which tolerates nothing outside itself. In other words, the blissful peace of primordial Freedom and the all-destructive divine fury that sweeps away every determinate content are one and the same thing, only in a different modality: first in the mode of potentiality, then in the mode of actuality: “the same principle carries and holds us in its ineffectiveness that would consume and destroy us in its effectiveness.” Upon experiencing itself as negative and destructive, the Will opposes itself to itself in the guise of its own inherent counterpole, the Will that wants something, that is, the positive Will to expansion. However, this positive Will's effort to break through the bars of its self-imposed contraction is doomed, since the antagonism of the two Wills, the contractive one and the expansive one, is here under the dominance, in the power, of contraction. God, as it were, repeatedly dashes against his own wall: unable to stay within, he follows his urge to break out, yet the more he strives to escape, the more he is caught in his own trap. Perhaps the best metaphor for this rotary motion is a trapped animal who desperately strives to disengage itself from a snare: although every spring only lightens the snare, a blind compulsion leads the animal to make dash after dash, so that it is condemned to an endless repetition of the same gesture. What we have here is Schelling's grandiose “Wagnerian" vision of God in the state of an endless “pleasure in pain," agonizing and struggling with himself, affected by an unbearable anxiety, the vision of a “psychotic,” mad God who is absolutely alone, a One who is “all” since he tolerates nothing outside himself - a “wild madness, tearing itself apart”. This rotary motion is horrible because it is no longer impersonal: God already exists as One, as the Subject who suffers and endures the antagonism of drives. Schelling provides here a precise definition of anxiety: anxiety arises when a subject experiences simultaneously the impossibility of closing itself up, of withdrawing fully into itself, and the impossibility of opening itself up, of admiting an Otherness, so that it is caught in a vicious cycle of pulsation - every attempt at creation-expansion-extemalization collapses back into itself. This God is not yet the Creator, since in creation the being (the contracted reality) of an Otherness is posited that possesses a minimal self-consistency and exists outside its Creator - this, however, is what God in the fury of his egotism is not prone to tolerate.

因此，嚴格說來，尚未收縮存在的、作為純粹自由的上帝并不存在。自發(fā)的“對稱性破缺”（一種原始的“真空波動”，它開啟了絕對the Absolute的發(fā)展運動）正是上帝由以獲得存在的原始收縮。這個向存在的收縮或者說存在自身的收縮必然伴隨著膨脹的反抗——為什么呢？讓我們暫且退一步，換個詞來表述這個原始的收縮：從無所欲求的、自足的意志到實際地欲求某物的、實存的意志的轉變。原始自由的這種純粹潛能，平和的、中性的、無所欲求的意志的這種至樂的寧靜與純粹的享樂，通過表現(xiàn)為一個積極地、實際地欲求著“無”的意志，或者說表現(xiàn)為對一切肯定性的、確定的內(nèi)容的毀滅，從而把它自己現(xiàn)實化。從潛能到現(xiàn)實的純?nèi)恍问缴系霓D變，使原始自由的至樂的寧靜變成了純粹的收縮，變成了威脅吞噬一切的“神圣的瘋狂”的漩渦，變成了對上帝自我中心主義的最高確證，它不容忍任何外在的東西。換言之，原始自由的至樂的寧靜與掃蕩和毀滅一切確定內(nèi)容的神圣的瘋狂是同一個東西，二者只是它的不同形式而已：它最初處于潛能的形式，繼而變?yōu)楝F(xiàn)實的形式：“同樣的一個原則，在不發(fā)揮作用時承載并保守著我們，而在發(fā)揮作用時卻會將我們吞噬和毀滅。”這個意志一旦體驗到自己是否定性和毀滅性，就會把自己表現(xiàn)成自己固有的對立物——那個欲求某物的意志或者說肯定性的膨脹意志——而與自己相對立。然而，這一肯定性意志注定要去奮力突破它強加給自己的障礙（即收縮），因為此時，在收縮意志和膨脹意志的對抗中，前者處于支配地位?？梢哉f，上帝不停地沖撞他自己的圍墻：他不想待在里面，他順應著自己突圍的沖動，然而，他越奮力地逃離，就越陷入到自己的羅網(wǎng)之中?；蛟S，對這一旋轉運動最貼切的比喻是一頭拼命要掙脫羅網(wǎng)的困獸：盡管每一次反彈只會收緊羅網(wǎng)，但盲目的沖動還是致使它一次次地沖撞，它注定要無盡地重復這同一個動作。在此，我們見到了謝林宏偉的“瓦格納式”的上帝形象：一個處于無盡的“苦中之樂”的上帝，他折磨自己，與自己斗爭，為一種難以忍受的焦慮所浸染；一個瘋狂的、孤身一人的“精神病人”；一個是“一切東西”的太一，因為他不容忍自己之外的任何東西；一種把自己撕裂的極端的“瘋狂。這樣的旋轉運動是可怕的，因為它不再是非人格化的：上帝已經(jīng)作為太一，作為一個忍受著驅力之對立的主體而存在了。在此，謝林給出了焦慮的精確定義：當主體體驗到它既不可能封閉自身、完全地回撤進自身，又不可能敞開自身接納他者，因而陷入到搏動的惡性循環(huán)之中——當他每一次創(chuàng)造、擴張、外化的努力都坍縮回自身時，焦慮就產(chǎn)生了。這樣的上帝還不是造物主，因為在創(chuàng)造活動中，他者的存在（收縮的現(xiàn)實）被設定為擁有最小的自我一致性且存在于創(chuàng)造者之外——然而，這是以自我為中心的瘋狂的上帝所不能容忍的。

As Schelling emphasizes again and again, this all-destructive divine vortex remains even today the innermost base of all reality:“if we were able to penetrate the exterior of things, we would see that the true stuff of all life and existence is the horrible." In this sense, all reality involves a fundamental antagonism and is therefore destined to fall prey to Divine fury; to disappear in the “orgasm of forces." “Reality" is inherently fragile, the result of a balance between contraction and expansion that can, at any moment, explode into one of the extremes. Hogrebe resorts here to ?an analogy from cinema: if the projection of a film is to give rise to an "impression of reality" in the spectator, the reel has to run at the proper speed - if it runs too quickly, the movement on the screen gets blurred and we can no longer discern different objects; if it is too slow, we perceive individual pictures and the continuity that accounts for the impression we are watching “real life" gets lost. Therein resides Schelling's fundamental motif: what we experience as “reality” is constituted and maintains itself through a balance between the two antagonist forces, with the ever-present danger that one of the two sides will "crack", run out of control, and thus destroy the "impression of reality". Is not this speculation confirmed by the premise of contemporary cosmology according to which the “reality" of our universe hangs in the balance, that is, hinges on the fragile tension between expansion and gravitation? If the expansion were just a little bit stronger, the universe would "explode", dissipate, no firm, stable object would form; if, on the contrary; gravitation were a little bit stronger, it would long ago have "collapsed", fallen in...?

正如謝林一再強調(diào)的，這個毀滅一切的神圣漩渦至今仍是一切現(xiàn)實的最內(nèi)在的基礎：“如果我們能穿透事物的表面，我們就會看到，一切生命及實存的真正基礎都是可怕的。”由此而言，一切現(xiàn)實都包含著一個基本的對立，因此注定要被神圣的瘋狂毀滅，注定要在“諸力量的高潮”中消亡?！艾F(xiàn)實”本就是脆弱的，它是收縮與膨脹相平衡的結果，隨時會突變?yōu)槠渲幸粋€極端。在此，霍格雷貝用電影來類比：如果電影要給觀眾制造出“現(xiàn)實的印象”，放映機的轉輪必須以適當?shù)乃俣刃D——如果它轉得太快，屏幕上的運動就會變得模糊，我們就無法分辨出不同的對象；如果速度太慢，我們就只能看到分立的圖片，造成我們正在觀看“現(xiàn)實生活”的印象的連續(xù)性就會消失。這就是謝林的中心思想：我們所體驗到的“現(xiàn)實”是被建構的，它以兩種對立力量間的平衡來維持自身，二者中任何一方“崩潰”和失控的危險會隨時發(fā)生，從而破壞“現(xiàn)實的印象”。這樣的猜想不是被當代宇宙學的原理證實了嗎？根據(jù)當代宇宙學，我們宇宙的“現(xiàn)實”存亡未卜，也就是說，它取決于膨脹與萬有引力間脆弱的對立關系：假如膨脹稍強一點，宇宙就會“爆炸”和消散，堅固穩(wěn)定的物體就不會形成；反之，假如萬有引力稍強一點，宇宙早就“坍縮”了……