1

Phantasm - between Deleuze and Badiou?

(presentation at Deleuze Studies Conference, Lisbon July 2013)

Both Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze seek to formulate the conditions under which a
subject can participate in or be submitted to an Event. For Badiou the Event is a moment in
which truth is revealed.
1
Event introduces a rupture in the unchanging order of the actual. It
poses an alternative and allows for the emergence of a new world. The Event can be
represented, often in a clear and distinct manner, and become a basis for a politicized form of
subjectivity. A new political territory territory that breaks with the confines of capitalism
and the parliamentary democracy can be formed only given an orientation at and
faithfulness to an Event. The philosophical point of departure of Deleuze his reversal of
Platonism - does not allow him to speak of the truth that is revealed in the Event. It does
neither allow for any search for clear and well distinct formulations which can represent the
Event. For Badiou Deleuze is incapable of thinking a political subject that is faithful to an
Event and can act accordingly.
2

This criticism is unjustified. The philosophical point of departure of Deleuze does not
prevent him from searching of concrete formulations of subjective relationship towards an
Event. In analysis of the phantasm in Logic of Sense as well as in the analysis of the various
becomings undertaken in Thousand Plateaus we find Deleuze and Guattaris contributions to
a constructivist politics of public and individual life. Phantasm helps us to select the true
problems and allow for a search of adequate solutions. The conceptualisation of the relation to
the Event is nevertheless highly different from Badiou. Deleuze still emphasizes the role of
counter-actualisation and deteritorrialisation in his analysis of phantasms and of the various
becomings. A properly constructed phantasm allows for a mobility and a continuous
sensitivity to the shifting field of problems.
In my presentation I will try to evaluate the differences between Badiou and Deleuze. I
will first briefly mention the characteristics of Event in Badiou and return to Deleuzes
analysis of phantasm in Logic of Sense. Basing on the analysis of the word of Deleuze by
iek I will claim that his earlier formulations of the notion of the phantasm do carry political
intentions. Contrary to iek I will nevertheless also claim that this formulation is not entirely
different from Deleuzes later analysis of the processes of becoming in the work with
Guattari.

1
See Badiou (2006) Logiques de Mondes, (2011), Le rveil de lhistoire.
2
See Badiou (2006: 409).
2


Badiou.
For both Deleuze and Badiou a true materialism is never reductionist. Both writers
conceptualise a dimension that transcends matter. This dimension be it surface of sense in
Logic of Sense, socius as a recording surface of social production in Anti-Oedipus, or truth in
case of Badiou cannot be considered to be a suprastructure that expresses the determining
infrastructure. The Event belongs to a different ontological dimension than matter and its
existence must be posed to understand the process of self-organisation of matter. Both authors
also underscore the importance of the subjective orientation at an Event. It can be reached
only under very specific conditions.
Badiou has been very elaborate on the conditions under which a subject can be
oriented at an Event. A subject can leave the atonal eventless - world and participate in
change of the world. In his book Le rveil de lhistoire he analyses the conditions under
which subjects of the Arab spring relate to an Event. According to Badiou the Egyptian spring
starts at the moment in which the casual organisation of the political en social life of the Arab
world is suspended. The tyranny of the actual is temporarily left behind. A certain truth is
revealed. This Event is made visible by a suicide of a salesman in Tunisia. This seller of fruit
cannot bear the lack of possibilities present in his life anymore. He cannot tolerate the
corruption and poverty. He sets himself on fire. This act reveals a certain truth that appears in
the hitherto unchanging world. Suddenly the population of Tunisia and other Arab countries
realises that it is necessary to express rage. It becomes clear that people are capable of
fighting for their own dignity and life. They become aware of their ability to emancipate. This
truth of emancipation is represented by the maxim shouted by millions of people We, the
children of workers and of peasants, are stronger than the criminals. For Badiou only this
representation of the truth-event makes collective action possible. The various, often
completely different groups within a society, are now faithful to one and the same event. They
can struggle together.
3
They do not live in the atonal world anymore, but in a world
characterised by an Event. They produce a revolutionary movement.

Deleuze.
Formulations as the one just mentioned are nearly absent in the work of Deleuze. In his book
on Deleuze iek nevertheless suggests that it might be possible to reconstruct an account of

3
Similar analysis is found in Logiques des Mondes (2006: 515), in the analysis of China.
3

politicised subjectivity, similar to the one of Badiou, basing on the earlier work of Deleuze
and not on his collaboration with Guattari. iek mentions here a hidden tension between the
two ontologies in the work of Deleuze, which lead to different political logics and practices.
On the one hand we have the ontology of the productive becoming, developed in the
schizoid work with Guattari. Both authors stress the primacy of the multitude and of the
molecular groups. They emphasise the importance of the resistance to and undermining of the
molar, totalizing systems of power. For iek, Deleuze and Guattari are the romantic
proponents of the spontaneous, non-hierarchical, living multitude that opposes the oppressive,
reified System.
4
On the other hand there is a second ontology in Deleuze, one developed in
Logic of Sense. It is this model that has also drawn attention of Foucault in his analysis of
Deleuzes work in the text Theatrum Philosophicum. According to a standard interpretation,
Logic of Sense, with its analysis of Sense-Events is entirely apolitical.
5
iek challenges this
reading by claiming that the ontology presented in this book involves a political logic and
political practice of its own, one Deleuze was unaware of.
6
Deleuze distinguishes there just
like Marx did - between the infrastructure and superstructure. He distinguishes between the
material or socio-economic processes taking place in reality and the revolutionary Events of
the political logic proper.
7

My claim in the rest of the paper will be to claim that there indeed is a politics to be
found in Logic of Sense. This politics in nevertheless not different from the one found in the
work with Guattari. Analysis of Events and phantasms is similar to the analysis of becomings
in latter work. ieks distinction between both ontologies and his criticism of its limited
political scope, is unjustified. I will now fist show the characteristics of Deleuzes ontology in
Logic of Sense and secondly show its similarity with the latter work.

Double causality and quasi-cause.

4
iek has been frequently criticised for making this point I will not pursue this here.
5
The problem is that this is the only model of the politicization of Deleuze's thought available: the other
ontology, that of the sterility of the Sense-Event, appears apolitical. (iek 2004: 32).
6
Should we not, then, proceed like Lenin in 1915 when, in order to ground anew revolutionary practice, he
returned to Hegel - not to his directly political writings, but, primarily, to his Logic? What if, in the same way,
there is another Deleuzian politics to be discovered here?(iek 2004: 32).
7
The first hint in this direction may be provided by the already- mentioned parallel between the couple
corporeal causes/immaterial flow of becoming and the old Marxist couple infrastructure/superstructure: such a
politics would take into account both the irreducible duality of "objective" material/socio-economic processes
taking place in reality as well as the explosion of revolutionary Events, of the political logic proper. What if the
domain of politics is inherently "sterile," the domain of pseudo-causes, a theatre of shadows, but nonetheless
crucial in transforming reality? (iek 2006: 32).
4

Concepts that are crucial for the understanding of the political dimension of the ontology of
Logic of Sense are double causality and the quasi-cause. The causality proper to the matter is
not the only type of causality. The emergence of the surface of sense introduces ruptures into
the material causal chain. It introduces Events that allow for emergence of new forms of
organisation. Depth generates surface but is subsequently influenced by the Events that are
proper to this surface.
8

One of the most clear examples of the working of quasi-causality given by Deleuze in
Logic of Sense is the distinction between Protestantism and Lutheranism, that is borrowed
from Novalis.
9
Deleuze claims that Protestantism must not be understood as an instance
proper to the causal material chain. Protestantism carries characteristics of an Event and
belongs to the surface of Sense. Protestantism emerges given the first cracks in the feudal
mode of production, given the diminishing role of aristocracy and church in the economy. It
also emerges given the increasing importance of individualism. At the same time however
Protestantism detaches itself from this material causal chain. Protestantism represents an
Event that has no clearly defined actual characteristics. To use terminology of Difference and
Repetition - Protestantism is virtual. Only given this status it is of fundamental importance for
the emergence of actual religious practices in the early renaissance Europe. Protestantism is
not a model that must be actualised. It is a quasi-cause of the actual religious practices.
Lutheranism actualises the virtual Protestantism. As a practice it is connected to a sequence of
concrete historical and material circumstances. Lutheranism nevertheless needs Protestantism
to come to completion. Without Protestantism as a quasi-cause Lutheranism would not
emerge. Protestantism is a Sense-Event. It serves as an instance that synthesises other events.

We could conclude here that this conceptualisation of quasi-causality is not entirely
different from the analysis of Badiou. Deleuze speaks here of an event, an emergence of an
Idea (Protestantism). Speaking of truth and a subsequent fidelity to it would be just a
consequence of this ontological stance. We could hence have here a Badiouist version of
Deleuzian politics, iek is searching for. The aim of Deleuzes analysis in Logic of Sense is

8
Incorporeal effects are never themselves causes in relation to each other; rather, they are only quasi-causes
following laws which perhaps express in each case the relative unity or mixture of bodies on which they depend
for their real causes. Logic of Sense: 6.
Il est slectif encore, il fait la diffrence, mais pas du tout la manire de Platon. Ce quil slectionne , cest
tous les procds qui sopposent la slection. Logique du Sens: 306.
9
Les vnements sont idaux. Il arrive Novalis de dire qu'il y a deux trains d'vnements, les uns idaux, les
autres rels et imparfaits, par exemple le protestantisme idal et le luthrianisme rel. Mais la distinction n'est
pas entre deux sortes d'vnements, elle est entre l'vnement, par nature idal, et son effectuation spatio-
temporelle. (LDS 68).
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nevertheless different. Protestantism cannot refer to any truth. It is also not representing a
single Event. But what kind of characteristics does Event have? How can it be represented?

An instance that represents Events for Deleuze is phantasm. How is it defined? In
Logic of Sense Deleuze clearly distinguishes between the depth of the physical bodies and the
surface of sense realm of Events and phantasms proper. The depth is the realm of simulacra
(Deleuze 1990: 187), a notion that allows to criticise the primacy of the Platonic distinction
between copies and ideas (Deleuze 1990: 253). For Deleuze simulacrum is not a bad copy of a
perfect Idea. Simulacra simulate and allow for emergence of new entities. A Greek sculpture
is hence not an inferior copy of ideal beauty. The beauty itself is a result of a sculpting
process. Beauty is a concept attributed to a self emerging physical entity.
Simulacra of the depth can and must nevertheless be elevated to the level of a
phantasm that is proper to the surface of sense, as Deleuze frequently underlines in Logic of
Sense.
10
Only phantasms can play the role of quasi-causes and can represent Events.
Phantasm are the only instance that can allow for a disjunctive synthesis of various physical
interactions that are expressed on the surface of sense (Deleuze 1990: 210).

What examples of phantasms does Deleuze give us in Logic of Sense? Some of the
formulations are highly problematic from the point of view of political action. One of the
most suspicious cases of a phantasm that might be misinterpreted as too spiritualist, can be
found in the analysis of the activity of the Stoic sage who is compared to an archer. The sage
participates in incorporeal events, Deleuze says, and compares his activity to the practice of
zen. As he states: the bowman must reach the point where the aim is also not the aim, that is
to say, the bowman himself; where the arrow flies over its straight line while creating its own
target; where the surface of the target is also the line and the point, the bowman, the shooting
of the arrow, and what is shot at(...) The sage waits for the event, Deleuze continues. He
understands the pure event in its eternal truth, independently of its spatio-temporal
actualisation, as something eternally yet-to-come and always already passed according to the
line of the Ain. (Deleuze 1990: 146).
Deleuze does not refer here to any concrete analysis of an archer. We might be tempted to
give an example of the famous (sexually coloured) archer scene in Pasolinis il fiore delle
mille e una note Arabian nights made three years after the appearing of Logic of Sense.

10
See for example: Deleuze 1990: 6.
6

This example does nevertheless not suffice. The archer Aziz in the movie of Pasolini is
wholly led by a narcissistic phantasm of a phallus, proper to sexual if not schizoid position.
The archer is guided by the simulacrum of the penis of the depth that is analysed in the series
on orality and sexuality.
11
Aziz aims merely to satisfy his own and the females pleasure. He
might be guided by the image of the phallus thought differently than in the Lacanian scheme
that allows for a full development of narcissism. This image, a property of the physical
surface, would express the Egos confidence and its belief in own reparative capacities. It
would allow for the conjunctive synthesis.
12

Is Deleuze interested in this kind of formulation, in the analysis of the sage? No. Even
in this very problematic passage, phallus cannot be the phantasm. Phallus is an image that
allows for the emergence of conjunctive synthesis, one that allows for the emergence of a
coherent world. In the movie of Pasolini, Aziz too lately understands the stupidity and
carelessness of his own behaviour. This part of the movie ends with vivid images of Azizs
castration by a group of enraged women. The main point of the analysis of the archer is
different. A stoic sage distances himself from narcissism and the physical surface of his body.
He does not identify himself with the image of the phallus, but with a quasi-cause that is
proper to the metaphysical surface itself.
A sage wants an Event, a narcissist Aziz, is not capable of actualising. The outcome of
the actions of Aziz is in fact predetermined. He can either succeeds or fail in bringing
pleasure. The Stoic archer on the other hand no longer beliefs in its own capacities to control
the world. Neither does he believe that his own attempts at restoration will be successful. He
acknowledges the possibility of failure. For the stoic sage the shot is precise exactly given the
power of the phantasm to represent events, given its capacity to direct the ego at the unlimited
future and unlimited past, given the opening it provides. Deleuze hastens to underscore that
the sage is not in touch with any external spiritual reality. He is directed at a particular quasi-
cause that allows him to reach a particular goal. The quasi-cause emerges out of the physical
reality and remains connected to this very reality. The quasi-cause operates, as Deleuze says.
It makes a selection possible.
13


11
For the analysis of this topic see : Swiatkowski (2014 forthcoming), Dynamic genesis of Sense: analysis of
desire in Deleuzes Logic of Sense, Leuven: LUP.
12
Notice here that Hallward who is critical of the political impact of Deleuzes thought, as thinks the process of
counter-actualisation by referring to the image of the phallus. In this notion he finds evidence of Deleuzes
escapism. (Hallward: 2006:158).
13
The quasi-cause does not create, it operates, and wills only what comes to pass. Representation and its
usage therefore intervene at this point. Corporeal causes act and suffer through a cosmic mixture and a universal
present which produces the incorporeal event. But the quasi-cause operates by doubling this physical causality
it embodies the event in the most limited possible present which is the most precise and the most instantaneous,
7


The remarks on the necessity of actualisation of an Event, given by Deleuze,
nevertheless do not entirely change the content of this passage. It still remains one of the
most spiritual passages of the whole book. Isnt the sage experiencing a metaphysical bliss?
Is he not in touch with a deeper lying vital force a position rightly criticises for its lack of
political implications? In his analysis of the phantasm Deleuze chooses eventually to parts
from the Stoa and to partially embrace psychoanalysis.
14
The way he analyses the working of
the phantasm in this chapter is different than iek imagines it to be. Contrary to Freud
Deleuze claims that the phantasms do not refer to a restricted number of problems only
problems of sexual difference, authority, etc. Phantasms do not represent general truths about
life, as Freud imagined them to do. Phantasms refer to a problematic field on which they are
constructed. One of the most important characteristics of a phantasm is nevertheless that it
represents only a limited series of Events. Phantasms allow for the disjunctive synthesis, but a
synthesis of still concrete series. They are constructions that refer to given sets of problems.

The phantasms known from psychoanalysis - analysed in Logic of Sense
15
- can easily
be replaced by the analysis of becomings from later work. I rephrase here the latter analysis in
terminology of Logic of Sense. Captain Ahab a main protagonist of the book Moby Dick
phantasises about a white whale. He phantasises about killing the white whale that has bitten
his leg off. Just like in the case of the phantasms of Freud we can state that this phantasm
presents Ahab with various scenarios. Also this phantasm represents few series of Events.
Each scenario will express a different subjective position, a different manner of confronting
the world. Ahab can identify with various elements of the phantasm. He can identify himself
with the wale itself, with the one killing the whale or the activity of killing itself.
16

The example of the phantasm of Ahab naturally shows the limits of psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis cannot reach the root of this phantasm. In the series on the phantasm Deleuze
underlines that for both Freud and Laplanche and Pontalis, the ego has to lie at the root of the
movement that is represented in the phantasm. It is characterised by pronominal model

the pure instant grasped at the point at which it divides itself into future and past, and no longer the present of the
world which would gather into itself the past and the future. The actor occupies the instant, while the character
portrayed hopes or fears in the future and remembers or repents in the past: it is in this sense that the actor
represents. (147).
14
See series on surface and phantasm.
15
See Deleuze 1990: 212 - 213.
16
This is similar to the analysis of phantasm by Freud and underscored in the reading of phantasm by Laplanche
and Pontalis. See Deleuze (1990: 212) and Laplanche and Pontalis (1985) Fantasme originaire, fantasmes des
origines, origine du fantasme, Paris : Hachette.
8

(Deleuze (1990: 213). Psychoanalysis also limits the number of choices presented in the
phantasm. The analysis has to end in a choice for either the active or passive role of the
subject.
17

For Deleuze and Guattari becoming animal or becoming whale does not have the ego
at its root and does not limit the number of choices present. The white whale is a spiritual
construction, full of different scenarios. The phantasm of Ahab emerges in a situation of an
industrial whale hunter, a hunter who has increasingly lost any sense of heroism and is bound
to earn a substantial amount of money during his hunt. It is a phantasm of a person who has
lost touch with nature due to the rationality of the hunting process and who desperately tries
to restore this very relationship.
18
This phantasm is not a radical opening, a form of
destructive deterritorialisation. Becoming whale is a particular construction, allowing the
captain to relate to the problems he encounters in his world. The choice for one of the
positions within the phantasm is a response, motivated by those circumstances. Becoming
animal means that Ahab is at the same time a victim also of the social and political
circumstances. He is also this strange, bizarre and singular wild animal that is very hard to
catch. He identifies with the aggression of this animal, its hidden power, its specific relation
with the sea.

We can now start to realise that the analysis in Logic of Sense does not differ greatly
from one in the later work. Deleuze does not only envisage an escape from the molar
structures. Both in Logic of Sense and later work he tries to conceptualise the manner in
which phantasms become constructed. Those phantasms have very precise characteristics,
which introduce movement and represent Events that are proper to the problematic field.

Deleuze expresses the nature of the phantasm in the following statement: What
appears in the phantasm is the movement by which the ego opens itself to the surface and
liberates the a-cosmic, impersonal, and pre-individual singularities which it had imprisoned
(213). We can now start to understand what Deleuze means by the a-cosmic and pre-
individual singularities that characterise the phantasm. Deleuze does not speak here about
some primordial and vital flow of life but rather talks about an open construction that will
subsequently construct subjectivity. The white whale represents Events and allows for a

17
For the analysis of the topic see Swiatkowski (2014, forthcoming)
18
See the chapters on rationality of the hunt that are part of the story.
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disjunctive synthesis that will lead to a new behaviour. Ahab changes his way of life after the
appearance of the phantasm of the white whale.

Conclusion.
Just like iek I have tried to claim that earlier books of Deleuze do carry political intentions.
This is visible in the analysis of the phantasm. Contrary to iek I have also claimed that the
analysis given in both periods is not different. Deleuze and Deleuze and Guattari envisage in
both cases constructions of phantasms or becomings that relate to a given problematic
field. In this analysis Deleuze differs greatly from Badiou. For Badiou an Event is an opening
to a truth and can lead to a subsequent subjective orientation at this truth. Only a precise
defining of the expression of Event in a concrete formula, such as we slaves want to return to
our place leads to a legitimate relation to the Event. Only in this case one can speak of an
effectualisation of Event in individual life.
Deleuzian politics of personal and public life both in his earlier and latter work -
does not end up in the criticised politics of resistance of little groups against the dominant
state. They neither refer to a transcendent truth. Phantasm is a construction that implies a
relation to a given problematic field. It is a specific way of responding to those circumstances.