The Black Circle

by Jeff Love

  This rational self-perfection, as Dostoevsky indicates, relies on mathematics and, in particular, on an algorithmic point of reference that can reduce all behavior types to a discrete calculus of relations.35 Rather than dismissing this position as absurdly naive, the central thrust of the underground man’s argument is to take it very seriously indeed. And he does so with good reason, since one may argue that such a calculus of relations is in fact a sort of synecdoche for profound currents in modern rationalism whereby the final end is a characteristica universalis, a sort of universal grammar, that has banished the possibility of error. The universality of this grammar is predicated on the impossibility of error. All minds that use this grammar—and all minds must use it—are brought together as one in every speech event. There is no isolated speech event, no speech event that cannot be made transparently clear to all. There are thus no idiolects, no accentuations of given conventions, no dialogues that do not repeat countless previous dialogues—there is and can be nothing particular, nothing extraordinary, nothing new.

  The underground man’s response to this solemn perfection is a radical challenge to it, so radical that many might think it merely spurious or mad.

  But I repeat to you for the hundredth time, there is only one case, one only, when man may purposely, consciously wish for himself even the harmful, the stupid, even what is stupidest of all: namely, so as to have the right to wish for himself even what is stupidest of all and not be bound by an obligation to wish for himself only what is intelligent. For this stupidest of all, this caprice of ours, gentlemen, may in fact be the most profitable of anything on earth for our sort, especially in certain cases.36

  Perhaps nothing can be more profitable for us than nonsense. What could be more profitable, more exhilarating, even divine, than not having to make sense? For all sense is a kind of coercion, a straitjacket in which we supposedly must work if we are to work at all, if we are to be at all. But must we follow these strictures? May we not contravene them? By contravening them, do we not merely reassert their coercive power so that our impetus to move beyond or escape them becomes nothing else than a topic of mockery or, in the worst cases, punishment?

  These sorts of questions get to the very core of Notes from Underground, an essential argument for freedom that equates freedom with the most extreme dismissal of any restraint on our human volition, such that volition cannot even make sense to itself anymore and, indeed, should not have to do so. To be free, in its fullest and most radical sense, is to not have to give an account of oneself to anyone, including oneself. A completed grammar or calculus of relations, as complete, transparent self-knowledge, is thus turned hollow, and Nietzsche likely praised the “un-German music” of Notes from Underground precisely on that basis—as a devastating parody of the injunction repeated in the Phaedrus, “Know yourself” (γνῶθι σεαυτόν).37 Let me explain by returning our discussion to its original starting point in the Phaedrus.

  Kojève notes, at the very beginning of a still largely unpublished manuscript from 1940–1941, that central to the concept of wisdom (Sophia) in the Greek tradition is the acquisition of self-knowledge, the fulfillment of the injunction to know thyself.38 If one is to attain wisdom, one must acquire perfect self-knowledge. Kojève defines this perfect self-knowledge as the ability to answer any question that may be posed about one’s actions. When one has answered all such questions satisfactorily, there is literally nothing more to do. Any further action can be nothing more than repetition or affirmation of what one always already knows. All knowledge has this revelatory quality insofar as we come to understand explicitly what was already implicitly “there.” Philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom is in this sense a prolonged enterprise of making ourselves explicit to ourselves, and it assumes that we do in fact do so.

  The echo of Platonic anamnesis (ἀνάμνησις) in this way of thinking is hard to miss. Coming to know, for Plato, is an act of recollection of what the soul always already knew in the hyperouranian realm, prior to the catastrophe of embodiment that so distorted the soul’s previously clear vision that it forgot many of the things it had seen before, and had seen in their perfect form rather than in the form distorted by the contingencies of existence in the world of becoming—the world, as we say now, of time and space. Likewise, coming to know, even in the sense of responding to questions or otherwise interpreting one’s surroundings, seems to be predicated on the discovery of things that are “there” waiting to be discovered, that are latent in our everyday experience, which, from this point of view, is a kind of blindness.

  The central assumption here is that we are in a latent sense complete; thus, it is the work of a life, if it is to be an examined one, to effect completion by bringing into the light or making explicit the implicit aspects of ourselves. All knowledge is in this sense either recollection, as Plato suggested, or an act of making explicit whatever was for some reason implicit in our lives—the essence of rationality is self-explicitation.39 If we return to the modern dream of a complete grammar or calculus of relations as a philosophical project, we might add that the same impulse to completion and full explicitness is evident there as well, but in a way that applies not only to our own consciousness of ourselves but also to ourselves as microcosmic representatives of the whole. Each one of us both expresses and mirrors the whole; we contain everything and everything is contained in us. This symmetry entails that self-knowledge is knowledge of the whole and that knowledge of the whole is self-knowledge, an equation that became much more celebrated in Hegel, as we shall see.

  The underground man dares to upset this structure by insisting that the highest goal is not self-knowledge but in fact the rejection of self-knowledge insofar as self-knowledge is merely another way in which one can become a piece of a machine, a piano key.40 The polemical use of the term “piano key” in Notes from Underground stems from the concern that the striving to achieve complete knowledge of the human being must lead to a transformation of the human being into an object, all of whose characteristics are settled. Here the underground man makes a connection between the attainment of knowledge and becoming a thing: to know results in reification.

  Perhaps the most important aspect of the striving to become a thing, to become complete as a referent in a characteristica universalis, is that the notion of thinking itself must change. Perhaps the correct nature of thinking will become clear. For thinking, in this context, is precisely the correct and complete relation of all things to each other such that nothing can be changed, added, or subtracted. Change is indeed only possible as error, a limit, an outside. The basic claim here is that as long as we are a thinking thing, we must think in the way that is prescribed, the way that is correct or, as we say, “logical.”

  There is nothing surprising about this. We are supposed to think correctly, and as the political slogan might have it, correct thought begets correct action. To think correctly, moreover, is to think in a way that clearly grasps what was “always already there.” This addition is necessary because of a formidable problem: to think correctly presupposes that no counterexamples exist, and to be sure that no counterexamples exist, one must have covered all possible counterexamples. Otherwise, one cannot be sure that one is thinking correctly, because, after all, a counterexample may be produced. To think correctly thus presupposes totality, that the correct mode of thinking that establishes the norm is not capable of being refuted by any possible counterexample. But this is the problem: How, then, is it possible for anyone to be incorrect if the correct is the true and complete account? If the account is true and complete, how can anyone do other than follow that account?

  There are two separate issues here. On the one hand, there is the case where one thinks correctly but is simply not aware of the way of thinking as such; the one who reveals the principles of correct thinking as being themselves a component of that thinking is merely making explicit what is implicit in our thinking. Thus, the examination of thought makes us conscious of the principles that g
overn that thought. We become aware of the rules and that is all, for even our awareness is governed by those rules. One cannot separate the examination of the rules from the rules themselves—this kind of knowledge is completely circular, even viciously so. On the other hand, there is the case that one thinks incorrectly and learns the correct way by being referred to what was always already there. Still, in this case, it is difficult to explain how the incorrect, or error, seeps into the world.

  This is no idle question. The seepage of error into the world resembles, on the cognitive level, a question that emerges on the ethical level: Whence evil?41 The major difference is that one denies the importance of volition to cognition but not to ethics. In other words, there is a long tradition that places the introduction of error into the world clearly in the hands of one who concretely acts, the finite human being. The human being may act differently than he or she should, and the disunity that this possibility implies plays a key role in distinguishing the human from the divine, for the capacity to act incorrectly stems from a defect or imperfection in the human being that obviously cannot exist in the deity whose perfection rules out the very possibility of defect. In the deity, there can be no variance between thought and action, while in the human being, the lack of such variance would be a most striking possibility—a lack belonging to saints and madmen.

  FREEDOM AND DIALECTICAL REASON

  There is yet another problem, which takes the issue even further: How is it that we may think meaningfully about correctness and error? The very capacity to think about correctness and error seems to bring up the specter of a way of thinking that is beyond both. What is thinking beyond correctness and error? Is it still thinking? And here we return to the problem of defining what thinking is, a problem that is central to Notes from Underground, where various kinds of attitude to thought are brought forth, some connected very closely with action, some incapable of such a connection. The structure that emerges reinforces the impression of a marked dialectical tendency in Dostoevsky’s narratives, a tendency that emerges in those narratives in a way that both reflects the German tradition of dialectical thought and calls it into question. Given the considerable importance of this structure for the series of arguments that will build on it in what follows, culminating in Kojève’s own refashioning of dialectical reason, I want to examine this aspect of Notes from Underground in somewhat more detail, before moving on to the later novels.

  If we look at the two perspectives that the underground man contemplates, we come to a complicated view of the options offered in the novella. Basically, there are three options: thought and action are one, thought and action are not one, or thought and action are not all.

  1. Thought and action are one. The unity of thought and action is the outstanding characteristic of the man of action. This unity consists in the fact that the man of action has chosen a set of norms that govern his actions more or less completely and is unlikely to be moved by counterexamples because he interprets them in terms of what he already takes to be the case. The man of action is thus generally impervious to change and incapable of recognizing the counterexample as constituting a threat to his way of action. For these reasons, the man of action no longer needs to think, other than to think in the ways already prescribed by the chosen norms. Put differently, the man of action exercises a variant of calculative rationality because, for him, thinking is merely meeting those norms or affirming them by transforming something that may be other than those norms into those norms. The problem, however, is that the man of action has chosen not to think further. He has adopted those norms on a basis that is not subject to those norms; indeed, that basis may not be subject to any norms. His choice of those norms is not explicable within their terms, and as such it is not normative or not rational—it is mad.

  2. Thought and action are not one. The disunity of thought and action is the outstanding characteristic of the man of inaction, “the man who sits with folded arms,” in the words of the underground man.42 The man of inaction is literally unable to decide how to act. All action is thus reactive, compelled by circumstances beyond the control of the man of inaction, who prefers to avoid entanglements of this or any sort because they compel action that the man of inaction cannot condone. Indeed, the man of inaction must regard any of his actions as being a betrayal of his intellectual probity, and this notion of betrayal sets up yet another tension that can never be resolved. The man of inaction is a locus of inexhaustible tension because the disunity of thought and action guarantees constant and irremediable tension. The underground man is a hero of negation, so much so that he rejects or negates his own negation. In this sense, he is mad, because he is incapable of assuming any regime of reason, even the one he uses to justify his negative stance.

  3. Thought and action are not all. This is perhaps the most curious position. What is beyond thought and action? Here the question comes down to the problem of reflection: What exactly is reflection? One would have to argue that reflection is thought, not action, and, if so, then it seems that reflection, to the extent activity must be halted so that one may reflect, is merely a variant of the kind of thinking already discussed. Reflection might be this disruptive thinking par excellence, a kind of thinking that never gets anything done. But is that really so?

  If the position that gives us the relation of thought to action is not in fact subsumed by that relation, then it is very hard to describe exactly what it is. Let me put the matter clearly: thought about the relation of thought to action must be either a further replication of that thought or outside the notion of thought defined as replicable in that way. But if that thought is merely a further replication of the thought it describes, one may wonder how description can in fact proceed, because it seems to be predicated on some distinction between the thought reflecting upon and the thought reflected upon that cannot be resolved; if it were resolved, the reflective relation would itself be dissolved. This is a crucial point: the point of view of thought reflecting cannot be the same as the thought reflected upon. If it were, the relation could not exist, because the difference crucial to it between observer and observed could not be constituted successfully.

  The upshot is provocative: either reflection is impossible or it is possible only on the basis of the impossibility of identifying the reflecting agency fully and finally—and if the reflecting agency cannot be identified in terms of the agency being reflected upon, then the basic problem of identity cannot be resolved. This is merely to underscore the impossibility of reflection as a kind of thinking and thus, once again, the impossibility of reflection itself.

  What, then, is reflection? What is this point of view that lies beyond all points of view? If it is not an identity or a nonidentity, then what is it? One thing is sure: what it is not. It is not a thinking I that can come to understand itself. On the contrary, I cannot know myself, I cannot get clear about myself, I remain and must remain a mystery to myself. The wondrous and terrible consciousness of self as self is impossible.

  Notes from Underground seems to bring together all three positions: that of the unthinking actor, of the thinker who cannot act, and of the one who reflects on the actor and thinker from a position that is not resolvable into or “coextensive” with either. The third position, if it is one, is perhaps the least convincing, however, and we shall have to deal with it with some care. First of all: just “who” is this third, not resolvable into the positions given in the text? The most obvious and the simplest response to this question is that this person is none other than the author, whom we know to exist both as a real person and as the creator of the fictional world that is Notes from Underground. One of the terminologies that enables us to describe the author of the text when he or she hides behind the narrator is that of the “implied author.” There are many ghostly echoes here, for we may not be able to say much more about the implied author than that he or she is—and in a way other than that of the characters who are “within” the fiction itself.

  But this implie
d author draws attention to himself (for we are speaking of Dostoevsky here) right at the beginning of the work, with a peculiar note that merits being quoted in full:

  Both the author of the notes and the Notes themselves are, of course, fictional. Nevertheless, such persons as the writer of such notes not only may but even must exist in our society, taking into consideration the circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. I wished to bring before the face of the public, a bit more conspicuously than usual, one of the characters of a time recently passed. He is one representative of a generation that is still living out its life. In this fragment, entitled “Underground,” this person introduces himself, his outlook, and seeks, as it were, to elucidate the reasons why he appeared and had to appear among us. In the subsequent fragment will come this person’s actual “notes” about certain events in his life. –Fyodor Dostoevsky

  The note itself employs some of the same cloying techniques as the underground man. A primary example of this is the impression of contradiction created by the first two sentences. On the one hand, Dostoevsky openly declares that the work is fictional, while, on the other, he also ensures us that this fiction has purchase on social reality insofar as the main character “not only may but even must exist.” Of course, the use of the two modal expressions only muddies the waters further. This is so because they indicate not simply that this character exists (and if he did, why not merely tell his story as a newspaper might?) but also that his existence is both possible and necessary, thus suggesting an ideological commitment that serves to undermine the notion of the author as impartial and external to the work. Indeed, the injection of authorial intention into our reading of the work at its beginning has the same effect. While one should probably not go so far as to claim that this insertion of authorial presence and intent has the effect of the comic parabasis, it nevertheless exerts an ironic influence on the work because it interrupts the fictional compact—the suspension of disbelief—both implicitly, as an author’s note, and explicitly, in terms of the content of the note itself.