The Double Life of Light: Envelopment and Creation in Fichte and Deleuze

Abstract

The ontological counterpoint between unity and multiplicity as prius that sets Fichte against Deleuze is engaged in this paper through the pair light-obscurity.  This paper sets out how in the Science of  Knowledge of 1804 the light appears as the central concept -after a long philosophical tradition that delivers an eulogy for clarity-, while Deleuze posits the obscurity as a necessary aspect of the difference that holds together the ontology of Difference and repetition. The argumentative development of this apparent immeasurability shows a profound affinity, for both light in Fichte and the obscurity in Deleuze express themselves in a double fashion: as the own life of a prius that is never identical to himself, and as an external life (the real-empirical) where it posits himself endlessly, without losing its immanence. This work of comparative philosophy allows us to comprehend the logic and ontological reason of some conceptual movements of each of these authors that seem enigmatic while isolated.