The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1997) Vol.

XXXV

On the Right Idea of a Conceptual Scheme

Jennifer Case Kalamazoo College

Hilary Putnams doctrine of conceptual relativity invokes the idea of a conceptual scheme. But the doctrine a n d the very idea a r e problematic. Concerning t h e doctrine, P u t n a m acknowledges, A corollary of my conceptual relativity-and a controversial one-is t h e doctrine t h a t two statements which a r e incompatible at face value can sometimes both be true.l Why i s t h i s corollary controversial? An answer is t h a t it appears to violate what Simon Blackburn h a s called the imperative towards unity, according to which the conjunction of any two t r u e descriptions of reality m u s t itself be true. Putnams corollary presents a problem, for it permits t h e affirmation of sentences t h a t a p p e a r t o express inconsistent s t a t e m e n t s . However, P u t n a m argues, the relativization of such sentences to different, irreducible conceptual schemes precludes genuine inconsistency. But do we violate t h e imperative towards unity if we posit a n irreducible plurality of conceptual schemes? T h a t depends upon how we understand t h e idea of a conceptual scheme. If we adopt Donald Davidsons understanding, his reasoning will direct u s to conclude t h a t to posit a n irreducible plurality of conceptual schemes is to violate t h e imperative towards unity. However, Putnams understanding of t h e idea of a conceptual scheme differs from Davidsons. W h a t I argue below is t h a t Davidsons reasoning neither rules out understanding the idea of a conceptual scheme i n Putnams way nor implies t h a t to posit a n irreducible plurality of conceptual schemes is to violate the imperative towards unity. Reading Davidsons arguments a s contravening Putnams agenda requires overlooking a distinction between natural lan-

Jennifer Case is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is currently completing a book manuscript on the subject of Hilary Putnams internal realism. Her research interests include realism, relativity, and the nature of objectivity and rationality. Her paper Rorty and Putnam: Separate and Unequal was published in a previous issue of this journal (33, 2).

Jennifer Case guages and what I call optional languages. I conclude t h a t P u t n a m , whose doctrine of conceptual relativity accommodates this distinction, is able to avoid violating t h e imperative towards unity. I n order t o arrive a t t h i s conclusion, I begin t h e paper with a n extended discussion of conceptual relativity. I n the papers second section, I explore challenges a n d objections, which leads to a third section i n which I address Davidsons rejection of t h e very idea of a conceptual scheme. My discussion of t h e distinction between optional languages and natural languages i n the concluding section of the paper promotes the right idea of a conceptual scheme.

CONCEPTUAL RELATIVITY: THE PHENOMENON AND THE DOCTRINE

P u t n a m writes t h a t conceptual relativity is the h e a r t of [his] internal r e a l i ~ m . He ~ describes conceptual relativity as t h e s t r i k i n g1y no n - c1a s s i ca 1 p h e no me n on of t h e r e be i n g ways of describing w h a t a r e (in some way) t h e same facts which a r e (in some way) equivalent b u t also (in some way) in~ompatible.~ Putnam affirms this form of relativity without embracing relativism. As h e points out, Conceptual relativity sounds like relativism, but has none of the there is no t r u t h to be found ... true is j u s t a name for what a bunch of people can agree on implications of relativi~m.~ Unlike relativism, Putnams doctrine of conceptual relativity entails pluralism without entailing conventionalism. Let me elaborate. I n t h e preface t o R e a l i s m with a H u m a n F a c e (19901, Putnam remarks, if there is any feature of my thought t h a t is stressed throughout all the parts of this book, it is t h e importance of conceptual r e l a t i ~ i t y . Indeed, ~ P u t n a m stresses the importance of conceptual relativity in many of his recent publications, offering a variety of examples to illustrate t h e phenomenon.j For instance, he observes, One example is so familiar as t o run the danger of seeming trivial; we may partly describe the contents of a room by saying that there is a chair in front of a desk, and partly describe the contents of the same room by saying that there are particles and fields of certain kinds present .... Both descriptions are descriptions of the room as it really is.7

I shall discuss additional examples of the phenomenon of conceptual relativity, b u t l e t me first introduce a n associated doctrine t h a t Putnam articulates. Putnams appreciation of t h e p h e n o m e n o n of conceptual relativity leads him to articulate what he calls the doctrine of conceptual relativity in the following passage:

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Mill was a n English liberal humanist whereas de Beauvoir was a French existentialist with leftist leanings. However, d e Beauvoir was a n admirer of Mills views on women a n d both philosophers agreed t h a t t h e freedom of t h e individual should be t h e highest value of a n y civilized form of sociability. Both thought t h a t a n unhappy freedom was preferable t o a porcine h a p p in e ss. Like Mill, d e Beauvoir believed t h a t t h e achievement of sexual equality would come about through t h e as s er t io n of t h e liberty of individual women, and t h a t this would be achieved by increasing numbers of women over time. Early in The Second Sex she claimed t h a t [tlhe devaluation of woman represents a necessary stage in t h e history of humanity6 a n d , over 600 pages later, t h a t ... t h e devaluation of femininity h a s been a necessary st e p i n h u m a n evolution. Th e displacement of t h e word woman i n favor of t h e word femininity w a s undoubtedly of momentous import for t h e history of second wave feminism. When placed alongside t h e f a m o u s p h r a s e , [olne is n o t born, b u t r a t h e r becomes, a womann8t h i s displacement prepares t h e ground for t h e distinction between sex and gender. The concept sexuality did not play a large p a r t in Mills view of th e relations between the sexes. However, de Beauvoir seems to have held t h e view t h a t for men sexuality is sport, play, or conquest whereas for women it is more akin to work or a vocation. It is not until t h e late 1960s t h a t sex, gender, and sexuality come to form t h e constellation t h a t is familiar t o feminist theorists today. And, interestingly, it was not social and political theorists, concerned with sexual equality, who were responsible for th is constellation b u t a psychoanalyst working with transsexuals. Robert Stoller published his book, Sex and Gender, i n 1968. R a t h e r t h a n investigating t h e relation between men a n d masculinity or women a n d femininity, Stollers research focused on so-called biologically anomalous individuals, s u c h as n e u t e r s a n d h e rm a p h ro d i t e s, a n d psychologically anomalous individuals, such as t ra n ss ex u al s a n d transvestites. The results of his research suggested t h a t sexuality does n o t follow automatically from biological sex b u t r a t h e r depends on t h e gender identity of t h e person concerned. Gender identity, in t u r n , h a s only a contingent relation to biological sex. In other words, sexual orientation and gender identity are greatly influenced by a persons experiences in the postnatal familial and social environment. Thus, it may come about t h a t a m a n (i.e., a t r a n s s e x u a l ) m a y believe t h a t h e is really a woman with a n inappropriately male body. I have discussed t h e details of Stollers research elsewhere and a m not able t o treat them in any depth here.9 For present purposes, it is important to note that Stollers research was t h e foundation upon which feminist theorists ar3

Moira Gatens

gued for t h e contingency of sexual identities along with t h e malleability of t h e activities thought t o be proper t o each sex. The distinction was welcomed a s a breakthrough which severed t h e causal connection between anatomy a n d destiny. T h e t h r e e concepts: sex, gender, a n d sexuality, which were employed by Stoller in the context of research into sexually anomalous individuals, were transposed into a quite different problematic: t h a t of a social movement, where they were deployed under a political banner t h a t demanded sexual equality. I n t h e l a t e 1960s a n d e a rl y 1970s feminist t h eo ri s t s attempted to explain t h e oppression of women by showing t h a t one becomes a woman not by t h e natural unfolding of the capacities an d tendencies of female biology, b u t rather by social conditions th a t superimpose upon female biology a n inherently inferior gender identity and a subordinated, reactive sexuality. Although mens masculine identities a n d sexuality were also seen to be socially constructed, this was seen as a construction t h a t worked in mens favor, and on some accounts, men themselves, r a th er t h a n anonymous social forces, were seen to be th e active constructors of patriarchal society. The rest, a s they say, is history. If I may r e t u r n t o t h e (almost) present, w h a t we are left with today is a theoretical impasse between a liberal humanist politics of equality, whose genealogy can be t r a c e d back through de Beauvoir, Mill, and Wollstonecraft, and a politics of difference t h a t refuses a dualist metaphysics-an impasse t h a t is also a conceptual labyrinth.1 Of course, I am not t h e first to suggest t h a t a reexamination of t h e wonderland in which the concepts usex, gender, and sexuality were developed may be helpful in finding a n exit from this labyrinth. My presentation here should be read in t h e context of t h e important work of J u d i t h Butler, J o a n Scott, Elizabeth Spelman, Elizabeth Grosz, and Genevieve Lloyd, to name only a few. My intervention here is to insist upon t h e importance of remembering t h e particular problems, i n relation to which t h e concepts sex a n d gender were posed a s p a rt i a l solutions. If we are to make any headway with contemporary debates around identity politics t h e n we need to undertake a genealogical analysis of how our present came to be constituted in t h e way t h a t it is. As T in a C h a n t e r h a s noted, [tlhe division between t h e categories of sex and gender carries with i t metaphysical, ontological, political, a n d ethical implication^."^^ In my introductory remarks I indicated a n intention to attend to t h e different notions of ethics, politics and temporality assumed by t h e two frameworks of sexual equality a n d ethological differences. I would now like t o begin t o d ra w o u t some of t h es e implications.
4

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Consider first the manner in which the deployment of the concepts sex, gender, and sexuality involved a commitm e n t to a n ethics of equality. The various struggles of women-for equal treatment, equal opportunity, equal pay, and equality before the law-were sustained by a rhetoric of the rights and freedoms of the individual and relied upon the moral assumption of the essential sameness, or equality, of all persons. On this view, rights belong to individuals by virtue of their common humanity. Difference tends to appear as a problem on the liberal view since the rightful purpose of legitimate government is to ignore the particularities of the identities of types of person. The rule of law is enshrined in liberal polities as one of the primary mechanisms through which differences among citizens are deemed irrelevant to their treatment. That which citizens share in common-rights to life, liberty, and property, the right to develop their freedom and individuality-should be blind to differences of sex, race, age, or ethnicity. Where such differences do persist, historical progress will, eventually, eradicate the significance of such differences. On this view, gender difference itself may be posited as that which must be eradicated.12 The deployment of the concepts sex, gender, and sexuality under the more general concept of sexual equality is also committed to a politics of liberation. Much feminist theorizing has conceived liberation as freedom from power, according to a model in which power and freedom a r e opposed. Many early feminist campaigns around womens rights involved the repeal or amendment of laws t h a t restricted womens choices and lives. Later, there were campaigns that sought positive legislation, for example, Equal Employment Opportunity, Affirmative Action, and so on. Liberation, or freedom, somewhat ironically, was conceived in terms of a n equality t h a t would be guaranteed by juridical power, that is, many women sought freedom from the arbitrary power of men (husbands, employers, etc.) through a voluntary subjection of themselves to a rigorously applied rule of law.13 Such struggles were focused on improving womens s t a t u s by confirming them as bearers of formal rights that override traditional private or familial relations of authority. Carole Patemans research h a s clearly articulated some of the tensions inherent in this m0de1.l~ Finally, i t is apparent that the sex/gender/sexuality framework of sexual equality is committed to a dualist metaphysics. I t is committed to what I will call a dual plane model which posits first, a plane of n a t u r e or immanence and second, a plane of transcendence that progressively organizes and dominates the first. On this view, culture, civilization, reason, or knowledge progressively control and order mere nature, including t h e body, which a r e conceived as inert or passive. I will be arguing, in t h e next section, t h a t dual plane models

Moira Gatens

a r e always juridical models-they always a s s u m e a n ahistorical plane of n a t u r e a n d a historical plane t h a t t r a n scends a n d normatively reconstructs t h e natural plane. The conception of time t h a t emerges from this metaphysics is t h a t of Chronos -time conceived as successive, linear, measurable, and quantifiable. Julia Kristeva h a s linked this conception of time with what she called the first phase of feminism, which sought to claim a n identity for women within the sociopolitical life of nations.15 I fully acknowledge a n d applaud t h e enormous g a i n s of these struggles for sexual equality-my point is not a t all to trivialize these hard-won achievements. Rather, I venture t h e judgment t h a t the framework of sexual equality-based in t h e concepts of sex, gender, and sexuality-is reaching t h e limit of what it can do i n t h e present. Arguably, it began to approach its terminal point in t h e aggressively legislative feminism of Andrea Dworkin a n d Catharine Mackinnon-both of whom represent a juridical feminism t h a t seeks womens liberation through the application of law. Mackinnons views on sex, gender, and sexuality are well known and I will not dwell on them here. Again, merely a reminder: Mackinnon links sex, gender, and sexuality together in the following terms:
A theory of sexuality becomes feminist methodologically, to the extent t h a t it treats sexuality as a social construct of male power: defined by men, forced on women, and constitutive of the meaning of gender.I6
Gender emerges as the congealed form of the sexualization of inequality between men and wornen.l7

I will return to the limitations of this juridical view in part I11 of my paper.

11. AN ETHOLOGY OF DIFFERENCES

There is a tradition of thought which has been called antijuridical* and which includes Nietzsche as counterpoint to Mill, and Spinoza as counterpoint to Descartes. What defines this tradition is a commitment to thinking against a proposition fundamental to metaphysical dualism and liberal humani s m , namely, t h a t c u l t u r e ( a n d r e a s o n ) p r e s u m e t h e organization and control of nature (and t h e body) by a power t h a t transcends the natural condition. This juridical view relies upon t h e two planes of existence mentioned above: a n ine r t , passive, i m m a n e n t p l a n e of m a t t e r or n a t u r e a n d a n intentional plane of a n organizing intelligence or force t h a t imposes form a n d meaning. T h e antijuridical view offers a
6

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

counterpoint to juridical feminisms in that i t considers identities as intersectional points of intensity and will analyze types of subjectification as effects of power relations which both form and decompose our identities in history. Deleuze is among the leading contemporary proponents of this antijuridical tradition: he insists upon the univocity of Being, claiming that there is no dualism between the two planes of transcendent organization and immanent consistence. The intersubjective authorial voice t h a t emerges i n his dialogue with Claire Parnet writes we do not therefore speak of a dualism between two kinds of things but of a multiplicity of dimensions, of lines a n d directions i n t h e h e a r t of a n a ~ s e m b l a g e . The ~ plane of consistence, or immanence, is a plane of ceaseless becoming t h a t continually fragments t h e normative work of the plane of organization which, in turn, refolds and reexpresses this undoing by attempting to block and contain in substantive forms the mobility and dynamism of the processual. Deleuze rejects the teleology of nature or history and he rejects the notion of a transcendent morality. For him, there is one immanent reality, or nature, which possesses i t s own inherent b u t variable principles of organization or force. This is not an ontology that tolerates the dualisms of mind/ body or nature/culture. Human being is conceived as part of a dynamic and interconnected whole, distinguishable from other parts of nature only by means of the speed and slowness, motion and rest, of the parts which compose it, along with the affects that such compositions imply.20On this model the human body is understood as a complex individual, made up of a number of other bodies. Its identity cannot be viewed as static or inert since i t is a body t h a t is in constant interchange with its environment. This is to understand the body as a nexus of variable interconnections, a multiplicity within a web of other multiplicities. In place of the arboreal model t h a t differentiates things according to species and genus, Deleuze posits a rhizomatic model of thought and reality which allows for all kinds of cross-fertilization and interspecies individuation. The Deleuzian theory of bodies understood as complex multiplicities or assemblages of other bodies takes the form of a cartography, a means by which to map individuals on a plane of immanence. Its coordinates comprise two major axes whose points of intersection characterize a given body in terms of intensive capacities and extensive relations. In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari describe two elements of this cartography in the following terms:
A body is not defined by the form that determines it nor as a determinate substance or subject nor by the organs it possesses or the functions it fulfills. On the plane of consistency, a body is de-

Moira Gatens

fined only by a longitude and a latitude: in other words the sum total of the material elements belonging to it under given relations of movement and rest, speed and slowness (longitude); the sum total of the intensive affects it is capable of at a given power or degree of potential (latitude).21

From this perspective a n individual will be defined along two axes: one kinetic, t h e other dynamic. Along t h e kinetic axis we may say t h a t a n individual is composed of other bodies t h a t have characteristic extensive relations, each t o t h e other, of speed a n d slowness, relative s t a t e s of motion a n d res t t h a t maintain th e individual in existence as t h e s ame thing. Along th e dynamic axis we may say t h a t every individual is defined by its characteristic powers for affecting and being affected. In these terms, a n individual body is a degree of power, i n t h e midst of other bodies which both affect, a n d a r e affected by, t h a t individual.22These two axes provide alternative descriptions t h a t pick out different qualities of t h e same thing. They do not suppose t h e existence of two discrete things, (mi n d s an d bodies, sexes and genders), b u t one thing whose qualitative differences are captured by different denotations. On t h e immanent plane of a unitary nature, we may say t h a t for any given thing, both a n intensive a n d a n extensive description may be offered. This is a conception of individuality t h at is not confined to human bodies. Deleuzes cartography applies to individual bodies of all kinds, including corporate bodies: for example, institutions of politics, law, language, and so From the perspective of feminist theory, the interest of this cartographic conception of bodies, according t o which individual h u m an bodies are always considered as parts of larger assemblages, is t h a t i t provides a conceptual frame in which to take account of t h e variety of ways in which individual bodies and their capacities are affected by their participation in t h e larger assemblages of family, work, and sociopolitical life generally. It provides t h e basis for a n ethics along Spinozist lines which Deleuze calls ethology. It is interesting to note t h a t J. S. Mill also proposed a science of ethology, which was also directed at a n understanding of t h e complex relations between bodies an d their social as well as naturaI environment. However, unlike Deleuze, Mills conception of ethology posits t h e body and nature a s a h i ~ t o r i c a l . ~ ~ Deleuzian ethology h a s little i n common with traditional notions of transcendent and rule-based moralities and more in common with t h e biological o r ethnographic s t u d y of bodies an d th eir characteristic capacities a n d p at t ern s of behavior. However, whereas biology classifies bodies in t e r m s of t h ei r species, form, a n d function, ethology differentiates bodies in terms of t h e two axes on t h e plane of immanence. Deleuze offers a n example of t h e failure of taxonomic categorizations to 8

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality capture the salient differences between different sorts of individuals on this plane when he observes t h a t t h e draft horse h a s more in common with t h e ox t h a n it h a s with t h e race As this example shows, ethology distinguishes between one thing and the next according to its powers and capacities rather than its form or species. Whereas biological description lays down norms of behavior and action, ethology does not claim to know, in advance, what a body is capable of doing or becoming. Ethology picks out similarities and differences i n terms of a bodys powers of affecting and being affected. What can t h i s body do? What a r e i t s typical relations with other bodies a n d w h a t a r e its typical powers? W h a t makes i t weaker? What makes i t stronger? Ethology thus maintains a Spinozist modesty concerning the knowledge t h a t we have of the human body. It acknowledges t h a t we (still) do not know what the human body is capable of, nor the limits of what it can do.26 If we understand a transcendent rule-based morality as one that addresses itself to substantive identities, or in Deleuzes terms, molar subjects, then ethology may be understood as offering a n ethics of the processual, or molecular. Ethology does not impose a plane of organization, but rather posits a mapping of extensive and intensive relations that are mobile and dynamic. Relations of composability between beings on a plane of immanence a r e infinitely complicated since an animal, a thing, is never separable from its relations with the Ethology t h u s provides concepts with which to envisage a micropolitics concerned with the in-between of subjects, with t h a t which passes between them and which expresses t h e range of possible becomings. It is to see configurations of identity-gender, sex, class, race-as endpoints or products of microprocesses rather t h a n as points of origin. I t allows for the possibility of experimentation with those processes along with a n openness to opportunities for forming coalitions with different others. Clearly, an ethological perspective will not individuate bodies in terms of the familiar molar binary distinctions such as human and non-human, male and female (sex), masculine and feminine (gender), and White and Black (race). Rather, i t will individuate according t o principles of composability, combinations of affects and affectability: Ethology is first of all the study of the relations of speed and slowness, of the capacities for affecting and being affected that characterize each thing.28 This Deleuzo-Spinozist ethology offers a n important perspective in the context of contemporary theorizations of sexual d i f f e r e n ~ eAn .~~ ethology will understand sex as a molar privileging of an aspect of the extensive organization of bodies, which always assumes relations with extensive bodies or assemblages, while gender will be understood as the parallel
9

Moira Gatens intensive capacities and powers of bodies so placed. Differences of class and race, and the interrelations between class, race, and gender, need to be understood in such a way that the degree of power able to be exercised by any given body cannot be read off from its sex or race or class alone. Each of these designations link a body in a mulitiplicity of ways t o complex networks or assemblages which distribute power differentially according to such designations. Interlocking assemblages of law, medicine, enunciation, sexuality, and so on, determine what this body can do, say, think. Ethology is not unconcerned with t h e organism-which Deleuze understands as the judgmental or transcendental organization of the organs30-rather, its primary concern is the body insofar as the body can be thought and lived a s a dynamic system of non-subjectified affects and powers. There are not two planes or two numerically distinct forms of being, rather there a r e two qualitatively different modes of understanding and evaluating being. Ethology does not disavow the organs but rather selects out the transcendental organization of the bodys organs in favor of a principle of composition or a harmonics of bodies and their exchanges. On this approach, bodies defined as organisms and categorized according to species and genus, are phenomena ... of accumulation, coagulation, and sedimentation ... that have had imposed upon them ... forms, functions, bonds, dominant and hierarchised organisations, organised t r a n s ~ e n d e n c e s . ~ ~ The sexed and gendered body is a product of such stratifications. In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari consider the three great strata that ... most directly bind us: the organism, signifiance, a n d s u b j e ~ t i f i c a t i o n . These ~ ~ three strata may be understood as the strata of sex and race (the organism), the strata of gender and racism (social signifiance of the organism), and the strata of sexuality (the mode of subjection of each t o h i s or h e r form a n d function). Hence, a n individuals powers of enunciation, pleasures, and capacities for expression, will be relative to the mode of subjectification within any given assemblage. In these terms, sex, gender, and sexuality will be understood a s effects of the stratified organization of bodies and their powers and pleasures as they have been produced in history by particular forms of sociability. However, since the condition of possibility of any imposed organization is the active plane of immanence, such strata are mobile, shifting, and inherently unstable organizations. The becomings t h a t constitute each strata pull and push against every other s t r a t a , t h u s t h r e a t e n i n g to d i s r u p t t h e social stratifications which together constitute any given form of sociability. The ethological concept of bodies involves radically different ethical and political commitments, and a different concept

10

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

of time to those found in the concept of sexual equality discussed in the first section. It is committed to a n ethics of difference t h a t cannot be reduced to t h e inverse of sexual equality (i,e., sexual difference) but rather, difference as multiple and ceaseless becoming-variation i n compositionsspeed and slowness, motion and rest. I t is a politics not of liberation but of experimentationwhich requires great patience and caution. On the one hand, the fundamental instability of forms, of strata, of identity itself, and the lack of an inherent telos frees up the plane of organization to experimentation. On the other hand, becomings and experimentation can t u r n out badly-ethics is here not conceived as a transcendentally guaranteed set of rules but a n ongoing experiment t h a t requires skill, patience, and great care if it is to turn out well. The dismantling of the organism, the disruption of assemblages, can lead to destruction as easily as it can lead to new constructions. Ethology u n d e r s t a n d s t h e body as a n event, or a haecceity-a becoming. A haecceity is a mode of individuation that selects not subjects and forms but events that are constituted by the quality of a set of relations:
A season, a winter, a summer, a n hour, a date, have a perfect individuality lacking nothing, even though this individuality is different from that of a thing or a subject. They are haecceities in the sense that they consist entirely of relations of movement and rest between molecules or particles, capacities to affect and be affe~ted.~~

Deleuze is concerned here with two modes of individuation t h a t pertain t o two different modes of temporality-subjects and events, Chronos and Aeon. Importantly, this is not to say t h a t there are two things: rather we are both at once-and it is because we are both at once t h a t it is possible for us to become something other than what we are at any given moment. The time of the event, Aeon, is the condition of possibility of change per se. The mode of individuation of the haecceity reveals the zones of our possible becomings-the latitudinal and longitudinal milieu of our individuation which allows new configurations or compositions of t h a t individuation. As Deleuze and Guattari write:

... the individuation of a life is not the same as the individuation of the subject t h a t leads it or serves a s its support. It is not the same Plane: in the first case, it is the plane of consistency or the composition of haecceities, which knows only speeds and affects; and i n t h e second case, it is t h e altogether different plane of forms, substances and subjects. And i t is not the same time, the same temporality. Aeon: the indefinite time of the event, the float11

Moira Gatens ing line that knows only speeds and continually divides that which transpires into a n already-there that is a t the same time not-yethere, a simultaneous too-late and too-early, a something that is both going to happen and has just happened. Chronos: the time of measure that situates things and persons, develops a form, and determines a subject.34

So-two planes, two models of individuation, two times, two wa y s of m a pp i n g existence t h a t n e v ert h el es s b o t h m a p a single, im m a n e n t , a n d univocal existence. I u n d ers t an d t h e ethological politics of difference not as one t h a t is intended to replace t h e politics of subjects a n d t h e i r identities. Rather, I understand it t o be working on a plane different t h a n t h a t of t h e first. A qualitatively r a t h e r t h a n numerically d i s t i n ct plane. My original question may now be posed with some urgency: if ethology concerns t h e molecular becomings t h at we are, does it have a n y th i n g to offer t o a n identity politics of molar beings? Can ethologists acknowledge t h e political imperative to recognize t h a t past relations affect ones present powers an d capacities? Given that ethology sees both nature and t h e body as historical t h e n it would seem to be committed t o t h e view t h a t some possibilities may be foreclosed by past becomings. This is t h e question t h a t many feminists have posed as a problem for t h e philosophy of difference offered by Deleuze a n d Guattari. After all, w h a t a body can do is, at least i n p art , a function of its h i st o ry a n d of t h o se as s emb l ag es i n which it h a s been constructed. Crudely, w h a t are t h e possible becomings of a draft horse t h a t h a s been specifically bred over many generations to be a beast of burden, like the oxen? Can it become a racehorse? With w h a t can t h i s body combine t o form new assemblages? Given t h a t on t h e ethological view nature, bodies, and materiality itself, is active, dynamic, and has a history, t h e n past compositions will affect t h e present an d future possibilities of w h a t we may become. This leads me to my final section which is framed by t h e question: can ethologists practice genealogy?

111: ETHICS, HISTORY, AND THE ART OF TIMING

Thought thinks its own history (the past), but in order to free itself from what i t thinks ( t h e present) and be able finally to think otherwise (the future).35

The concepts of sex, gender, a n d sexuality which, I have argued, form t h e elements of a more extensive concept: sexual equality, h a v e failed t o m e e t t h e political d e m a n d s of t h e

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Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

present. These demands include the urgent question of how to theorize differences among women-including differences of race, class, ethnicity, maternity, sexual preference, and so on. I am in agreement with Donna Haraway when she states that:
The evidence is building of a need for a theory of difference whose geometries, paradigms, and logics break out of binaries, dialectics, and naturekulture models of any kind. Otherwise, threes will always reduce to twos, which quickly become lonely ones in the vanguard. And no one learns to count to four. These things matter

The sedgender framework tends to universalize a eurocentric notion of historical progress and to measure equality in relation to an implicit standard of White, male, middle class, heterosexual men. It i s a framework t h a t fails to a t t e n d to racial, class, and ethnic differences between women, as well as between women and men. Mackinnons analyses of sex and gender have received a good deal of criticism in precisely these terms. The Australian Aboriginal legal feminist theorist, Larissa Behrendt, adds her voice to t h a t of Angela Harris when she states that:
Mackinnon ... develop[s] a universal notion of the experience of woman and by doing so creates gender essentialism. ... Mackinnon isolates gender from other power relationships such a s race, class and sexual preference. Such essentialist discourse suppresses the complexities within the categories of man and woman. ... [She] has created a model of universal history, ... ignored the experience of racism, and does not address the fact that the experiences of black women of poverty, degradation and oppression are endured a t the hands of white women as well a s white men and are sometimes due to racism.37

Such criticisms a r e deeply challenging for White feminists who are not comfortable accepting the role of the oppressor. Yet, this challenge must be met if feminist struggles, as the struggles of all women, are to have any meaning. Kimberle Crenshaw has made several important contributions to the task of thinking race and gender together. She has proposed t h e term intersectionality to denote t h e multiple dimensions of Black womens experience-a term t h a t seeks to address the present limitations of both antiracist and feminist discourses. Crenshaws nuanced account of t h e failure of feminisms conceptual apparatus to deal with the experiences of women of color highlights the manner in which identity politics have all too often ... been centered on the intersectional identities of a few, and she asks:

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Moira Gatens If ... history and context determine the utility of identity politics, how then do we understand identity politics today, especially i n light of o u r recognition of multiple dimensions of identity? More specifically, w h a t does i t mean to a r g u e t h a t gender identities have been obscured in antiracist discourses, j u s t as race i d e n t i t i e s have been obscured i n feminist discourses? Does t h a t mean we cannot talk about identity? Or instead, t h a t any discourse about identity h a s t o acknowledge how our identities a r e constructed through t h e intersection of multiple dimension^?^^

I t is in response to questions such as these t h a t I propose a shift in the dominant feminist conceptual a p p a r a t u s to a n ethology of differences, which while not excluding the sex-gender-sexuality nexus, cannot be reduced to it. However, this turn to ethology is not without its problems. Several feminists have criticized Deleuze and Guattaris philosophy of difference, claiming t h a t they allow little or no room for sexual difference or for the feminist struggles t h a t have politicized that d i f f e r e n ~ eOn . ~ ~this reading, the ethological body, the BwO, and Deleuzian becomings fail to acknowledge that mens molar identities are not symmetrical with the more historically fragile molar identities of women. Rosi Braidotti is perhaps the best known feminist commentator on Deleuze and Guattari. She writes t h a t , from a feminist perspective:

... there are three sets of interrelated problems with Deleuzes POsition: (1) a n inconsistent approach to t h e issue of becomingwoman; (2) t h e reduction of sexual difference to one variable among many, which can and should be dissolved into a generalised and gender-free becoming; and (3) an assumption of symmetry in the speaking stances of the two sexes.4o
Braidotti sees no good reason for simply assuming t h a t Deleuzes philosophy of difference can or will bring into focus the right sort of differences in womens situations. Her political judgment on the issue of molar womanhood is not conson a n t with w h a t s h e u n d e r s t a n d s as Deleuzes political judgment. Referring to Deleuzes distinction between Chronos and Aeon, she states that:
If we apply this distinction to t h e discussion of t h e becomingwoman, we could argue that, on the level of chronos, women, at this point in history, are legitimate in claiming a redefinition of their political subjectivity and identity a n d simply cannot afford to let go of their sexual-specific forms of political agency. ... It also follows from t h e s a m e a r g u m e n t t h a t , i n o r d e r t o demystify categories based on t h e phallus, one must first have

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Sex, Gender, and Sexuality gained a location from whence to speak. Fragmentation being womens historical condition, we are left with t h e option of either disagreeing with Deleuzes theory of becoming, or of flatly stating t h a t women have been Deleuzian since t h e beginnings of time (in the sense of c h r o n o ~ ) . ~ ~

Braidottis comments make clear t h a t one of t h e things at s t a k e in this debate, for her, is the distinction between t h e time of molarity-Chronos-and t h e time of becoming, or molecularity-Aeon. She reads Deleuze as if he were prescribing a transition from one plane to the other whereas I read Deleuze as describing two coexistent aspects, planes, or modalities: t h a t of being (and i t s history) and t h a t which being assumes: becoming. Like all descriptions, however, it necessarily involves judgments a n d values. What characterizes Deleuzian judgment is t h e immanent s t a t u s of those judgments-they appeal to nothing other than the intensive and extensive coordinates of his cartography. Part of the problem here is t h a t the immanent plane of consistence t h a t Deleuze and Guattari posit as the surface upon which to think difference does not fully escape the image of Cartesian geometry. I t plots, on the one hand, an intensive and dynamic latitude of powers and affects and, on the other, an extensive and kinetic longitude of movement and rest, without making clear t h e ways in which the dynamic and kinetic characteristics of any given body a r e determined by i t s past as well as its present milieu. This is to say that the cartographic model proposed by Deleuze and Guattari lacks, to my mind, a certain temporal quality or depth. What I propose here is that a third conception of time is required: a conception t h a t would serve to explain not how one moves off one plane and onto another-since we are always on both-but r a t h e r , t a k i n g cognizance of t h e history of t h e present composition of a being, how may t h a t being select between a range of possible future becomings, those particular becomings t h a t will decompose and recompose present molar beings. The political imperative, as I see it, is not to choose between becoming-woman, on the one hand, and molar womanhood, on t h e other, b u t r a t h e r to exercise judgment i n t h e becomings t h a t constitute t h e decompositions a n d recompositions of our molar subjectivities. Following the example of Deleuze, I will borrow a n additional Greek concept to supplement Chronos and Aeon: that of Kuiros. As John E. Smith has explained:
Three distinct, but related, concepts are involved in the notion of kairos. It means, first, the right time for something to happen in contrast with any time; this sense of kairos is captured by the English word, timing .... Second, kairos means a time of tension

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Moira Gatens or conflict, a time of crisis implying t h a t the course of events poses a problem which calls for a decision a t t h a t time. Third, Kairos means a time when a n opportunity for accomplishing some purpose has opened up as a result of the problem t h a t led to the crisis. Thus kairos ... means the time when a n opportunity is given for creative action or for achieving some special result that is possible only at this time.42

I n contrast to time as Chronos-quantitative, measurable time-time as Kairos always concerns t h e quality of a time and i t s special temporal position or place i n chronological time. A crisis, a n opportunity, and a judgment: these a r e the components of kairos which together may be understood as the time of political action or praxis. It is the time in which politics and ethics converge as a practice: the practice of the art of selecting becomings. I may, perhaps, at last, directly respond t o my question: can ethologists practice genealogy? I have sketched my understanding of ethology as consisting in the study of becomings on a plane of immanence. I understand genealogy as an ethico-political practice that analyzes how we have become what we are in order t h a t we may recognize t h e crisis points, which a r e also points of opportunity, points of privileged time (Kairos) in which to become something other than what we have been. I understand the practice of genealogy to distinguish itself from other forms of historical inquiry precisely because i t operates on both t h e plane of molar subjects and t h e plane of molecular becomings. As a form of politico-ethical practice, genealogy and ethology are co-implicated-ethologists must practice genealogy. The conception of time as Kairos acts as a conceptual bridge between becoming (time of Aeon) and being (time of Chronos) t h a t constitutes the brief interval in which human freedom may express itself a s praxis. This freedom consists in bringing the study of ethology and the practice of genealogy to bear on that always risky task of philosophy: the exercise of judgment in acting upon the ethical and political present. What I have attempted to do here is t o persuade you t h a t the notions of ethology and genealogy may provide conceptual resources for working on the present in order that our future may be realized o t h e r w i ~ e . ~ ~

NOTES
Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted by Gilles Deleuze a n d Felix G u a t t a r i i n W h a t I s Philosophy?, t r a n s . H. Tomlinson a n d G. Burchell (New York: Columbia University Press, 19941, 5-6. * John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (London and Glasgow: Collins, 1970), 320. John Stuart Mill, Essays on Marriage and Divorce in Alice S. Rossi, Essays on Sex Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

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Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

19701, 73-74. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, t r a n s . H. M. Parshley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 19751, 94. J o h n S t u a r t Mill, Enfranchisement of Women i n Alice S. Rossi, Essays on Sex Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19701, 104. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 107. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 7 2 8 . de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 301. I have written about Stoller in more detail in A Critique of the SedGender Distinction in Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality (London: Routledge, 1996). See also Tina Chanter, Ethics of Eros: Irigarays Rewriting of the Philosophers (New York and London: Routledge, 19951, 39-40. l o Joan Scott has treated these issues in a particularly enlightening way in Deconstructing Equality-versus-Difference: Or the Uses of P o s t s t r u c t u r a l i s t Theory for Feminism, Feminist Studies 14 (19881, 33-50. l1 Chanter, Ethics of Eros, 25. l2 E.g., Susan Moller Okin argues t h a t if principles of justice are to be adopted unanimously by representative human beings ignorant of their particular characteristics and positions in society (as liberal humanist theories of justice require, in her understanding), they must be persons whose psychological and moral development is in all essentials identical. This means t h a t the social factors influencing the differences presently found between the sexes ... would have to be replaced by genderless institutions and customs. She suggests t h a t this would lead to the development of a more complete human personality than has hitherto been possible. John Rawls: Justice a s Fairness-For Whom? i n Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory, ed. M. L. Shanley and C. Pateman (Cambridge: Polity Press, 19911, 195. l 3 I say rigorously because sometimes the practical outcome of equal treatment was a loss of advantages previously enjoyed by women, e.g., a n earlier age of retirement than men. l4 See Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988) and The Disorder of Women (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989). l5 J u l i a Kristeva, Womens Time, in The Kristeua Reader, ed. Tori1 Moi (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986). l6 Catharine Mackinnon, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19891, 128. l7 C a t h a r i n e Mackinnon, Feminism Unmodified (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 6 . Pierre Macherey, Towards a N a t u r a l History of Norms, i n Michel Foucault Philosopher, trans. T. Armstrong (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 19921, 187. l9 Gilles Deleuze a n d Claire P a r n e t , Dialogues, t r a n s . H. Tomlinson and B. Habberjam (New York: Columbia University Press, 19871, 132-33. 2o See Spinozas Ethics, Part 11, Lemma on the Body. Deleuze develops Spinozas thought further when h e proposes a n ontology of expressivity. Both the power of thought and the power of being are expressions of t h e multiple aspects of a single reality. See Gilles

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Moira Gatens Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: S p i n o z a , t r a n s . M a r t i n Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1990). 21 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 260. 22 Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. R. Hurley (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988), 27, 123. A body can be anything; it can be a n animal, a body of sounds, a mind or a n idea; i t can be a linguistic corpus, a social body, a collectivity. Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, 127. Cf. Gatens, Imaginary Bodies, esp. Chapters 8 and 9. 24 See John S t u a r t Mill, A System of Logic, ed. J . M . Robson; introduction by R. F. McRae (Toronto: Toronto University Press; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973-741, Book VZ: On the Logic of the Moral Sciences, Chapter V Of Ethology, or t h e Science of the Formation of Character. 25 See Dialogues, 60, and Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, 124. 26 Ethics, P. 111, Prop. 2. 27 Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, 125. 28 Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, 125. 29 I have written on t h i s theme i n Through a Spinozist Lens: Ethology, Difference, Power, in Deleuze: A Critical Reader, ed. Paul Patton (Oxford: Blackwell, 19961, 162-187. 30 The organism ... is a substratum on the BwO, in other words, a phenomenon of accumulation, coagulation, and sedimentation that, in order to extract useful labor from the BwO, imposes upon it forms, functions, bonds, dominant and hierarchized organizations, organized trancendences, Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 159, see also 232. 31 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 159. 32 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 159. 33 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 261. 34 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 262. 35 Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. and ed. by S. Hand and P. Bove (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 19881, 119. 36 Donna Haraway, Gender for a Marxist Dictionary: T h e Sexual Politics of a W o r d in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 123. 37 Larissa Behrendt, Aboriginal Women and the White Lies of the Feminist Movement: Implications for Aboriginal Women in Rights Discourse, Australian Feminist Law Journal 1 (1993): 35-36. Kimberle Crenshaw, Mapping t h e Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Colour, Stanford Law Review 43 (1991): 1299. 39 For example, Alice Jardine, Gynesis: Configurations o f Wornan and Modernity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985). See also, Rosi Braidotti in Towards a New Nomadism, and Elizabeth Grosz in A Thousand Tiny Sexes: Feminism and Rhizomatics who both refer to Jardines critique of becoming woman in their assessment of the relevance of Deleuze to feminist politics. Both papers appear in Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy, eds. C. V. Boundas and D. Olkowski (New York: Routledge, 1994). 40 Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York: Columbia Uni-

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Sex, Gender, and Sexuality versity Press, 1994), 117. 41 Braidotti, Noinudic Subjects, 121. 42 John E. Smith, Time, Times, and t h e Right Time: Chronos and Kuiros, The Monist 53 (1969): 6. 43 I would like to t h a n k the following people for their comments and helpful conversations: Barbara Caine, Genevieve Lloyd, Anna Munster, Elspeth Probyn, Julia Quilter, and especially Paul Patton. Many thanks to Justine McGill for invaluable research assistance.

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