Deleuze and the Diagram by Zdebik Jakub

Author:Zdebik, Jakub.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2012-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Heidegger Has a Plan

Diagrams – like the ones described by Van Berkel and Bos as distracting geographical and architectural elements that we can latch onto – break into the text in Kant’s First Critique as metaphorical representations of his philosophical system. As the house is on the earth for Deleuze and Guattari, so it is for Kant and Heidegger. Heidegger depends, if not on geography, then on a notion of the earth, and, if not on architecture, then on a notion of building and dwelling in order to structure his path towards the ontological source of Being. However, the device that projects the earth into its representation as geography and collapses building and dwelling into their representation as architecture is the schema, a device Heidegger makes analogous with the notion of sketch.

Architecture is the first art of the frame. It frames the earth because of its contact with the ground. Both architecture and geography are spatial moulds because of this. Therefore, we do not stray by exploring geographic images through the contrivance of architecture.71 When discussing his architectonic, Kant writes about the following edifice72 with an attention to building materials:

If I regard the sum total of all cognition of pure and speculative reason as an edifice for which we have in ourselves at least the idea, then I can say that in the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements we have made an estimate of the building materials and determined for what sort of edifice, with what height and strength, they would suffice. It turned out, of course, that although we had in mind a tower that would reach the heavens, the supply of materials sufficed only for a dwelling that was just roomy enough for our business on the plane of experience and high enough to survey it.73

The architectural elements serve as a figure for the spatial organization of the structure of philosophy. In this passage, the word ‘survey’ appears. Again, it seems to hint at the visual and spatial characteristics of the architectural organization. The spatial organization is reinforced vertically through the architectural structure, which allows the possibility of surveying from the height of a tower as part of an empirically grounded structure. The structure may be empirically grounded, yet it reaches the heights of understanding. The trajectory taken by the schema is enacted as a device that allows for movement between the empirical ground and the realm of understanding. Kant removes himself from the metaphorical building and turns his attention to its graphic representation:

Now we are concerned not so much with the materials as with the plan, and, having been warned not to venture some arbitrary and blind project that might entirely exceed our entire capacity, yet not being able to abstain from the erection of a sturdy dwelling, we have to aim at an edifice in relation to the supplies given to us that is at the same time suited to our needs.74

Kant changes the focus from the material to the plan itself – from the building to the representation of the building.

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