Ethically structured processes 9781119616061, 1119616069, 9781119616153, 1119616158, 9781119616177, 1119616174, 9781786301741

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Ethically Structured Processes

Innovation and Responsibility Set coordinated by Robert Gianni and Bernard Reber

Volume 4

Ethically Structured Processes

Virgil Cristian Lenoir

First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address: ISTE Ltd 27-37 St George’s Road London SW19 4EU UK

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA

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© ISTE Ltd 2019 The rights of Virgil Cristian Lenoir to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933810 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78630-174-1

Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ix

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xiii

Part 1. Ambiguity and Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

Chapter 1. The Possible and the Necessary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

1.1. The formal and the transcendental, or the logical point of view . 1.2. Conditions and determinations: a matter of freedom . . . . . . . 1.3. The concept of the possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4. The duplicity of contingency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5. The concept of the necessary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6. Elements of effectiveness and ethical innervation . . . . . . . . . 1.7. A situation, a context and a world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8. Efficiency and effectiveness: philosophical freedom . . . . . . .

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Chapter 2. Pre-determination Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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2.1. Modes of objective constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. An unorthodox use of “possible worlds” . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3. Ontological truth and processual effectiveness . . . . . . . . . 2.4. Definitorial point of view and determinism . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5. The meaning of the definitorial position for the relationship between efficiency and effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6. An ambiguous responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7. The ascent into the possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8. Responsibility: a limit to ontological discourse. . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 3. A Processual Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1. A process of the possible . . . . . . . . 3.2. The open totalities . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3. Propensities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4. Distinctions (or contingent partitions) 3.5. A drape of the possible . . . . . . . . . 3.6. Ethical innervation . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7. The viability of the possible . . . . . . 3.8. The circulation of the possible. . . . .

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Chapter 4. Universality and Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4.1. Unlike phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Measuring gaps from Hegel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3. The finite will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4. Reconciliation in situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5. Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6. The question of the relevance of the conditions (effectiveness) 4.7. The universal within plurality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8. The originarity of language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9. An assumption in consciousness (detachment) . . . . . . . . . . 4.10. Consciousness and attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.11. Political pluralism and comparability of value systems . . . .

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Conclusion to Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

Part 2. Four Criteria of the Effectiveness of a Process . . . . . . . . .

91

Chapter 5. Summary of What was Learned in Part 1 Using the Example of GMOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

5.1. The transcendental: four categories of the definitorial, a test for the thought of the process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99

Chapter 6. The Responsibility of a Meeting: China . . . . . . . . . . . .

105

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6.1. The common thread: a project led by INRA in France, between 2001 and 2003 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2. Four objective criteria of the universal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1. “Sincerity” as a criterion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2. The “non-separation” criterion (from the “framework”) . 6.2.3. The “viability” criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.4. The “non-attachment” criterion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3. Four types of “fall of the drape”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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112 114 114 119 124 129 134

Contents

Chapter 7. Obstacles to an Ethical Consideration of the Drape . . . 7.1. Overcoming the question of a normative nature . . . . . . 7.2. Obstacles related to the concept of a normative nature . . 7.3. Normativity in thinking about the process . . . . . . . . . . 7.4. Another fall of the drape in Europe: the loss of “wisdom”

139 140 142 143

Chapter 8. Objectively Ethical Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 9. The Limits of the Freedom of Neoliberals . . . . . . . . . .

165

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Part 3. Demystifying the Invisible Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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155

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Conclusion to Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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145 147 148 149

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9.1. Myth and ideology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2. Teleology and immanence . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3. Five objections to the Invisible Hand . . . . 9.3.1. Conatus and freedom. . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.2. Logics and elements . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.3. Negativity and bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3.4. Balances and mathematical temporality. 9.3.5. Univocity and ambiguity . . . . . . . . . 9.4. Towards a global responsibility . . . . . . . . 9.5. Note on “genealogy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.6. Note on ultra-liberal “freedom” . . . . . . . .

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8.1. Practical wisdom . . . . . . . . 8.2. Ethical knowledge . . . . . . . 8.3. Judging . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4. Christianisms and processes .

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vii

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165 168 171 171 174 177 179 180 183 186 188

Conclusion to Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

191

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

197

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

203

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

211

Foreword

The majority of the books published in the set Innovation and Responsibility (IR)1 are in the field of political and moral philosophy. It is indeed the richness and plasticity of the concept of moral responsibility that must innervate the rising notion of IR. Here we have a book that ventures into the field of metaphysics, and it is welcome. Indeed, many institutional discourses and much academic literature dedicated to the notion of IR often speak of anticipation in an uncertain world, or even of preserving the possible. However, they do not think any further about the modalities of the possible, and with them the responsibilities to be imagined under these conditions. Virgil Cristian Lenoir sees very far and travels back far upstream to investigate the components of this problem, which rests in a particular way with each iteration, demanding creative responsibility. Responsibility requires much more than complying with a clearly identified set of rules or being able to anticipate. The creative possible is a milieu that implies that there is always more to a situation than what we can see, calculate or even predict. In addition, the increasing specialization of researchers whose activities are focused on tabulations of mutually exclusive possibilities contributes to the reduction of the possible. The purpose of this book is even more ambitious since Lenoir engages in this reflection in a comparative way, straddling the West and the East. This detour is not a luxury. In this way he does not give in to the projected sirens of an East that would have understood things better than we do, but instead the book attempts to establish a responsible (responsive) encounter, a conversation, between these two worlds at a time when their economies, modes of innovation and related risks have become interdependent. The final part of the book draws practical conclusions from this reorganization of the thinking of possibilities to challenge the vague but prevalent 1 First, it was entitled Responsible Innovation and Research and included in the Cognitive Sciences collection. The series, now entitled Innovation and Responsibility, is now part of the Interdisciplinarity, Science and Humanities series. It is also co-directed by Robert Gianni.

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theory of the Invisible Hand in economics. Although neither the author to whom it is attributed, Adam Smith, nor serious economists refer to it much, this metaphor and the belief in the virtues of the market it supports still inspire many decision-makers. In terms of the theses it develops, the book also takes care to review research processes that were intended to be innovative and prefigure the requirements of IR. Here are some important points that have contributed to this reflection on responsibility, without exhausting the richness of this powerful philosophical work. First of all, in response to several works in the series that have indicated that responsibility is not conformity, control or mechanical application, Lenoir reminds us that it is not enough to do one's professional duty, to comply with certain moral rules or to apply values, even in a thoughtful way [LOI 18, LEN 15, PEL 16, MAE 17]. Responsibility depends less on the application of a particular norm, rule or value than on the accountability process in a given context. Indeed, since responsibility exposes consciousness to unpredictability due to certain forms of scientific and technological innovation, it must itself be creative. The next step which needs to be considered and taken is therefore to recognize every new context and with it a renewed thought of contingency and therefore of the assumed links between necessity, reality and possibility. This therefore renews the way of thinking about norms or responsibility in context, but also about what we consider to be universally valid. Indeed, the universal is at stake at the level of the characterization of the ethical relevance of effective conditions in situations. The criterion is not that a condition applies to all humans without exception. It is richer in possibility because it concerns the relationship between people in context, at the cost of a new explanation each time. The expected creativity is therefore based on careful use of the term universal. More fundamentally, it is necessary to recognize the importance of thinking and implementing accountability in general and IR in particular as a process where the possible has its place. However, responsibility is subject to a double paradox. The first is that there is no responsibility without the willingness and commitment of a subject, but to think of action as only being caused by the subject is to prohibit the success of responsible action that is disproportionate to them and that they cannot accomplish without reference to other dimensions involved in the situation. The second is that responsibility is determined by knowledge that must cope with increased unpredictability due to global interrelationships at a human, scientific and technical level. Often the effectiveness of science lies in a defined relationship to the possible. However, the possibility or impossibility of acquring knowledge and the accessibility of the modes of this knowledge make the truth of contingent knowledge dependent insofar as this truth itself depends, for its expression, proof and implementation on a given context, on experimentation and techniques, or even on the language of the research. In some cases, an examination of these sciences, with

Foreword

xi

their laws, the construction of their objects, up to their hypotheses, will have to involve considering and questioning their modal status. It is therefore a question of reconsidering the link between the necessary, the real and the possible. This perspective also contributes to a gradual enrichment of the understanding of freedom. Lenoir's very novel contributions to modal logic can be categorized with work on the meta-principle of precaution [REB 17], one of the eminent forms of IR or political and ethical responsibility. Indeed, even in some of its administrative statements, the latter refers to the ascent to the scientific hypotheses at the origin of the understanding of the phenomena to be avoided. The issues addressed from the base up by Virgil Cristian Lenoir are equally relevant to innovation. In a new situation, there is often a need to combine knowledge, interests, values and laws. A logical constraint that may have been a solution to a previous situation then arises as an obstacle when the situation changes. This logic which has become routine, often applied mechanically, must be re-examined or even changed. There is a danger of summarizing the possibilities in an exhaustive, given and established list, which would dramatically impoverish the creative possible at work and its resources for taking responsibility. This freezing of conditions, downstream, corresponds to the forgetting of their possibility and to a mechanical, stereotypical application of these conditions, which we believe to be effective because they have been able to work in the past, without a careful return to the new situation we are in. This extends to our understanding of novelty. We must be able to broaden the perspective. There is no longer a single possible world, the one we inhabit, but a plurality of possible worlds. In their plurality, the possible worlds then allow a salutary retreat from the situational constraints at work experienced as an absolute necessity. The possible worlds express various relationships to the contingency at work each time in a situation. They make it possible, through their plurality, to defuse conditions that have become constraining, thus closing down a single plane of intelligibility. Lenoir invites us to sometimes reject a naive ontological vision that would encourage us to look at a world of objects determined in themselves that we would simply name by trying to match what we say to what we encounter. His point is particularly relevant for the speeches, nowadays we say stories, which cover some emerging technologies [GRU 16]. Research and innovations seem to accelerate history, revealing that the subject and the world do not pre-exist, determined as such and in a fixed way, to their connection. It is a comfort of hurried thinking. The same is true of the possible and the actual. In both cases, it is their interweaving that is first. They only then freeze in the necessary dualities that condition our experience, to the point that we can no longer understand it without going through them. Lenoir invites us not to forget this omission, presented as necessary. He therefore also denounces in his own way the error of Husserl and Heidegger, who believed they had exceeded Hegel by affirming the pre-eminence of the possible over the actual

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(Wirklich). For Hegel, moreover, the reconciliation (Versöhnung) between “is” and “ought to” in the shared life of humans implies that ”ought to” does not always remain an aspiration disappointed by the facts. Our responsibility is always to make ethical freedom effective. His book therefore also advances reflection on the relationship between responsibility and freedom [GIA 16]. All the works in the IR set of books defend effective liability in their own way. The audacity of this reflection undoubtedly comes from the detour through Chinese thought that we find in the second part of the book. It is not simply because responsibility has become global that we must radically rethink the way in which different worlds of thought must be mobilized. One of the aims of this book is to bring to light a place where the best of European and Chinese traditions of thought and wisdom meet. The challenge is to stress that the contribution of Chinese thinkers is not limited to the question of inner wisdom, but that it is able to contribute to a political wisdom at the same level as the problems addressed in the first part. Their very rich process-based thinking and the lack of watertight separation between the different fields of knowledge are the two main reasons for a detour to classical China. We will therefore not have a comparison here, but a detailed conceptualization of what makes an effective process ethical, and responsible. Lenoir works, for example, on the notions of sincerity in the face of manifest discordance or injustice, and non-attachment, without indifference and therefore free, in order to assume the conditions responsibly rather than being determined by them. Bernard REBER Research Director at the CNRS Policy Research Centre Sciences Po Paris

Introduction

The efficiency of the logics of human action, their ability to achieve defined goals, requires a close relationship to the possible. Without this relationship, they would not be effective. But this possibility can be either opened up to its perpetuation or blocked in a technical set of abstract conditions. “Process” refers here to the viability of what is possible in each situation. This possibility is always already shared, opening up to an ethical1 interaction between the actors involved in this situation2. If this interaction is not ethical, it is because the logic at work has already deviated from the possible, where it was in its element and was therefore running smoothly. The elucidation of the intrinsically ethical structuring of certain processes is the main issue of this book. “Responsibility”, as it will be understood here, takes the form of the structural link through which the freedoms of the actors are co-involved. Today, this responsibility must be exercised under conditions of uncertainty and unpredictability, largely linked to the gains in precision and efficiency of science and technology achieved through global processes of constant innovation. This increased precision, by the way in which it accounts for reality, masks its contingency. Desiring an ever stronger grip, it intensifies the contingency, and therefore the unpredictability, every time.

1 A distinction must be made between ethics and morality. Ethics is a freedom that is effectively shared by all actors involved in the situation in which we find ourselves. As such, “my” freedom requires the freedom of others, as far as I can act to achieve it. “Morality” is respect for and reference to a series of articulate and relevant “values”, “rules”, “principles” or “rights” for the situation in which “I” find myself. 2 Elsewhere, I call it the “creative possible” and the “ethical innervation” it deploys. I would like to refer to my book [LEN 16]. This book will attempt, among other things, to clarify and elucidate these terms.

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RRI (responsible research and innovation) is a powerful attempt to re-think, develop and articulate the normative content of liability in this context of contingency. For the moment, we are lacking a robust concept of responsibility, i.e. a thought that does not pose the action as the act of a “subject”, which would be the “cause” of it through its “will”, but rather sees it (at least in a complementary way) as a process in the possible at work in a situation. In order to justify this move, we must begin by exposing two of the paradoxes to which the classical3 perspective leads us. The first can be formulated as follows4: a “subject” is responsible to someone on the basis of an unresolved discrepancy between the situation as it is and the same situation as it ought to be. Responsibility in this perspective affects a “willingness”, conscious of one’s duties to others, under given situational provisions. It can be a determined relationship between people (kinship, etc.) or simply a position of strength where the “subject” is, and which engages them. Responsibility forces the “subject” to take into account the interests of others at the same time as, and perhaps even more urgently than, their own. In any case, this implies a gap, at the situational level, between empirical reality and moral requirement, such that an objective requirement pushes the “subject” to work for the transformation of the situation in the latter's direction. At the same time, the simple effort of an individual will, because of its multiple limitations (weaknesses, biases, partiality, prejudices of all kinds), cannot bring the empirical reality of the situation to the level of its moral requirement. For this is a “reconciliation” that does not ask just for the responsibility of one will or one individual, nor of several, nor, undoubtedly, of all taken one by one. Responsibility does not start with the will and cannot end with it. However, there is no real responsibility without conscience and will. Without a commitment and indignation towards the situational gap between what is and what ought to be, the “subject” cannot be responsible (and it is not said that this “subjective” perspective should or can simply be eliminated). In other words, “Turkish fatalism”, denounced by

3 I take the liberty of not beginning by reviewing the meanings and etymologies of the word and related terms since this has been done very well elsewhere. See in particular [OWE 13]. See also [ROB 15] for an analysis of the expression of the concept in Korean, Japanese and Chinese. 4 This entry will remind philosophers of a classic opposition, transposed to responsibility, between Kant and Hegel. The first affirms the moral requirement (which poses, in the face of what is, what should be according to moral law [i.e. Kant as seen by Hegel, although Hegel saw quite well]) and the second the reconciliation (a central concept in Hegel, but also particularly problematic. The whole of this book can be interpreted as seeking to translate and achieve this reconciliation in a radically different context).

Introduction

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Leibniz5 has no reason to be. Engagement is a first step, but it must lead to an effective reconciliation, which must be recognized as largely independent of the will of the actors, taken one-by-one or altogether. How can we expose this paradox? To talk about responsibility, it seems that we have to talk about a “subject”. If not, is it actually “responsibility”? But if responsibility is that of a “subject”, it seems that they are engaging in an enterprise that they will not be able to overcome, since precisely being able to live up to their responsibility is impossible for the “subject”, alone and naked. To think of action only as “caused” by a “subject”6, according to their “will”, is to prohibit the success of responsible action, which is disproportionate to them, and which they cannot accomplish without reference to another dimension. At the same time, we speak of responsibility in everyday language, for a “subject” and a “will” implemented in an action. And, in case of an unexpected or unusual discrepancy between what is and what ought to be, it is the latter that will be held accountable. A second paradox, also linked to the responsibility of a “subject”, and a second axis of questioning appear from the relationship of the requirement of responsibility to the nature of the knowledge to which it relates7. A relationship with knowledge, which is nowadays a relationship with objectivity, must be involved in the issue at hand. This is because the knowledge specific to the time must become a means at the service of this responsibility. But, as we have noted, the very structure of the knowledge available to us is causing increasing difficulties for this responsibility, since it dangerously accuses contingency by increasing the unpredictability of the new that will emerge from global interrelationships, at the human, scientific and technological level. One of the challenges here will be to rethink the concept of “objectivity” in order to remove it from its traditional opposition to “subjectivity”. It is a question of formulating a robust conception of objectivity (in its effectiveness), which is nonetheless non-dual, which escapes traditional dualities (soul-body,

5 [LEI 99], where he denounces the “Fatum mahometanum” (sic), or “Turkish fatalism”, that is: “Since God has planned everything for the best, why deliberate and get involved?” 6 It is not a question of discussing at this stage whether “there is” something like a “subject”. For the time being, it is sufficient to note that, conventionally, people agree that everyone is a subject endowed with will. At this conventional level, no one is questioning it. But responsibility goes beyond the conventional and leads to the possibility of usually hidden dimensions, on the background of which only a “subject” could be responsible. It is the internal positions of Mahayana Buddhism rather than postmodern writings that motivate this note. 7 For Levinas, for example, this relationship to knowledge was not indifferent. It would be hard to explain why he took so much care to define it if it had no implications for the relationship to the other [LEV 06].

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intelligible-sensible, etc.), and is nevertheless capable of making its effectiveness intelligible: its relationship to and its possible instrumentalization for an accomplished freedom. However, it is its articulation with the knowledge available in its current form that alone can enable this study to clarify the implications of responsibility today. If this questioning does not take the form of an epistemology or an ontology, and if it must nevertheless relate to objective knowledge, what could its relationship be to this knowledge, which it must recognize, but also discuss? It cannot reproduce or mimic this knowledge. It does not have to say something that this knowledge could have said, much less something that it already contains. It must question this knowledge. More precisely, it must ask what makes it effective. Let us suggest, at the outset, a hypothesis. Let us assume that what constitutes this effectiveness is a specific relationship to the possible at work in a situation. This specific relationship makes this knowledge effective. But what is known is always only the way objects are possible using the formal tools that are wielded in a science. We must also ask how these tools, concepts, axioms, hypotheses and experiences are possible. If the effectiveness of science lies in a defined relationship to the possible, an examination of these sciences, with their hypotheses, laws and constructed objects, intended to clarify this effectiveness, will have to involve reconsidering and questioning their modal status. If we assume that a “subject” is the “cause” of their actions by their “will”, they will be responsible for seeking, through science, “control” of their actions in their consequences. But this is insufficient, and efficiency itself, not to mention “efficacy”, or efficiency in accordance with an ethical process, cannot be understood in these terms. The sciences will therefore have to be revisited from their roots, in the element of the possible, since responsibility may well, depending on the context, take very different forms. If the problem is considered on the basis of the two paradoxes we have encountered – necessary but insufficient support from the will; implication of a relationship to objective knowledge and need for a modal questioning of this knowledge – we can immediately open two axes of questioning: a) First of all, can we think of responsibility independently of a “will”, i.e. think of it without reference to a conatus that constantly pursues the self-assertion of a “subject”8? 8 One might think that it would be in the nature of things to start with the question of the “possibility” of liability. Here again, a distinction should be made between the possibility of the operational concept and that of the effective implementation of the various responsibilities, not to mention that of their relationship. But to think about the possible in

Introduction

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b) Secondly, since responsibility must nowadays be assumed in the first place in relation to scientific and technological innovation, which exposes “consciousness” to very broad unpredictability, this responsibility must itself be creative [PEL 16]. What should this creativity of responsibility be? How can it be delineated, not to reduce it to the already known, but to make it possible? How can this creative disposition be recognized as a responsibility at the same time? These two axes converge to highlight the contingent context in which responsibility must be exercised today. This contingency gives its own tone to the present time, with its concerns, promises and deadlocks. c) In one sentence: how can we redefine responsibility in the context of radical contingency? This confirms the option of a modal approach. Addressing the issue through the modal prism requires a specific method that can be called “regressive”. It is difficult to characterize the term “upstream” as it will be used here. Neither ontological nor spatial, barely temporal, not really energetic, it refers to the ability to grasp a reality while it is still latent. Modally, it is a question of going back from the necessary to the real, and from there to the possible, seeing in this return a gradual enrichment and a freedom9. Opening the possible to its viability, identifying gaps between conditions, also means that possibility and necessity are not separated and side-by-side (as in the classic position of a Leibniz who opposes the necessary truths to the contingent truths). Faced with the apparent need for a univocal set of conditions, we need to go back upstream to understand that this need is conventional (linked to a saturated perspective, but in reality too narrow). Undoing the sets of conditions that are given as necessary means broadening possibilities and therefore cultivating freedoms.

itself would be to make it something abstract. This would indeed mean something like “rendering the possible such that it is viable (in what is the exercise of a responsibility) when it had fallen back into the need for a (discontinuous) technical set of conditions, that is possible”. But we can see that either we are talking, in both cases, about the same “possible”, so that we are saying the same thing twice (it is possible that the possible is viable, therefore viability is possible, and the possible is possible); or one of the two possibles is an abstraction, which is given as the simple “determination” of a principle, a rule or a law, in short, a “condition”. If responsibility consists in opening up certain possibilities, it is legitimized by the possible, wherever it is deployed, in its viability, and does not need a deduction for its possibility. A viable, smooth possibility is given or not given. There is no meta-level of the possible, but action: “to enable” the “possible” then means to ensure a circulation, a viability between the defined conditions, which may close on their determination, downstream, forgetting that they have themselves been made possible, both by other conditions and by the possible as an “element” (see Chapter 1). 9 It should be stressed at the outset that this is not simply an avatar of the inversion of priority between the actual and the possible operated by Husserl and Heidegger in relation to metaphysical traditions. See the following.

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This approach is defined in relation to the “analytical” method, which it certainly does not aim to disqualify or replace, but which it is intended to complement. Under the word “analytical”, it is necessary to read a method based on distinctions, which seeks to deploy the richness of a term by exposing its different aspects, in order to remove ambiguities that could arise and compromise its use10. An example of the analytical concept of responsibility is provided in a recent book by Sophie Pellé and Bernard Reber. The authors distinguish ten meanings of the word “responsibility”: 1) a cause (in the sense that a tsunami “causes” damage); 2) moral or legal blame (blameworthiness); 3) the obligation of compensation (liability); 4) the accountability injunction; 5) a task or role (the lifeguard, as such, must avoid accidents in their area); 6) authority (e. g. that of a brigade commander); 7) capacity (cognitive, moral, etc.); 8) an obligation (the lifeguard must put in place precautions); 9) the ability to respond (to a problem adequately); 10) virtue (care) (or willingness to act responsibly) [PEL 16, ch. 3]. This is the entire list, which is, to my knowledge, the most complete available in the literature11. The analytical approach gives very fine distinctions, which can help in the effective application of categories. In contrast, a “regressive” method is interested in the implementation of distinctions, as it emerges, upstream. It does not seek to give the multiple meanings of responsibility, but to identify the conditions for its implementation. This is its dimension of effectiveness. Thus a defined perspective is established: responsibility concerns that which, in a deliberation, alone or with others, is neither the application of a procedure nor the result of a will, good or bad, but ethical freedom12, i.e. effectiveness13.

10 Bernard Reber points out to me that the challenge of the analytical approach is not only to remove ambiguities but also to pose problems better, in particular by giving space to ethical innovation. He argues that my approach is itself often analytical. 11 Nicole Vincent distinguished six meanings and Ibo Van de Poel eight [VIN 02]. 12 By “ethical freedom” we must understand a viability of the ethical process in which the freedom of others is always intimately linked to mine. However, this does not constitute servitude but the freedom of the other people involved in the situation in which I find myself, and in which, therefore, I can act for them, is intimately linked to my freedom. If there is a

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The regressive method “goes up” the slope, not towards the complex meaning of a word but towards the possible involved in this complexity and at work in the situation where the reader is involved. Generally speaking, it is a question of going back upstream from the apparently necessary determination in order to restore it to its contingency and to its conventionality. The conditions are therefore not simply “objective”, nor are they met as already constituted. They define each other in a relationship lived within the context. Since, in a book, you have to start with words, we will start by developing some terms. The categories take the sense explained here each time they are used. The meaning they take with other philosophers only comes into play when expressly stated. The method used and the decision adopted on modal reform are therefore closely linked. The method goes back, from the knowledge we have of various objects, considered as acquired and definitive, to an increasingly conventional dimension of reality of these objects, until we recognize their radical contingency. Conventional does not oppose “objective” but redefines an objectivity too naively taken in a simple dualism with the “subjective”. Can a thought of responsibility assume effective responsibility? I suggest that this can be tested on the very topical issue of a thoughtful meeting between Europe, North America and China. A meeting can be both a mutual enrichment and a relationship of alienation in one way or another. The place of the meeting is decisive in this respect. If we could identify a suitable speculative place for a fruitful meeting, the achievements relating to the question of responsibility could be validated. The methodological precautions relating to this second moment will be developed in the introduction to Part Two. We will limit ourselves here to stressing that the meeting could be based on the concept of a process. This will require many precautions that will be discussed in detail. The challenge, which interests Europe as well as North America and China, is to stress that China's contribution is not limited to the question of “inner wisdom”. Indeed, its thinkers can also offer political wisdom, oriented towards engagement in the world, which speaks to us today. This is true even if they “also” include this

conflict, it is in view of this freedom, and against conceptions of freedom that are too narrow, sometimes simply selfish. 13 Let us emphasize: this does not call into question the analytical approach, but seeks to complement it by highlighting the dangers associated with an application of these distinctions that would only be mechanical or technical. However fine they may be, the distinctions, by their very univocity, are likely to carry, in a situation that is in itself contingent and therefore not pre-determined, an ambiguity that they were precisely intended to clarify.

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dimension of a meditative interiority, which finds its way into a speculative development. Since the notion of the process has been particularly central to the development of China's traditions of thought, this will be an opportunity to discuss some aspects of them, in a test of the generality of what has been advanced here [JUL 07]. It may also be an opportunity to distinguish between several types of ethical structures in a process. All this encourages the thinker to turn to China. But the main argument in favor of this detour is the absence, in classical China, of a watertight partitioning between disciplines (which was only adopted in China in the 20th Century14). This implies the absence of a clear separation between “domains” of knowledge, each science being responsible for its own. Understanding the order of Heaven and learning to behave, and therefore to respect this order, are not two separate studies. This is in stark contrast to the watertight separation of the domains of knowledge already strongly expressed in Aristotle, and which triumphed in the Kantian revolution. How can we think of a non-separation of the theoretical and the practical, thus a mutual enrichment of one another, and a progressive enlargement achieved by their reconciliation? What is particularly interesting for the theme before us is that this distant context thus makes it possible to reconsider the relationship between ethics and knowledge, and therefore between prescription and description. It is not a question of comparative reading, which would bring texts from both worlds face to face in order to seek differences and convergences. Starting from an internal reading, on the Chinese side, we want to see how the registers of upright behavior and knowledge of Heaven-Earth interact. Once they are no longer separated, but closely interrelated, the two themes can be questioned, upstream of a whole series of determinations that locked them in a non-relationship. But all this will be specified in the introduction to the second part of this book, where this reflection will take place. The very rich thinking of the process and the absence of a tight separation between the different fields of knowledge are therefore the two reasons why a detour to classical China is required. The third part of the book will aim to test the scope of the conclusions reached in the first two. It will do so in relation to an expression that today is often more of a slogan, ideology or myth than a patiently developed concept. It is the “Invisible Hand”, which is proudly traced back to Adam Smith, even if the expression appears only three times in his entire work and is not, by any means, elucidated as a concept. 14 For this, we refer exclusively to Chinese traditions as developed before 1900.

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This expression condenses much of the legitimacy of what can be called neoliberalism: that is, economic liberalism engaged in a phase of expansion, through the transposition of its methods into other fields of action, for example in the field of public15 governance. Can we, on the basis of the categories introduced and developed here, involved in ethical thinking about the process, demystify the “Invisible Hand” and examine its theoretical core in order to test its normative dimension? After all, it does play a normative role in the discourse of neoliberals, since obstacles to competition are often presented as obstacles to the “freedom” of actors. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Bernard Reber and Robert Gianni for their comments and Nicolas Bouleau for reviewing the beginning of Part 3.

15 This triumph of the conception of homo œconomicus is only one of the late branches of what can be called “liberalism” in the broad sense [SUP 15a].

PART 1

Ambiguity and Responsibility

Ethically Structured Processes, First Edition. Virgil Cristian Lenoir. © ISTE Ltd 2019. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

1 The Possible and the Necessary

To proceed by “withdrawal” means to go back upstream from objects that are given as fixed structures and to restore them to the possible where they are constantly formed in open processes. We do not encounter fixed objects, nor do we define them once and for all. But in the encounter the conventionality of what is encountered takes on meaning. This restitution of objects to their contingency, to their very possibility, which provides continuity for an efficient process, is a responsibility. But such an attitude requires a distance from any “ontological” approach. It requires thinking about the possible and the necessary outside ontology, otherwise it will fall back into the trap of irreconcilable theoretical/practical duality. This attitude only becomes intelligible and relevant, as such, through prior theoretical marking. But this marking must be a theoretical thought that undoes a univocal consistency of the theoretical, which too often separates it from ethics. It is therefore appropriate to start by setting up some definitions in this mode. 1.1. The formal and the transcendental, or the logical point of view A “logic” links, in a coherent way and according to their structure, “terms”, or defined units of meaning that can be stated. Or, a logic is the articulation and setting in motion of a given set of conditions for effective purposes: to achieve a desired result, theoretical or practical. These terms, or conditions, each constitute the resources of a specific language for expressing a specific aspect of an encounter: what converges in the exteriority and is transformed in this encounter, the latter becoming knowledge. A formal logic links terms that are defined as “tools”1 with a view to their technical use. A transcendental logic articulates terms as “categories”,

1 This is the translation of the Greek word “organon”.

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Ethically Structured Processes

i.e. conditions of possibility of our relationship to the world2. The word “condition” will generally refer to both “tools” and “categories”. Where the formal expresses the useful, usable side of knowledge, the transcendental expresses the conditions of possibility of the “encounter” that makes up this knowledge. The transcendental alone is structuring, the formal being structured. This does not mean that the transcendental is a “necessary” or “universal” pre-determination, as will be explained below. A formal expression is, strictly speaking, only a set of operations rigorously defined in their uses, reducible to the definition of their roles in the expression. As such, it is the expression of relationships, each term being itself a relationship, and a relationship of relationships. The formal proceeds by articulation, a sequence obeying entirely explicit rules, while the transcendental is a presupposition. The formal gives a coherent ordering of “conditions”3; the transcendental provides the conditions of possibility, and therefore of production, of knowledge, in its objective constitution. However, the conditions, in both directions, should not be seen as purely limiting. At the same time, they constitute opportunities to further develop knowledge in the encounter with the outside world. A condition has a more or less strong constraint dimension. Constraint is exerted on the situation in which it is thought, known, and where it therefore intervenes in a structuring way. But this condition also has a value of opening possibilities: those of new conditions to be discovered, but also of a viable circulation of the possible itself4, thought of as an element. In other words, a category makes it possible to come across a situation, i.e. a recorded experience in that situation, for which it “explains” an aspect. This category can be a general law or knowledge of how things work, or an exact experimental measurement inscribed in a scientific5 theory, to which it provides an anchor in the facts. Each time it is “knowledge” of what is being encountered. A formal tool, on the other hand, is a useful, manipulable and transposable instrument, which is not necessarily semantically charged, or whose semantic charge is subject to redefinition. It should be noted that the same condition can sometimes be a tool, sometimes a category6. Categories therefore change and redefine

2 The gap will widen rapidly with Kant’s and Husserl’s designs. We ask the reader to adhere to the stated definitions. 3 See the definition below. 4 Idem. 5 An accurately predicted experimental result can be more than a formal tool. Because of its strategic place in a defined knowledge complex, it can have, at a given moment, a categorical scope. It then allows a knowledge orientation, a contextual relationship to the known. This, as well as a supposed knowing “subject”, is nothing outside this relationship of knowledge in perpetual redefinition. 6 It will sometimes be upstream and sometimes downstream. See below.

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themselves according to the contexts and theories available, and it would be futile to draw up a definitive “list” of them. Moreover, one cannot simply speak of “space” or “time” in general7 but rather of a punctual arrangement of the intuitive faculty, which expresses the way in which various complexes of conditions are known in a particular context and in relation to a defined activity. In a Galilean world, on the one hand, and within the framework of general relativity on the other, space-(and)time do not respond to the same intuitions (notably through their mutual relationship). But intuition itself is formed and educated to the point of espousing the theories that express a specific state of knowledge8. Even in terms of space and time, there is no definitive list of intuitions whose disposition gives them meaning. As for distinguishing the possibility of a specific experiment from that of a general experiment, which would offer a limited and therefore countable number of categories, it would also be futile. For who can say, exposed to a specific experiment, how it fits into what makes the general experiment, and how it is distinctive? It is often posterity alone that decides this. Actually, the conditions of the experiment in general may have to be redefined, following an unforeseen discovery, from what was previously considered to be limited to a specific experiment. We call a perspective “definitorial” according to which a condition can only be made possible by another condition (or other conditions). This can be done at the formal level, but also at the transcendental level. The categories would then contain every possibility of formal condition, downstream, as they would offer every possibility in the way we become aware of what we encounter. In what follows, we will argue against this definitorial perspective. The regressive aspect of the method will consist in going back from a condition to its possibility, that it takes from other conditions, but also from a creative element of

7 They are not considered here in their a priori forms of meaning, but rather in terms of a meaning that arises from specific intuitive tendencies and which can be revised. These intuitive tendencies, if stated, become conventional categories, which make it possible to logically structure, according to their coherence, formal complexes downstream. 8 Concerning the specific case of quantum mechanics (even more confusing than that of general relativity), Michel Paty argues that it is futile to try to bring the notions back into the framework of the intuition of everyday life. Rather, we must become aware of the specificity of quantum mechanics and integrate it into our ways of thinking [PAT 88]. We would add that this will be possible if the intuitive framework itself, and thus the categories of space and time, and their way of conditioning the objective elaboration of conditions, are likely to be transformed (to be enriched compared to the classical framework), therefore if it is only conventionally a priori, and likely to become a posteriori in another epoch of knowledge.

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possibility which permeates the situation9. When we return to the situation, the elemental dimension of the possible becomes significant. This leads to relativizing the transcendental categories and thinking about their possible revision according to periods. At the same time, it opens up a strict distinction between the terms “a priori”, “necessary” and “universal”10. 1.2. Conditions and determinations: a matter of freedom If the term “condition” covers both aspects, tool and category, it can also refer to a mutual relationship between consciousness and terms in general. The distinction is then made between “condition” and “determination”. A determination bites into the consciousness, which it renders partial. A condition is assumed in consciousness. But both are the linguistic or symbolic expressions of a knowledge that can be integrated into the exposure of a mode of occurrence, functioning or interaction of a certain group of factual data, which can be found, gathered and distinguished by this knowledge. It is only the relationship to consciousness, alienated in one case (determination), free in the other (condition), that makes the difference. What is at stake is therefore the correct understanding of the concept of freedom, for the purpose of its realization. A condition has an active dimension, often unnoticed by the consciousness, of opening and closing of possibilities. Together, the conditions are what surrounds us as it is known to us, that is, brought to the level of intuitive thinking. They are “what” surrounds us and, in the same movement and in an inseparable way, the “meaning” of what surrounds us. Each time it is an expressed knowledge, so not only of language, but also of a linguistic expression of a lived relationship to a context. We must reject from now on a naive ontological vision that would have us face a world of objects determined in themselves, that we would be content to meet and name and that we would talk about while trying to “match” what we say to what we encounter. It must also be denied that our categories, and therefore the transcendental, constitute the objects we encounter through and through. The knowledge encounter, which will be discussed below, starting from the specific characteristics of a language, expresses specific aspects of what surrounds us. It is a specific consistency of the situation in which we find ourselves and reaches, upstream, more general determinations. It is not a question of accounting for everything that exists. This would be an ontological approach. There is no “separation” between proposals and beings. Knowledge, made possible by a term or 9 Whether or not one is aware of this element, it is constantly at work. And the success of an action depends on this invisible effectiveness that passes through us. 10 See below.

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a particularity of the language in which it is expressed, and which it may have invented for this language, expresses complexes of relationships where it may involve beings. This does not mean that they are determined as such independently of this knowledge. The entities or beings that we distinguish around us (trees, swans, neighbors, etc.) are, as far as we know, conditions for a full and open relationship with the world. Not that conditional knowledge “constitutes” beings – which would then be reducible to it, or which would be an image, a fleeting reflection, of it – but beings and conditions redefine themselves mutually, one through the other, at each stage of the process. There is no pre-determination of the being in the categories, nor is there an “abstraction” of the categories in relation to the beings around us. There is, each time, entanglement and interrelation. This point will become very important when it is linked to the question of the possible. Determinations and conditions are expressions of a living relationship of knowledge, and can manifest themselves as hypotheses, axioms, factual measures, rules of language use, definitions, values, principles, etc. A logic will be a coherent articulation of the relevant conditions (or determinations) in accordance with their own structures, and in relation to the knowledge in question. The difference is that a “determination” bites into and conditions the consciousness, which then only has the illusion of freedom, while a “condition” is taken up and assumed freely in the consciousness. What is at issue is therefore the relationship to the knowing consciousness. A formal “tool” or “category” can be, at a given time, a determination, and a condition to another, and for another, person. One of the challenges in defining “conditions” is to neutralize the opposition between facts and values. While keeping a distinction between the two, which is extended to the downstream distinction between epistemic values and ethical values, etc., this definition avoids reducing the latter to what would be a subjective matter of opinions or desires. It is also a question of moving the lines in relation to a questioning that may have become bogged down in an opposition between “moral properties”11 which would make an object, a value or an action “good” and would be accessible to a moral intuition alongside the properties discovered by the sciences. According to this vision, there are both natural and unnatural properties. If the moral terms refer exclusively to the former, moral knowledge would be reducible to that of the natural sciences, which is clearly inaccurate. If they refer to the latter, the status of the intuition that gives us access to it becomes problematic, and threatens to sink into subjectivism or psychologism.

11 See [MOO 93] and, more broadly, [ZIE 13].

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Ethically Structured Processes

On the contrary, in the problematic field that is outlined here, the distinction concerns the relationship of conditions to consciousness. It passes between the “suffered” conditions, which “determine” the consciousness of the actors, and the freely “assumed” conditions. The debate is therefore moved to the field of a radically redefined philosophical concept of “freedom”. Freedom is the responsible “assumption” of conditions that are “known” in a certain context. This means that it “knows” the status of the knowledge of these conditions. Knowledge may relate to determinations or conditions. In the second case, we know what makes its exact status as knowledge. We therefore mobilize a distinction between two truths.12 Ultimate knowledge (as freedom) is knowledge of the status of conventional (discursive) truth in its conventionality. To this extent, it is able to “assume” conventional truth, in its “effectiveness” (as an immanent relationship of conditions, and no longer only as an external set of determinations), and to affirm a freedom that is “responsibility” (assumption of effective conditions). It is difficult to give an example, as this can affect the generality of the argument. However, let us consider the theoretical tool “Gauss’s Law”, the “Normal Law” or the “bell curve”. Quetelet used it to represent the normal distribution of observed measures (the size of conscripts) at the social level. Francis Galton took it up again by inserting it into a eugenicist theory, claiming to represent the distribution in society of a so-called “civic value” [GAL 09]. It can be said that Galton allowed himself to be “determined” by this unequal requirement, which is of course to the benefit of the class to which he himself belongs. Determination is exercised on the consciousness, which therefore tends to use this theoretical tool (the “Normal Law”) as representing (and therefore aggravating) an inequality, therefore a “bias”. This does not mean that the same theoretical tool cannot be used to work towards greater equality (and therefore towards greater impartiality) by being taken up and assumed as revealing differentiated needs within society, for example. 1.3. The concept of the possible a) The “possible” is first of all a tendency of the world as it is related to itself, and in so far as it is opened by the categories, therefore by the transcendental, as conditions of possibility of this relationship. These are then considered as the most upstream conditions, on which all the other conditions depend, i.e. all our 12 This can also be seen as an interpretation of the doctrine of Nagarjuna, who lived in India in the second/third centuries A.D. He distinguishes between conventional truth (samvrtisatya) and ultimate truth (paramartha-satya). But the second is an understanding of the conventionality of conventional truth. Conditions refer to other conditions, without one being able to meet, at any given time, something “substantial”. In this sense, everything is “empty” (sunya), and there is never being (sat) or non-being (asat). See [NAG 02]. We have examined it in [LEN 12].

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knowledge of the world, wrapped in our general relationship to the world, or our experience of the world, whose knowledge is an expression of an essential aspect. The possibility of experience is, in a given context, opened up by these categories (for which it would be futile to try to give a canonical or exhaustive list, for reasons that we have already begun to explain, and which, we hope, will be even clearer later). Let us consider the possibility that there may be a world “for us”. This possibility does not imply that it would be possible that there would be no world for us once we are there. But it is contingent that we are there. Therefore the world, and our knowledge of the world, expressing its singular relationship to itself, is not necessary. Not only is it not necessary for there to be a world, but it is not necessary for there to possibly be a world, as long as we do not presuppose the spectator. But there is no need for this presupposition. The contingency of categories expresses that of our existence, and of the singular relationship to the world in which we live. In reality, even if we presuppose the spectator, his or her relationship to the world could be opened by different lists of categories. And it is therefore not impossible that, over the course of the history of human knowledge, and of humans’ relationship to their world, these categories may change or transform. This may be due to a change in the world that would not be the same for all people, according to contextual structures specific to a particular era; or it could be due to a change in fundamental decisions, in knowledge options, in the choice of categories that affects accessible knowledge, and therefore in the possible relationships to the world. b) There is also a formal “possible”. It is a sequence possible. The possibility that brings about a given formal language is the preservation of the truth during this codified sequence of terms. This language brings about and explains the economy of a strictly codified relationship between specific conditions, which takes a discursive form. It is subject to the interests of knowledge. These may themselves be more or less linked to other kinds of interests. This may be important from a formal point of view, as long as the researchers’ attention is focused mainly on one or another direction of development of the formal logics in relation to the experiment. A formal language deploys a univocal possible in that it emerges according to accuracy. By substituting identical expressions and applying explicit rules, this language opens up a viable formal possibility, which takes the form of a demonstration. In reality, several demonstrations of the same truth can be given. There is therefore no “necessity”, in the strict sense of the term, to the path opened up by the demonstration, only a coherent sequence “that holds together”, which is rigorous and explicit, or in any case could be if one had the patience required to bring it to an end.

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But, it will be said, the contingency of the demonstration (the possibility of multiple ways of proving) does not mean the contingency of what is proven. However, the possibility or impossibility of the realization (an active demonstration) of a (true) knowledge, and the accessibility of the modes of this realization, reveal the truth to be contingent knowledge, not in the sense that it would not be proved, but in the sense that this truth itself is dependent, for its expression, its proof and its implementation on a given, possible, context of the language of the research, experiment and techniques. The proposal that is proven is true, but it is only proven on a contingent basis. It is the use of resources specific to a given language, whose existence and characteristics are contingent, that allows this truth to be expressed. Or it should be said that the truth demonstrated is de jure separable from the formal language in which it is proven, which is not obvious. This truth can be true and demonstrated without being necessary. The possibility of demonstration opened by a given formal language, and the specific conditions it implements, is very much related to that language. c) Probabilities deploy a third kind of “possible”. This can be seen as a specific variant of the formal possibility. But, in reality, it involves objective possibilities, in the form of temporal, combinatorial expectations, which distinguish it from the latter. The probabilities, and the concept of “chance” (as with equiprobability) that they implement, have an essential relationship with the modal question. This random relationship, far from making the calculated possibilities subjective, is what makes them objective13. To begin with, they exhaustively define, in advance, the possible cases, which are set as external to each other, mutually exclusive, juxtaposed as if they were boxes with no space in-between, and moreover saturating the available space. The theory therefore does not open up possibilities here, but it claims to determine those that are actually at work in the situation under study and between which the action will decide. According to this point of view, there would therefore be a pre-definition of the possibilities which are displayed with their probability of occurrence. Gambling is well suited to this staging and the theory which emerged from Pascal and Fermat has

13 This is true for a common definition of “chance”, taken in a strict duality with “necessity” [MON 70]. But understanding necessity as conventional requires an approach to “chance” through a non-definitorial understanding, such as the deployment of a certain significant “coming and going” of phenomena, itself caught in longer tendencies of fluence of the possible, at work and imaginable each time in a situation. Perhaps it is the possibility of this reinterpretation that objectifies the current notion of “chance”. The discussion as to whether probabilities are objective, or express simple subjective ignorance, is as old as the calculation of probabilities. See in particular [HAC 06]. And, from the same author, for the following period [HAC 04].

The Possible and the Necessary

11

benefited from it. And, even today, the main examples through which we are taught are still being drawn from it. This property of certain artificial situations, where the probabilities of several cases appearing are equal, a mathematical equality, could be successfully transferred to common or less common situations. But the pre-definition and exhaustiveness of the possible cases, constructed in a purely external or “abstract” way, ignore everything of a certain creativity that is at work in any concrete situation. The division of a situation into possible predicted cases is not necessary, precisely because of its uniqueness. A “possible case” is precisely at the crossroads of several formal coherences, each of which can apprehend a specific aspect of it. The division, involving a single formal “plan”, lacks this complexity, and thus the possibility of a last-minute redefinition of the relevant conditions, which would lead to a redistribution of the possible cases or even the emergence of new possible cases. There is a possible that circulates between these predicted cases, which are therefore not like juxtaposed boxes but which leave room for maneuvers between them and don’t saturate the space14. This is a possible that has not yet been addressed at this stage. In reality, the three meanings of the “possible” that have just been explained have in common that they are “definitorial”. This means that only given terms (conditions or determinations) open them up. These terms define the increasingly narrow field of possibility (categories, formal languages, the specific formal language of probability theory). They always precede this possibility, which would otherwise have remained closed and inaccessible. It is the condition that opens up a defined possibility, it is not the condition that is made possible. The possibilities are thus singular determinations which consist of variations, possibly combinatorial and taken from a categorically or formally pre-determined framework, which are considered stable. There may then be variations of this framework from a broader framework, but the problem is only displaced. Creativity, which is implicit, is at best reduced to these terms (as contained in them, in an “ideal” plentitude of conditions), at worst obscured in favor of a technical interplay of conditions. This creativity suggests a completely different understanding of the “possible”.

14 Since the scope of a theory’s effects on a situation goes beyond its “truth” (they interact at many other levels, see (b)), it also exceeds the coherent breakdown of possible cases that have been catalogued and classified.

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1.4. The duplicity of contingency d) Contingency is the metaphysical understanding of the possible, which opens with a theory of the process. In contingency, the possible works from inside the situation we are facing. It reopens any closed structure, any usual ordering. It works on them in depth, in silence. But contingency can also bring about a drastic closing of possibilities (lived necessity, experienced constraint). Indeed, creativity is also destructive. Opening up some possibilities can prevent others being opened, can conceal the possibility of opening up other determined possibilities, and thus create an objective constraint on the actors involved. This constraint, as a “necessity”, is the lack of viability of a situation when there are no longer any accessible, open possibilities for us and when the creativity that would allow us to open them up has lapsed into a certain routine, forgetting inventiveness, and making us see only “one” solution which is presented to us as ready-made by society. Metaphysically however contingency implies the ability to become revitalized, to regain access to the possible as creativity, that is, as an “element”. The “elements” will be characterized below. But it must be made clear now that they are a “milieu” in which we relate to the situation and no longer defined conditions or determinations which could be stated in their determinacy. From then on, the possible is no longer only a viability that is opened up by conditions (categories, formal expressions), but a milieu in which one is immersed and in which the conditions themselves, the categories, the formal expressions, find their possibility. This is true because we don’t start by establishing a clear separation between theory and practice. A condition of course has its possibility in a defined series of other conditions, but “in addition” it takes part of its possibility from the element of the possible. And the same is true for each term of this series. It is as if the possible is condensed transiently in a given condition, which allows a given knowledge, relevant to the situation in which we find ourselves. But soon all we do is handle rigid conditions, in a technical way, forgetting their consistency, which is a consistency of the possible. We become fascinated by the determinacy of conditions, which makes them very manageable, but conceals the essential dimension in which only these conditions have an existential meaning and an ethical significance. This is the dimension of an elemental possible, prior to a theoretical/practical separation. This forgetting of the possible, accompanied by a purely technical game with the conditions where the interest of knowledge itself has been largely obscured and the

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routine, the habit, the platitude in which we are enclosed, is the source of “necessity”. There is only necessity (or constraint) when we have lost what keeps us rooted in the possible and the meaning it gives to our knowledge and actions. This characterization of the “possible” and the “necessary” stems from a change of perspective that means that we no longer consider “entities”, “numbers” and “beings” which come to us from the outside in order to ask: are they necessary or contingent? On the contrary, let us ask what is meant by “possible” and “necessary” when applied to conditions that reflect our knowledge relationship to beings who are not themselves determined as “entities”, “numbers” or “beings”, but who enter into a knowledge relationship whose form reveals them only partially and fleetingly. It is therefore not an “ontological” question that would ask what these “beings” are “in themselves”. It is instead a “processual” approach that asks how we can maintain a knowledge relationship and an ethical relationship with these “beings”, in a process that is constantly being (re)won and (re)opened. How can this be done from a renewed sense of being rooted in the element of the possible? That this relationship to the possible, upstream, is ethical from the outset, as a bearer of freedom, will be a point developed later on. 1.5. The concept of the necessary The necessary, what is imposed on us in the situation, what compels us, in the sense of a lack of viability, is, metaphysically, the second aspect of the contingency at work around us. It is imposed through, or as a consequence of, the work of exhaustive pre-definition of the possible. As soon as the situation is fully mapped out, reduced to a formal network that is intended to be exhaustive, taken up in a single theoretical plane that minimizes the others, as soon as we are caught up in the routine of a technical application of conditions that have apparently proved their worth so far, we become blind to the fact that the situation in which we find ourselves is unique. We treat it according to procedure, to which we only relate interests (most often, interests in gain). This routine, this easy habit that convinces us that what worked before will work again, is reinforced by the fact that these effective conditions are the only ones we have at our disposal. So instead of going back to exploring the current situation in its specificity15, which would be our responsibility, we are going back to old recipes in the hope that our interests will be preserved.

15 It would be a question, without assuming a pre-determination of the objects in the possible, therefore without keeping closed the fixed objects that history delivers to us, of patiently going back to the possible at work in the situation in which we are involved.

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One may think that the “necessity” faced by the hard sciences escapes what is seen as relativization. It should therefore be pointed out that this is not a question of “relativization” but of a realization of the “conventional” nature of the sets of conditions. Formal sequences are not “relativized” in an epistemological sense, which would mean that the relationship of a truth to the context of its production (and therefore to the tools available in that context) limits its status as a truth. The truths discovered by the experimental sciences are universal, even if they are only possible by a conventional definition of the accessible tools, the theoretical and experimental context in which they are stated. They express this relationship as a defined interplay between “conventional” conditions, which could therefore have been different if the drape of the possible had fallen differently. The challenge is not from an epistemological position but from a processual one: that of a restitution of theoretical elaboration to the element of the possible by which it finds itself constantly redefined towards ever greater accuracy. It is, to put it in a nutshell, not an epistemological constructivism, but a processual one. Metaphysical “necessity” is rather an oversight of the possible and a drowsiness into the well-known routine. To speak of the “necessity of categories”, of “formal demonstrations”, of “possible cases”, is only rather unfortunate hyperbole. Indeed, it has already been shown that “categories”, “demonstrations” and “possible cases” are in fact “contingent”. By this we mean, classically, that they can both exist and not exist, be both alike and be different. Being contingent, they can become “necessary” in the sense that they close in on their form in an oversight of the possible, but not in the sense that the categories, etc. could not have been different or could not not have been. The list of categories could have been different since the world around us, as well as our fundamental theoretical choices, could have been different. The demonstration of a formal truth is related to the language in which it is conducted, and there is no truth that is separate from its formal expression or from any formal expression. A truth is always the relationship between a reality that is constantly being redefined and an expression that operates this redefinition. A truth might not have been, in a radically different theoretical configuration. The possible cases, in a given situation, could have been different, if we consider the creativity of the possible that is at work in any concrete situation. There is therefore no necessity for a condition in the sense that it could not not have been or, equally, could not have been different. Conditions arise, as a relationship of knowledge between us and the world, from the creativity of the possible, with the intervention of other relevant conditions, and the sanction of the context. “Necessity” is the limit of this creativity, the moment of its occultation. But “necessity” as well as “possibility” are the two aspects of the contingency operating in the world. However, there is indeed an anteriority of the

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“possible” over the “necessary” in that the possible is an element, whereas the necessary is only the negation of the expression of this element in a given situation. But is there not, in a particular sense, a “necessity” for “categories”, “demonstrations” and “possible cases”? To the extent that these are only mentioned each time from a specific place, where conditions have been integrated and known, where they have been decanted and sedimented, these categories are discovered as the only possible presuppositions of the experiment; demonstrations are seen as irrefutable inferences once the characteristics of the language are accepted; possible cases are considered exhaustive and necessary from a probabilistic perspective. However, this necessity is conditional. It is only necessary once we have adopted an exclusively definitorial perspective (by stating that only conditions can open up possibilities, thus denying the element of the possible, which invites us to go back to the possibility of these conditions). To speak of “necessity” is to accept and endorse the closure of a determined “logic”. This closure is done in a precise language, which gives access to the data, in a situation. It is obtained by the deployment, which is constructed, of a determination of the possible, based on conditions, which becomes complete, exhaustive, playing out in an abstract, self-justifying way. When the determination is saturated, in a specific plan, the combinatorics is complete. It is not a question of saying that necessity is false or illusory but of specifying what it consists of and of showing that it is not itself necessary. When we say “19+82=101” we have a completely determined expression in a univocal logical plan. Yet, if this were no longer to be expressed in decimal language but in a vigesimal notation (as was that of the Mayas), it would still be true, but could we argue that the expression would actually be the “same”? Conditions only appear as contingent if the elemental dimension of the possible is taken into account. It is therefore necessary to specify what is meant here by “element”. 1.6. Elements of effectiveness and ethical innervation An “element” is an enveloping dimension, in which the actor is immersed, and which gives a defined meaning to the cognitive orientation of human activity and to the application of their knowledge in action (a context is the factual, tangible diversity where this invisible element is at work).

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If an element has no sharp edges, it nevertheless has a general configuration in its immanent fluidity, which, if not respected by the actors, can lead to de facto disappointments, resulting in violence that is systematic, as soon as it expresses logical coherence. The expression “in that” captures two important aspects of an element. First of all, there is a quasi-spatial enveloping dimension, which surges in immanence and includes us in a much broader deployment than what would be accessible to the “individual”. But “in that” also conveys the idea of what is “relevant” in a set of meanings, in what way an element and a situation are in affinity to one another, and in what way they resonate against each other. One can consider, very briefly, several elements, real or illusory. The “force” deployed by a “will”, in a Nietzschean16 or Schopenhauerian sense, is particularly attractive if it is presented as an element. The conditions directly related to this element would be the “interests”. And the wills, which seek strength, want above all to satisfy themselves by affirming themselves for themselves, from the outside, against other wills, but always as much as this allows them to enjoy the spectacle of their own strength. When it is truly great, this force is turned against itself, and finds no further opponent on its own level other than itself. It asserts itself in immanence as an exceptional, unique and incomparable position17. However, by this very fact, this force, willed on by a will, proves to be a pure act of the will, that is, also a pure effect of the finiteness of that will. As a will, it is an identity (the will of a “who”). And every will, like every identity, is a purely superficial effect of a set of forces. So, at the metaphysical level, which should be that of an element, will and identity “are” not. These are superficial reflections of power plays. They are (and express) only human relationships in their trivial, psychological (conditioned) dimension. A “will” is only strong in order to oppose other wills. It is only “one” identity to oppose other identities. But these oppositions start from suffered determinations, which are always trivial statements of selfish interests, and psychological expressions of a separation. The conditions are “suffered” by the actors, who subject their action to their determinations, and all freedom is therefore corrupted. The strength of a will is only asserted in a reaction to a suffered determination. And even in victory it can only affirm this non-free determination.

16 [NIE 14]. This volume brings together Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality. 17 The aristocratic Nietzschean topic of the “Übermensch” (or Superman).

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Neither will nor identity are elements. Yet strength is not one either. It is, in the strictest sense, the necessary logical deployment18 of an attachment: a set of conditions, itself conditioned, whose inertia makes them play according to a purely external arrangement. Sometimes it does it immanently to the possible, but without knowing it. Sometimes it deviates from the possible by pushing its coherence too far, towards an over-determination of the context. An efficient logical coherence (expressing a will) ceases to be effective (ethical): that is, it deviates from the element of the possible. The intensive exploitation of a mine, for example, oriented towards the maximum immediate profit, demanded by an interested party, can ruin the health and living environment of many people. There is a deviation of this will from what is possible, even if, at the beginning, the exploitation of this mine is only possible through a valid “knowledge”, integrated into the process. The will integrated into the process of possibility comes to deviate from that process. A language is an element. If the terms of this language are “conditions”, the language itself, through the inexhaustible supply of formulations it offers, does indeed have an elemental structure. Anyone who is immersed in it, impregnated with it to the point that their thoughts and feelings are expressed spontaneously in it, even if they end up no longer seeing it, moves in their element. Both thoughtless expression and thoughtful formulation are part of this encompassing dimension that inserts the individual into a tight web of exchanges, interactions, dialogues and monologues, making the boundaries more indeterminate. The individual is then only perceived as an individual “among” other individuals. And language, in a way, even if it is only effective when being spoken, becomes autonomous with regard to individuals, and acquires an infinitely varied, flexible, adaptable and useful dimension, which goes beyond and includes all its speakers. That a language, in its procedural dimension, can play, in its objective structuring, the role of a criterion for the statement of valid values or principles of justice between individuals who express themselves through it, is a sign of this inclusive dimension [HAB 97b]. At the same time, this reveals its problematic aspects, since this mode of choice does not seem to protect values from the contingency of a deliberation that can in no case, de facto, be reduced to a pure exchange of arguments (always also deploying, in context, a balance of forces). The element of the fact is also particularly important. However, it can only be partially encompassing, since before it are the “values”, which are conditions. Sticking to the facts in an exploration is a particularly important decision which, as we know, has played a decisive role in the emergence of objective science. Factual 18 The essence of force is logical, just as the manifestation of logic is force. A force is an energy that monopolizes, that is, a will. But will can be more than a force. It can move in the element of the possible, even if it cannot give the objective criterion of the viability of this possible.

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truth and experimentation are characteristic features of this. Accepting the lessons of experience requires patient attention to the answers it provides to our focused questions. The fact becomes a talkative interlocutor when we know how to read across the data at our disposal and the underlying activities that work with it. As an element, it exceeds the capacities of the individual researcher and mobilizes the activity of an international research community in each discipline. But the element on which we must insist in this work is the “possible”. It is of a particularly high generality, since any condition, taken in a theory, opens up the possible and has itself been made possible, on the one hand by other conditions and on the other hand by the encompassing element of the possible active in the situation in which we find ourselves. Any element is related to morality or ethics. For a “language”, it concerns the procedural resources available to it to choose values, rules or rights. For a “fact”, it is a question of being inseparable from the definition of values, which it calls up before it, thus creating a dual polarization. As far as the possible is concerned, it is itself, as it unfolds, an ethical innervation and freedom (see below). On the one hand, it obviously contains a dimension that goes beyond the individual who wonders about it. It immediately brings together, in a situation, all the actors concerned through the knowledge at work. On the other hand, it expresses well the idea of a deployment of the possible towards itself, of a perpetuation of the possible, of its never-ending viability, thus the refusal of any blockage (under conditions that would come into play in an external and mechanical way). On the one hand, this viability brings us closer to others (it is a viability for all); on the other hand, in the relationship with others that is opened up in the search for viability, there is freedom. This freedom is ethical from the outset because of this relationship and this common quest. But furthermore, everyone is called upon to make a contribution. Everyone comes up with their ideas to remove the obstacles that suddenly arise at this sustainability. And, in fact, solutions will almost always come from the outer margins, not from what is already being done most of the time, which has often already fallen into habit and into dull routine. The possible, as an “element”, as “what” human action takes place in, is therefore ethical freedom19. But it is only evanescent, as a viability that makes the possible always move towards itself and never stop in well-known determinants, ready-made solutions applied in a technical way without regard for the uniqueness

19 The possible is ethical freedom as long as it is viable, as long as it opens up a practicable continuity that involves all the actors concerned by the situation with a view to its perpetuation.

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of the situation in which the agents find themselves. As freedom, action seeks out freedom for all concerned, because this is the only way to ensure its viability. An innovation will be good or bad, desirable or not, not in itself, but by the relationship that the actors establish between themselves and it, in context. In a defined context, the relationship between a definite will and an innovation can be experienced as a determination by consciousnesses, thus as caught in a bias, a relationship that narrows the actor’s perspective in that it cuts them off from what makes others free. This relationship can also bring a broadening of the will, which comes to take into account the broadest interrelationship at work in context. If actors come to see their “freedom” in a partial pursuit of conditions that “determine” their will, cutting it off from that of the other actors involved, it is without knowing it that they are ruining that freedom. The element of the possible crosses the situation where we stand. It is not determined as “one” or “not-one”. This reverses a whole series of well-established preconceptions, which have now become routine in philosophical language, following which “determination” is first. For Leibniz, our world is actualized from all the possible worlds already pre-determined in the Divine Understanding. This world is brought into existence because it is the best possible, which also means that it is the richest in determinations, being the only summit of a pyramid whose base recedes to infinity [LEI 99]. But for David Lewis again, things have their modalities by virtue of non-modal characteristics, which are those of ontological ensembles, called “possible worlds” [LEW 86]. He warns against a “gross modality” [GAR 07, p. 222]. But he is aiming at a “magical” thesis on universals, according to which a structural universal has no parts of its own. However, this does not concern this subject. Should an exclusive precedence of determination be maintained, one which would alone be capable of opening new determinations? Are the worlds and the objects they contain pre-determined, timeless, and possibly actualized from there? Or is it conceivable that the conditions, laid down and met, inextricably interdependent, can be apprehended, upstream, from where their possibility comes, certainly from previous conditions, but also from an element of the possible that crosses the situation, where everyone can apprehend them, in consciousness, in order to assume them, taking them back into their immanent effectiveness? The modality, then, is not “rough”. It is subtle par excellence: the invisible element in which we move, and with which we can reconnect, in an immanent way.

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A third version can be mentioned: a kind of moderate topical analysis of the notion of “possible worlds”20 puts forward the idea of a “world-story”. The latter is a “maximum set of proposals”. In other words, they are “consistent sets composed of one of the members of each pair of mutually contradictory proposals” [GAR 07, pp. 246-252]. Not only, then, is the determination first, but what is ignored, under the univocity of the term “proposal”, is the fact that the conditions (which are knowledges) are inextricably set (making the encounter possible) and met (reconfiguring our relationship to the world). A condition is sometimes a tool, sometimes a category. The interrelation, in a perpetual readjustment, a continuous redefinition of conditions, is something other than a necessary, external play of conditions taken in a single plane. To achieve this implies a return upstream, not only to the conditions that make given conditions possible, but also to the element of the possible that allows us to assume them, by re-establishing their immanent articulation in a latent totality21. 1.7. A situation, a context and a world At this stage, we must try to define three terms that will be used regularly but which are not simply interchangeable. A “situation” is a set of lived experiences, where one is when one speaks, thinks and acts, and in relation to which all relevant conditions must be implemented. A “context” is a lived whole where a configuration of knowledge will be active and potentially effective. It is a set of situations structurally appropriate in a certain way. A “world” is a generalized context in a horizon specific to a given era or geographical area. 1.8. Efficiency and effectiveness22: philosophical freedom Efficiency is the ability to achieve meaningful goals that we set out to achieve. Effectiveness characterizes a free action that is spontaneously ethical (extended to take into account the freedom of all actors concerned). This freedom is “autonomy” 20 [GAR 07, p. 246] in an article by Robert Merrihew Adams, “Theories of Actuality”, Noûs, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 211-231, 1974. 21 See section 3.2. 22 See [LEN 16] by the same author.

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in the sense that consciousness does not let conditions bite into it and determine it from the outside but takes them back into itself in order to “assume” them in its own movement23. A “determination” is an attachment. Freedom is therefore a non-attachment (non-dependence on any attachment, therefore autonomy), not because it would break all ties, but because it takes up all the relationships in which human life is embedded, in a situation, in the lived knowledge of these relationships, by which it assumes them. Since one cannot be free if the other actors in the situation are not, this freedom is immediately shared. It is free for all persons involved in the situation and concerned by the decision24. This assumption of the relationship with the other is “responsibility”. And effectiveness is the realization of this ethical freedom, starting from responsibility. Nevertheless, the fact remains that wills most often enter into violent relationships, being determined by selfish interests to cut themselves off from what makes others free, forgetting that it also makes them free. A crucial challenge is to show the compatibility of efficiency and effectiveness25. Since efficiency is driven by a process26, it is necessary here to question the possibility of an ethical structuring of such a process27.

23 Thus, it is very different to create the “genealogy” of a notion and to inscribe a condition in an effective process. 24 This does not mean that we are alienated until everyone else is free. Intrinsic to my freedom is that of the other people (or living beings) involved in the situation in which I find myself, and where I can therefore work for their freedom. Freedom already exists in working together for freedom. And we cannot conceive of a world where it would have been realized once and for all because that would be the greatest danger of seeing it fall back into routine. 25 In the author’s 2016 book [LEN 16], he calls this convergence of efficiency and effectiveness efficacy. 26 “Process” means, in this case, “a rigorous unfolding of a logic”. And, indeed, modernity has proved the efficiency of rational action, when it is limited to the forms revealed by the sciences, and therefore its ability to achieve the objectives set by the agents concerned. 27 Robert Gianni pointed out to the author that this can be presented as covering the dichotomy between strategic action and normative action.

2 Pre-determination Figures

2.1. Modes of objective constraint This is not, of course, an exhaustive list, since that would run counter to the spirit of the project, closing the reflection into a single plane. If the challenge is to go back upstream from the concepts and objects given to us by science (or historical tradition) to their possibility and to a creative possible at work in the situation we are considering, we cannot just use a category that simply orders the different concepts accessible in an exhaustive way. The conditions, downstream, are not “pre-determined”, i.e. do not appear exactly in the same way as beforehand, upstream. Their circumstantial materialization can therefore be taken up in the element of the possible, in this viability where responsibility decides the ability to guide a process upstream. This does not mean that one is condemned to being rhapsodic. For the purposes of this book, we only need to distinguish two major axes of constraint: (a) the definitorial axis, in which the known is considered necessary by simply giving a set of defined conditions, where the possibility of its impossibility is forgotten; and (b) the necessary formal unambiguous axis. This axis forgets the non-predetermination of the known, and therefore the conventionality of its necessity. The “objectivity” of the constraint lies in its actively logical character, which translates into concrete effects downstream. aa) A definitorial perspective makes it possible to reduce the defined to the definition, which then exhausts its possibility. For this perspective, conditions dictate the possible, not the other way around. The categories, therefore the transcendental, are thus a constraint. They are not limited to this, since they are also (and above all) instruments for making our knowledge possible. Nevertheless, as pointers (at a specific time) of our finiteness, they limit the extent of our knowledge and prevent us from approaching certain dimensions of the “thing” that our

Ethically Structured Processes, First Edition. Virgil Cristian Lenoir. © ISTE Ltd 2019. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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imagination can nevertheless envisage and that the future may give in an otherwise possible experience. The instruments of observation, measurement, etc., which are part of the natural sciences nowadays, allow access to natural processes not accessible to the men of the Renaissance. On a more modest scale, for example, think about the prospects opened up by Galileo’s use of the astronomical telescope. ab) If the transcendental can express the forgetting of the possible (and therefore a necessity), “habit” presents another aspect of this. It offers an equally imperative constraint at first glance. Like the former, it concerns the conditioned way in which we approach what is open to us, already preconceived and closed around its objectivity. And indeed, habit prefigures our activities and spontaneous choices on a daily basis. It does so by providing a structure that would not be possible if at every step we stopped to question everything. Nevertheless, as well as obscuring many latent possibilities, it represents an objective “constraint”. ac) In connection with the transcendental and habit, institutional constraint can also express the forgetting of the possible. It aims to establish a determined way of relating to and behaving in the world, thereby enabling a certain conception of living together. In this way, it wants to create freedom (a shared consciousness of a creative possible), and unfortunately often ends up making this concept a habit, if not a routine. Institutions do in fact exert a constraint on actors, in the dual sense that they make them internalize this concept and thus spontaneously act in compliance with it, and that they have the means to sanction them when they do not comply with it. ba) Formal constraint must be distinguished from transcendental, definitorial constraint, which has faded into habit and institution, and can itself fade into experimental and technical constraint. It expresses yet another aspect of this forgetting of the possible, that of the conventionality of applied necessity. It is all within a tension that moves an identity from one formal expression to another, according to the application of explicit rules. When the unbroken chain of transformations ensures that the identity has been maintained from one end to the other, it is assumed that the truth, if it was in the first term, has passed intact into the latter, what is called a logical demonstration. This tension that preserves the identity in the transformation of the unequivocal expression is undeniably binding when one emphasizes the pure interest of knowledge. At the same time, formal constraint has many applications related to other interests, as they want to ensure control, through prediction, of efficient processes. bb) The formal constraint is indissolubly linked to that of experimentation. It is a constraint imposed by the extremely precise and rigorous definition of the parameters of the experiment, in order to force the thing, in physical terms, to answer the question unequivocally. Once the protocol is in place, the thing is forced to respond. Of course, as Pierre Duhem had already seen, the experimental protocol

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and the question it asks the thing depends on the state of the theory (in reality on a set of theories), so that even if an answer goes against predictions, it is difficult to say if it invalidates such or such a theoretical proposal [DUH 07]. There is a “convolution”, an entanglement and a neverending interaction between formal and experimental constraint, like navigating a boat that is constantly being patched up while in the open sea (according the image created by Neurath). The desire to control each experimental parameter overlooks all the ambiguity of the possible in its contingency. It is therefore imposed as a constraint. bc) Linked with the formal and experimental constraints is the constraint brought about by technologies. These technologies have their own requirements, their own logics with regard to development, transposition to other uses, and innovation. Due to the important place they have come to occupy in people’s lives, the constraint they exert is perhaps more visible, even if it is not independent of others. Here again, in a stereotypical application of knowledge, which operates from the outside, the creative possible is forgotten. This knowledge is effective “due” to this possible, up to the moment when it is forgotten, and it moves away. What has just been said enables us to point out the plurality of constraints, and therefore the “necessities” (where the possible is forgotten) operating in situations involving everyone. The problem arises when these relative necessities come to be considered and experienced as absolute necessities (when we no longer realise we have forgotten the possible or see this forgetting as a problem), leading to alienation. This occurs when one is locked in a definitorial perspective, and the innervation of the possible, the access to the element of the creative possible, which nevertheless has carried these constraints from the beginning, is lost. From then on, there is no longer any ethical innervation (ethical because it takes into account the broadest spectrum of motivations, both selfish as well as altruistic), and the logics unfold under the impulse of selfish interests whose relevance has not been questioned for a long time. Outside the element of the possible, there is a loss of the sense of action directed by these interests, and an alienation from them, to the extent that they are active but unquestioned. In general, in a new situation, we are faced with obstacles, with necessity put in place in the combination of knowledge, interests, values and laws. A logical constraint, which may have been a solution to a previous situation, becomes an obstacle in the transformed one. This is the downstream fallout of logics that were solutions when they were stated. Now they have become routines and are applied in a mechanical way. We do not try enough to see if they are still relevant to a radically new situation, and this prevents us from seeking more suitable and truly innovative solutions.

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The complexity of the technologies should be stressed here. They should be seen not only in a static light, but also in the process of their continuous improvement. The question again here is that of their integration into a viable process of the possible. These obstacles operate under the conditions of desires and fears cut off from their roots in the element of the possible, and which function automatically. As soon as these two affects, which introduce the dimension of “subjectivity”, cutting us off from the common world, are disoriented, any constraint is likely to become a necessity that we feel is absolute. The renewal and logical refinement of theoretical conditions then take on the appearance of partiality, cut off as they are from the situational whole carried by a process of the possible. In light of the current economic dangers, brought about by a new situation, where the hypertrophy of finance is ruining the world of work in the extreme, governments find themselves caught in the narrow space defined by solutions that have been applied for the past thirty years, trying to bring about moderation, targeted reform, a little here, a little there. Moving in the direction of an ever-increasing deregulation of the world of labor, and so responding to the demands of employers, facilitating redundancies, etc; reducing the deficit, reducing debt, even in times of crisis, when the government should be the first to invest to revive activity. This is not the time, in a period of high unemployment, to cut jobs for civil servants, and therefore to close off opportunities. Promoting monetary stability and avoiding inflation by any means possible: the policy pursued at European level is based far too much on rules that have no root in the element of the possible that exists in the situation of the European people. If the State is content to apply ready-made recipes, to ensure a technical management of situations whose novelty escapes it; if it has lost its anchorage in the possible that permeates these situations, and therefore the incredible creativity shown by civil1 society, then today we can say what Schelling said in his last letter to Hegel, that “the State is a machine”2. Is this simply due to an omission, which could be overcome, or can the State no longer be invigorated by renewed contact with the possible at work in every part of civil society, in every one of us? Certainly, “everything” is not possible. There are conditions at work. But it is up to us to take these back into an effective, integrated, possible process. This is the responsibility that can be addressed at the RRI level. 1 Where new modes of sharing and exchange are emerging, particularly linked to new technologies. 2 That is, it is not the substantial ethical reality of a people, but a regulated composition of interests.

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2.2. An unorthodox use of “possible worlds” “Possible worlds”, the first consequent theory of which dates back to Leibniz, were used in the 20th Century, in particular to think about the validity of a modal proposal, following Kripke. Indeed, a modal proposal does not have a truth table, and therefore the status of the truth it can offer is problematic, in an analytical context. It should be noted at the outset that the reader should not expect to find a re-evaluation or new interpretation of modal logics here, even less a “re-foundation”. Nevertheless, they speak of the “possible”, of which they bring a knowledge that cannot be overlooked. We are not exploring the path already very much followed of an “ontological” interpretation of possible worlds. On the other hand, we could try to perform an “effective” reading of the modal operators, as it is relevant for a “processual” concept of the possible. In their plurality, do the possible worlds allow a salutary “withdrawal” (going upstream) from a situational constraint at work that is experienced as an absolute necessity? First of all, it should be noted that modal logics are perfectly definitorial. Whether one adopts a realistic3 or anti-realistic interpretation of possible worlds, the possibility in them emerges from the conditions implemented by the logic. A modal logic expresses what is true through possible worlds. We can say that the “possible” is what is true in at least one possible world and the “necessary” is what is true in any possible world. We are indeed witnessing a broadening of the perspective. There is no longer a “unique” possible world, the one we inhabit, but a plurality, perhaps a very high, even infinite, number of possible worlds4. Access to them remains problematic. For David Lewis, each “world” is causally and spatiotemporally closed [LEW 86]. But many modal logics have been proposed to characterize the access that one can have from a given possible world to another possible world [GIR 00]. Each possible world thus expresses a unique structural coherence, reflecting a logically expressed formal constraint. It is not only a question of saying that something could have been otherwise (in this world), but that it has been (or is) otherwise, in this other way, in another world, structured in a more or less similar

3 Let us mention a book that reviews realistic interpretations of “possible worlds”, identifying what separates them from anti-realistic readings [DIV 02]. 4 Logically coherent, non-contradictory structures, which can therefore exist, which express the relationships of a totality of pre-defined beings. According to a classic example, two possible worlds are posed depending on whether or not Caesar crosses the Rubicon.

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way to ours5, but which is only possible6. One can only say of something that it “could have” been otherwise, that is, that it is “contingent”, if it “is” otherwise in a possible world, other than ours, at least. Of course, it seems that giving ourselves this plurality of possible worlds can allow us to step back from our world when the constraints become too strong. Imagining worlds where constraints play out differently, or even less strongly, could help us to find solutions that can be applied to our situation. Since the possible opens up from conditions, we could, by examining other possible worlds, isolate relevant conditions in order to effectively loosen the constraints that overwhelm us. This would mean restoring the conditions that appear necessary to their possibility, moving into the possible, upstream, in order to be able to guide their process. From then on, the conditions are no longer “suffered” (and therefore necessary), but are taken up and assumed freely, integrated into a process of possibility. This is an unusual use of possible worlds. It seems to assume too much, from an ontological point of view. Indeed, to use your imagination and creatively consider the possibilities of a situation, it is not necessary to give yourself a series of logically structured possible worlds. However, placing any condition within a structured set of determinations, and considering a sufficiently large part of a possible world, with its possible logical architecture, can help. But, above all, the challenge is to move from an ontology to a processual approach. It is knowledge of the possible. However, that offered by modal logicians is determined by a definitorial assumption. It is this that we want to test here. Whether or not we approach them realistically, the possible worlds are presented in a gigantic system of combinatorics. Not only is each of them logically pre-determined from one end to the other, as something separate from the others, their totality being exhaustive, but the way in which the elements that appear in them are combined presents differences between them that in general are far too small. To say that Caesar would have crossed the Rubicon in a certain number of worlds and not in others, that such and such a singular individual would have done such and such in one world and not in others, etc., is to deal with minute differences. We can believe that Rome would have become an Empire with or without Caesar. But, more importantly, the variations from one world to another can be much more radical. If the Earth had been formed a little closer to the Sun, the temperature would have prevented life from developing or would have limited it to unicellular lifeforms. This is a world that is significantly more different from our own than the 5 We will come back to this later. 6 Let us distinguish here between those who assume that there is a plurality of logically possible worlds, but not actual worlds, and those who hold that there is a plurality of actual worlds, of which “ours” is only one.

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one we are promised if Caesar had given up. Why see in the possible worlds only combinatorial variations of detail in relation to ours? This is perhaps often the case because the person who imagines the possible worlds can only do so from their own determined situation, which expresses a precise conditional complex: their past, the past as adapted to them, they who only question the possible on the basis of a well-known fate. However, everything suggests that the power of contingency is much greater. Where does one get the idea that any possible world must have the same shape, or that it must necessarily be the recombination of the same beings (with slight differences in configuration)? This is the effect of the definitorial presupposition. If the possible is only opened through conditions, it seems plausible that the world in which we find ourselves offers a structure in relation to which the possible worlds can vary greatly, but within known limits (in logical terms). On the question of possible worlds, a book by Timothy Williamson is essential reading [WIL 15]. It offers a powerful and brilliant variation on three sentences of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which he quotes right at the start: 2.022 It is obvious that an imagined world, however different it may be from the real world, must have something – a form – in common with it. 2.023 Objects are just what constitute this unalterable form. 2.0271 Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration, is what is changing and unstable. [WIT 98] Why this common (logical) form? Perhaps because, according to this vision, the possible only exists through logical conditions, through this necessary logical framework that opens up the possibility of beings, even if it means letting contingency deal with the details [WIL 15, p. 422]. Perhaps also the logical way of thinking about the truth requires it. If validity depends on the formal preservation of truth throughout the demonstration, a condition can only be true by its link to another condition that has been established as true (by definition, as an axiom, by hypothesis, etc.). But here the question of “logical truth” is not raised; rather we have the question of the effective and processual meaning of the possible. What, then, is the need for this general logical framework, which would be the form of all possible worlds? Before answering this question, we would like to make a general comment. The current world has a complex relationship with the logical expression of possible worlds. Explaining the difference between frames and model structures, Williamson points out that the former lack the operator “@” which is used to designate the current world. Researchers tend to think in terms of “frames”. Indeed, not only is it

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technically useless to designate the current world, since it does not change its general expression or its possible logical interpretations, it also overburdens the writing and introduces irrelevant data. Our world is a possible world among possible worlds. If we want to research possible worlds, why bother with the fact that our world, precisely, is the “current” one? Yet, from a non-definitorial point of view, there is an important difference between our world and other possible worlds. It is in the first, in fact, that interests count and take on meaning and that the values of the person who embarks on this research7 have worth and take on meaning. Let us consider an event that has taken place in the current world. We thus know that it was true, even before it happened, that it was possible for it to happen. This means that it was already possible before it happened. But this does not imply that, as a possibility, it was pre-determined as “this” event, which occurred. Williamson agrees, and holds that while it was necessarily possible for it to happen, it was not necessary for it to happen in this way or under this configuration. Contingency deals with the details. Nevertheless, the necessary would be an ontological pre-determination, that of (in my own words) a series of conditions that make possible the something (the event) that has happened. But what if we assume that this something comes as much from the creative element of the possible as from the series of conditions that anticipate it? This is the real opposition, and here is where we come to the question of the definitorial. Let us return to the importance of distinguishing the current world. In the work of logicians, it is recognized in alethic logic but not, generally, in deontic logic for example. However, this should be seen as a paradox. To dispense with indicating the current world in a logic that deals with what ought to be, on a moral level, is to consider that it is secondary to specify whether what is moral is being achieved. But it is important to morality as much as to truth that it be realized, that is, effective. This is not something we could do without. If we remove any reference to the indication of the current world, therefore, implicitly, any possibility to consider the possible worlds from the element of the possible, we end up with empty structures, pure forms, but without any history. Does a purely definitorial possible world have a history? Is a history possible for a world where the possible is only structural? This world can be a chain of truths, and

7 This is not a “subjective perspective”, since the emphasis is placed on the processual “meaning” of interests and values.

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thus offer an acceptable ontological structure. But will it have a history, in the sense of contingent, even purely random, upheavals in its structure8? Of course, no truth implies necessarily that a world, to be possible, must have a history in the sense that ours has one. Let us consider more carefully the logical requirement that weighs on a possible world. Each world is considered as a totality, and we give ourselves a totality of possible worlds when we want to know if such and such a proposal is necessary. But a purely formal totalization of each world and of all worlds expresses contingency as a contingent logical necessity. Indeed, these totalities could be, in this vision detached from the element of the possible, completely necessary. Thus, contingency would not be necessary, downstream of the necessary general logical structure, and this structure can only ensure a need for this downstream in a contingent way. But the general logical framework, which gives, in a combinatorial way, the possible worlds, can always depend on other conditions, themselves contingent, and therefore conditions of conditions to infinity. Indeed, the need for this framework means nothing more than the “forgetting” of the possibility that allowed the conditions that constitute it. To establish it, it would be necessary to show how we could conceive of and experience a dimension of creative possibility9 upstream which would innervate the possible worlds, which are, in this vision, rigorous expressions of the partial structuring of the possible, downstream, in specific contexts, but without the need to adopt a totalizing, necessitous or exhaustive theory of each world and of all the worlds. This totalization, in terms of necessity, of a logical form common to all worlds does not have to be purely and simply refuted. We can provide, on the ontological plane itself, an attenuated reading that legitimizes, in parallel, an effective-processual reading. The two readings must be compatible10.

8 It therefore takes more than a coherent sequence of facts or truths to make history. We need the contingency that intertwines, in effective processes, the formal and the concrete. It is therefore necessary to have the viability of a process, which is freedom (free from the necessary constraint of reified conditions). 9 Creative because it crosses both the situation and the actors, allowing their freedom, thus the assumption of active conditions in a viable process of this possible. 10 In an exploratory and intuitive way: the possible worlds would not be pre-constituted totalities, “already” defined before their possible realization. There would not be a plurality of possible, structured worlds preceding “a” world that would be “the” current world. This would be “always already” off-center, polycentric, not totalizable, therefore not-“one”. The possible worlds would be partial aspects of this not-“one”, but not already made, totalized, closed. The possibilities would take shape in sketches in the creative possible, itself infinitely tenuous, finite, unstable, subtle. During successive upstream ascents, the process would be cleared, folds would be caught, conditions would be frozen: the drape would have fallen, conditions constantly

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2.3. Ontological truth and processual effectiveness The language is weighted down with “consistency” in several ways. One of them is made possible by the idea that a determination is always made by a limited number of determinations, which involve it with necessity. This “limited number” of conditions envelops everything that makes this determination necessary11. The anteriority of this complex in relation to the term it summarizes suggests a necessary causality. This is done in ignorance of the contingency that arranges this whole thing operationally. But the determination has acquired a consistency, that of necessity. Its expression “contains” what will happen in the phenomenal world in a causal way. What is slowed down enough in the process is intensified and prolonged in the manner of a necessity that now precedes the phenomenon and its transience. There is therefore a genesis of the necessary consistency of the determination that can then be called a “concept” or an “idea”. This ballasting is accompanied by an externalization in relation to time, a stop that gives us this illusion. As soon as it is no longer in time, the idea12 (the determination) necessarily precedes the transient phenomena that occur in time. Better still, it expresses the truth, in an ontological sense (the stable behind the evanescent). This consistency, this necessity, is consistent with our habits and actions downstream. They require rapid reactions, without endless questioning each time. There is something attractive, from a practical point of view, but also theoretically exhilarating in this need for conditions. However, this is done at the cost of a transmutation. A (necessary) logic always brings the expressions of creativity back to its own (logical) terms, for which it requires that they contain them a priori. From there on, from this suppositional repetition, we have the idea of a correspondence theory of truth. Truth is then the encounter of the Consistent Idea, the Substantial Idea and the phenomenal data that express it. The fact of implicitly bringing creativity back to the terms of a necessary logic leads to putting this logic “in front” of the phenomena. It therefore implies a redefined in their relationships, in the element of the possible. Contingent necessity from an ontological point of view; effectiveness of the possible from a processual point of view. 11 See the work by Hobbes [CHA 99]. 12 This passage refers to the influence of the Platonic theory of “Ideas” or “Forms”, which come to capture the long-term “reality” of phenomena that, from then on, only “imitate” in a transitory and fleeting way these “paradigms” that precede them outside of time. On this depends the duality of the intelligible and the sensible, which has powerfully determined the destiny of thought in the West.

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dualism, which in reality is reflected in a whole series of dualities: subjective and objective; abstract and concrete; internal and external; qualitative and quantitative; form and matter. However, since these dualities assume one another, and emerge from one another from the assumed primitive fact of the necessity of logic faced with the phenomenon, it becomes difficult to defend oneself from the eminently debatable opinion that they are themselves necessary. It is not clear, however, how the creativity at work in a situation must (or even can) be reduced to the terms of a necessary logic. We may wish to keep a definitorial perspective, for example because we assume that all ontology is definitorial and we want to perform an ontology. But even within a definite framework, contingency can be introduced into these logical considerations. As has been pointed out, even if we give ourselves all the conditions which, together, determine with necessity the appearance of a given condition, we can think that it is in a contingent way that all these conditions have been arranged such that they are able to produce this condition in a necessary way. Therefore, the production of this condition was not necessary. But, likewise, each of the conditions that contributed to it could itself have been produced in a contingent way. We are thus led, sent back from condition to condition, to sketch a generalized interaction, which we will have to call contingent. Let us admit, at this stage, that this is at least conceivable. Depending on whether we are looking from the point of view of necessity or contingency, as they have been discussed until now, the discourse remains that of truth and ontology. Another way is that of processual effectiveness. But before addressing this point, let us add two clarifications to the definitorial point of view. 2.4. Definitorial point of view and determinism A logic gives conditions (definitions, axioms, rules), which are enveloping, and therefore each demonstration constitutes a de-involvement. The logical sequences, keeping the truth of the assumptions, take place for as long as the resources of the logic in question allow. But this process, while it expresses a trend and a constraint in its links, which are strictly regulated, is never such that it does not allow several paths. There are several paths of sequence that are logically possible, and several demonstrations of the same truth. This is evident in mathematics. Necessity appears retrospectively when it happens that the link, which is contingent, does indeed lead to the desired demonstration. But it cannot be an absolute necessity. There are, in the logical calculation, subtle and unexpected inflections which, although they are constraining, are not strictly necessary. The development of what was enveloped is

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not done mechanically but in a creative way13, which can always follow several paths to prove the same truth. The initial enveloping can always be unfolded, spread out in several ways. This is a first reason why a definitorial position does not imply determinism. Even if things in the world are spread out according to a logical calculation (as with Leibniz), there is no determinism in the world, since this calculation is not done in a deterministic way14. The second reason (there are probably others, but I will confine myself here to these two) is the plurality of logics15, which are not all at the same level. Different logics can address the same situation at different levels without necessarily being integrated into a more general logic. Therefore, since there are several logics deploying their formal resources independently, they cannot saturate the logical space in a deterministic way. The interplay they admit between each other, the fact that they are not articulated in a necessary and exhaustive way, prevents logical determinism. These two reasons even apply to someone who adopts a definitorial position. Indeed, if only determined conditions can open up the possible in a situation, this does not prevent logical de-involvement from happening in a creative way and from taking several paths. Similarly, there is nothing to prevent several logics, not articulated in a deterministic way, from intervening in this situation. The definitorial position therefore does not imply determinism. But then which problem raises a definitorial position? 2.5. The meaning of the definitorial position for the relationship between efficiency and effectiveness Considering that it is only determined conditions that can open up the possible will only work, from a scientific point of view, if we forget an element of the possible that is already there, in which we are immersed. But above all this omission can lead to a deviation of the research activity from the possible at work in a situation and the descent, downstream, towards a purely technical use of the conditions. Scientific activity then loses its meaning and becomes a pure instrument

13 There is indeed creativity in the activity of the logician, implanted in the element of the possible of their situation. This does not mean that logic itself must monopolize this creativity in an ontological way. 14 Let us recall that Leibniz ruled out determinism by introducing into the divine calculation (logic) the principle of perfection, which is complementary, for contingent truths, to what the principle of non-contradiction was for necessary truths. 15 A “logic” is an articulation, an effective setting in motion of carefully defined conditions.

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at the service of the selfish interests16 of some (e.g. the large pharmaceutical companies, etc.). The partiality linked to fear and desire, which determines the awareness of the actors, and thus the emergence of subjectivity, leads to a deviation from the possible in its viability. Not thinking of the possible as an element, but seeing it only in relation to defined conditions, heightens the researcher’s attention17 to the regulated game of these conditions. They now see only the efficiency of this game, i.e. its ability to achieve profitability (or effective management) objectives that are always thrown further. In this game, science (and the interests themselves) lose all meaning. It is no longer clear why they are being pursued at the expense of other more altruistic interests. It is a flight forward under the spur of a desire and a fear uprooted from the element of the possible. It is the logic of external, abstract knowledge that comes to play a narrowing, partializing role for the perspective that should be that of knowledge, open to the freedom that is played out “between” the actors. Formally, ignoring the element of the possible results in an increasing specialization of researchers, whose activity is focused on exhaustive local tabulations of possibilities exclusive to one another. This of course excludes the Leibnizian use of the principle of perfection. But, even more importantly, it calls into question any relationship between science and ethics. On the contrary, this book invites the reader to consider a consistent thinking of the possible as an “element” where the freedom of researchers and actors is at stake, in their concrete relationships. A mutual exclusion, an exhaustiveness, would exclude a creativity emerging “between” the frames of the possible cases, pushed together with no space between them. This creativity could, however, radically challenge such an exhaustive division. Above all, it would be a creativity that surges from a situation where agents are “together”, where bonds of solidarity18 can emerge. This ethical possibility of shared creativity to respond to situational injustices can only go unnoticed in the eyes of purely definitorial sciences. 16 “Selfish interests” are opposed here to the “interest of knowledge”. 17 It may seem misleading to talk about an “intention” of the researcher or actor. Everything here helps to distinguish what they think they are doing, what their will believes they want, by responding to subjective motives from the effectiveness of what they are doing. But it must be stressed that this effectiveness is indeed accessible to researchers and actors as non-determined, non-partialized awareness, as assumed knowledge. It is a question of getting out of the exclusive “objective/subjective” polarity. 18 This is not limited to the paradoxical case of research, where cooperation and competition are present together as essential drivers. It also takes into account the application of knowledge, which must avoid routine.

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However, this ethical possibility is not absent from the situation. Perhaps it is possible that the univocal approach of the sciences, by removing ambiguities, could become the ally of this dimension, even if each has no knowledge of the other’s field. 2.6. An ambiguous responsibility In reality, these two dimensions19 can only interact. But, unfortunately, a univocal approach to science, which removes all ambiguity, gives rise to ambiguities in return, and thus to ambiguities with regard to the question of responsibility. Indeed, a constructed, univocal and exhaustive structure is superimposed on the elemental contingency of the possible at work in the situation. It offers a grid for interpreting this contingency and a powerful reference point for action within it. But this contingency does not tolerate the coherence being pushed to exhaustiveness. It is unyielding to a theoretical hermetic partitioning between possible worlds, possible cases, etc. This does not mean that this elemental possible plays out in “one” world that would be “the” current world. In reality, we should talk about dispersion between situations, contexts and “worlds” that are open to each other (not aggregated in their determinations) and irreducibly plural. This cannot therefore be taken in the sense of closed, aggregated and exclusive “worlds”. However, responsibility may attempt to be exercised on the basis of exhaustive calculations, such as probabilistic calculations. But in reality, effective responsibility is played out at the elemental level of the possible, in the ethical freedom that develops between the actors. The formal level can effectively support and assist this dimension. But that’s not what it does most often. By claiming its exhaustiveness, it risks “reducing” the situation to its unambiguous expression. However, if responsibility, in the element of ethical freedom, and therefore of the viable possible, is not ambiguous, it becomes so when this element has been disturbed by an exhaustive and exclusive calculation, and even more so if this element is unnoticed and the situation is “reduced” to this calculation. This can be shown with some simple examples. Both the French Loi organique relative aux lois de finances [Organic law relating to finance law] (LOLF) and the European Open Method of Coordination (OMC) give decisive importance to quantified indicators. These were created to be able to compare and evaluate the success of services, and then States, in the achievement of their objectives. These must be expressly quantified. Statistical indicators must be “new areas of equivalence”, which the French State (LOLF) or the European States (OMC) delineate “by agreeing procedures for quantifying the purposes and means of the 19 The univocity sought by science and processuality.

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action”20 [DES 08, p. 28]. These instruments are clearly called upon to play a decisive role in public management. Parliament must be able to check whether the objectives have been achieved. A policy will be judged by this very fact and by being compared with the results of other European countries (OMC). Indicators thus become decisive criteria for political action. Yet their elaboration involves disparate elements, and it is often said, rightly so, that they attempt to “compare the incomparable”. The OMC is used at the European level to harmonize social policies, whether in education, employment or assistance. It therefore implies, at some point, defining, for example, a “job”. However, people understand many disparate things under this word, ranging from stable situations to extremely precarious configurations. How, then, can we define the word? It does not mean the same thing in French, Danish and German contexts. However, the challenge is precisely to provide a definition from which to compare the policies of these different countries. This definition will be unequivocal, unambiguous. Statisticians, who deal with the “technical” aspect of this definition, are often much more aware than decision-makers of the difficulty of the task. They have been forced to “leave some important specifications of the investigation, coding and quantification procedures unclear”21. Here we are at the heart of the matter. Contrary to what one might think, it is not this “fuzziness” that makes it precarious to establish a common indicator for all European countries. On the contrary, it is the desire for a clear, unambiguous indicator that makes the comparison risky. As a result, political responsibility is weakened. The European countries gradually cut themselves off from the element of the possible at work in the situation. They are tempted to act in a way that reveals technically satisfactory statistics, without seeking to know what the concrete situations that they cover are, which may be very different. Wanting to compare very different contexts (as can be the case in different European countries) on the basis of unambiguous indicators, and therefore to evaluate in a numerically accurate way how a policy has achieved its management objectives, does not in itself seem dangerous. Yet it is the very root of responsibility22 that is threatened. By applying these unambiguous indicators to highly contingent situations, we can make a responsibility, which appeared clear in the context, unrecognizable and, paradoxically, ambiguous. It becomes a responsibility for figures of which it is no longer clear what they mean or for what objective data they are the aggregate. However, is political responsibility made 20 See, more generally, [ABA 00]. 21 [DES 08], which refers to [NIV 05, pp. 28–47]. 22 At least insofar as it can be referred to as accountability.

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clearer by these quantitative indicators? Or do they, with their unambiguous structure, introduce ambiguity into a responsibility which, compared to the demands of contingency, would otherwise appear much clearer? In other words, does an overly vehement search for “efficiency”, for numerical success, not come to frustrate or even contradict “effectiveness”? Does it not come to deny a responsibility that appears clearly in the context of an ethical relationship of freedom at work in a situation? It is not that these indicators are “false”, or even that their development is not based on a perfectly justified intention. But their presence simply means that “responsibility” has become an extremely obscure notion23. Let us put it another way. Providing objective benchmarks to “coordinate” the actions of stakeholders, and optimize the (responsible) use of public resources, actually blurs the concept of responsibility. These criteria shift the lines of responsibility (which will now be defined in relation to them). But there is not a “true” and stable “object” that would be “the” responsibility. The lines move between two conventional (which does not mean arbitrary) definitions. The more we want to have accurate measurements, the greater the ambiguity will be24. The background of contingency, with its complexity involving socially pre-defined criteria of responsibility, never completely forgotten, will continue to work on the situation in depth. The question is that of an effective resumption of these conditions, which precludes them from being imposed. But the more one seeks to remove ambiguity by sticking to an unambiguous logical plan, the more this contingency will flow back and introduce ambiguities into the a priori unambiguous statement of indicators. It is in this context, and in relation to responsibility, that the “vagueness”25 in which European laws can be left takes on its full scope [DEL 04]. Not only does it allow for the integration of these laws at the State level, but it also allows for a more complex approach, an adaptation to the national context, which neutralizes many of the ambiguities that could arise from the imposition of an unambiguous logical plan in a contingent context. 23 We have even heard politicians say that it is their “responsibility” to make drastic cuts in social spending, arguing that the existing system is ineffective. However, they usually leave in the shadows how they intend to make it more effective, simply announcing a decrease in the budget allocated to helping the most disadvantaged. 24 This evokes, but only superficially, the “uncertainty principle” that Werner Heisenberg uncovered in the field of quantum mechanics. Here, the precision in the field of semantic distinctions of responsibility is accompanied by a proportional vagueness in what its translation could be for those to whom the responsibility makes sense. 25 This is about “soft law”.

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By wanting to give themselves indicators that flatter their action, and by controlling the variations of these indicators at all costs, politicians could come to betray their effective responsibility. At the same time, let us remember that there is indeed “also” a form of responsibility with regard to the figures of these indicators, because they express a specific aspect of the situation. It is important to highlight knowledge of statistical tools, particularly with regard to the margin of error. An awareness of their conventionality, based on actual processes, must complete their epistemic status. 2.7. The ascent into the possible A step back from the determinations that have become binding (because they have become habits) in a plurality of possible worlds (but no longer necessarily “aggregated”, neither together nor each on its own), taken in their living relationship to the element of the possible, would considerably broaden the horizon of action. It is to be feared, indeed, that by sticking to aggregated, exclusive and exhaustive possible worlds this constraint would only be shifted. So how can we think about such a step back from necessity? I suggest that it can take the form of an “ascent into the possible”. Certainly, as recognized by a definitorial position, an explicit condition can open up the possible in a situation. But this condition must itself have been made possible. It is therefore necessary to go back to one or more other conditions upstream. Similarly, these conditions must themselves take into account the possibility of other conditions, upstream, etc. But since such reasoning is always embedded in a specific situation, it should be noted that the possibility of a condition comes from, in addition to specific prior conditions, an element of the possible that innervates that situation. The living relationship of actors with this element of the possible, with this ethical innervation, is likely to be forgotten, obscured or even completely lost in situations where the “subjective” comes to partialize perspectives. But it is everyone’s responsibility to find a way to access it and to let themselves be enlivened by it. Indeed, this elemental possible is ethical innervation and freedom. It is what lies in a balanced reciprocal relationship between all the actors in the situation. But it is also the freedom that comes from this balanced relationship. This freedom requires the overcoming of the constraint suffered in a situation, which gives a lived impression of absolute necessity alienating the actors. A situational constraint, due to a specific state of knowledge that is no longer relevant and needs to be renewed, is never an absolute necessity. It only requires a renewed, refined and structured use of intelligence within a framework extended to thinking about the processes.

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From upstream, where the situation is only in its latency and where only its possibility, which is not pre-determined, can be understood, all the relevant conditions involved must be considered in order to influence the effective process26. Let us simply point out for the time being that it is from, but finally against, this suspense, upstream, that aggregated possible worlds will eventually be specified, in a relative division which would come into play in an exhaustive and exclusive coordination, which will obscure the element of the possible where the relevant conditions have begun to be put in place. There is therefore an alternative to the thought of a “full”, necessary and consistent logic. It is a creative element of the possible from which these conditions emerge, as well as the knowledge they allow, in context. But are we still in an ontological discourse here? 2.8. Responsibility: a limit to ontological discourse It is not easy for an ontological discourse to challenge the distinction between what is and what ought to be. Let us consider here, for greater clarity, a definitorial ontological position. The Kantian reference is difficult to circumvent when talking about the distinction between what is and what ought to be. What does his treatment tell us about the antinomy of freedom [KAN 97a, A 444/B 472 et seq.]? There are two types of causality. First, a mesh of conditions, necessary a priori, deploys the causality of the physical world. Then, another set of conditions, moral law, is imposed on the will of the subject, who is called upon to develop causality through free action. This impasse is developed in the second Critique, together with the requirement for the will to act out of pure respect for the “moral law”. However, the will is prey to pathological or sensible motives, and only rarely acts in accordance with the law, even more rarely out of pure respect. These two levels of conditionality seem completely heterogeneous and separated by an impassable gap. Action, as it is registered in experience, refers to phenomena which respond to the pure categories and forms of space and time. The same action, but completely independently, relates to the “noumenon”, which for Kant is forever unpresentable in intuition. This comes from a theoretical decision with far-reaching consequences, which include considering the subject’s will outside of any anchoring in the element of the 26 This point will be developed further in Chapter 4.

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possible. Neglecting this element of the possible leads Kant to two questionable assertions: (a) the conditionality offered by physical science necessarily determines natural processes as we can access them in experience; (b) moral law can only be made effective by an act of will. However, (a), the necessity of physics, is conventional (relative to the language in which it is expressed, to the experimental devices available, to the state of knowledge of an era). It can be expressed in several theories that are not always compatible with each other (general relativity and quantum mechanics today). There is therefore both a plurality of fundamental “logics” developed in physical theories and a creativity at work in the enunciation and improvement of these theories. The necessity they state is therefore conventional. On the other hand, with respect to (b), subjective will can be responsible (let us say to simplify: putting moral law into practice) far beyond what a simple consideration of its meagre (narrowly finite) resources as to the will of a subject would suggest. If we accept that it can regain access to an elemental dimension of a creative possible at work in the situation, through which it opens up a shared ethical freedom, its finiteness itself becomes relative. But if establishing that the logics of the physical sciences are only necessary in a relative sense can be done within the framework of a definitorial theory, showing the modalities of carrying out the moral law requires a lived relation to the ethical element of the possible, and therefore a “leap” out of the definitorial ontology. The suggestion is to move from a reflection on “what is” and “how it is” to a meditation on the “effectiveness” of “processes” of realizing possibilities, which from the outset are ethical because they are elementary (shared)27.

27 It is not simply a moral intuitionism. As long as the action remains part of a viable process of the possible, it is effective, whether or not the actor is aware of this element.

3 A Processual Effectiveness

To show the difference between an ontological-definitorial perspective and an effective-processual approach, it is best to start from a simple example, itself derived from modal logic. Time travel poses formidable problems in logic. It is 1967. Suppose a Londoner hates Hitler and has a time machine. They travel back to Austria in the 1920s and kills him before he has committed his terrible deeds. However, this person did not know that their parents had met during the London bombings in 1940. Since Hitler was killed before this, the person’s parents do not meet, the person is not born and Hitler is not killed before committing his misdeeds. So, the bombings take place, the parents meet and the person is born, and in 1967 they can take the time machine back to kill the young Hitler... This paradox can be expressed in formal terms, but also, more simply, in natural language: “If Hitler is murdered, then he is not; and if he is not murdered, he is”1. [GIR 00, p. 139]. It seems that there is, therefore, a logical contradiction, translated into a temporal circle. Why is that which is a contradiction in the eyes of logicians not also one here according to the effective-processual approach? The logicians spontaneously reason in ontological-definitorial terms: there is a (necessary) logical sequence of events. They follow a grid that has its fixity, the same causes automatically leading to the same effects. We are therefore faced with two contradictory sequences that cannot be reconciled: the Londoner goes back in time and kills Hitler, but then they are not born; Hitler commits his misdeeds and the Londoner is born, but then they kill Hitler before his wrongdoing. What about a finer conditional reading, which would recognize a creativity of the possible at work between the conditions, which above all would not rigidify the 1 See, more broadly, [NAH 93].

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interplay of conditions? The Londoner discovers a time machine and forms the plan to assassinate Hitler before he has done any harm. In 1967, the person is transported to Austria in the 1920s and accomplishes what they consider their mission. From then on, their parents do not meet, and they are not born. It is from there that the story will continue to unfold. Logicians posit that, since the person was not born, no one will be there to kill Hitler. But, according to the hypothesis, Hitler was indeed killed in the 1920s. The story will continue without this Londoner, perhaps without a time machine (if they invented it), but especially without Adolf Hitler, whose death, as a young man, is well in the past compared to this moment when history is prolonged. There is, in reality, no paradox in this fiction. A logician could consider, from an ontological-definitorial perspective, that the conditions that led to Hitler’s birth and accession to power are still active and necessary, and can only be defused by a new return to the past, and a new assassination, ad infinitum. But this temporal loop, destined to restart over and over again, is only justified by a necessitarian reading of the conditions, which ontologically determine the events. An effective-processual reading does not make the conditions rigid. For this type of reading, the relevant conditions being set, the knowing relation to the thing (the knowledge that broadens the possible of the situation (or what makes sense in the situation)) is present. As soon as the relevant conditions have been modified, either by removal or addition, the meaning of the situation as a whole is changed. Once Hitler is killed, history will continue from this fact, and will unfold, in a contingent way, without this Londoner – who will not be born, but will still have to end their days in time, since in a previous configuration they were born – and the war will not take place. It is like being on a rollercoaster: the little train loops and continues on the rails, which continue to run (the fact that it runs in circles on a circuit is irrelevant, since it always runs along a continuous line). Now that this distinction in approaches has been clarified, this chapter will focus on further clarifying what is meant by “effective-processual”. 2

3.1. A process of the possible

A few clarifications are required. This is not a process that would have “an” origin, or that would lead us back to the “origin”, that would follow an exclusively “causal” course or have an identified “τελος” [telos]. It is not a “necessary” process, 2 I generally use the word “possible” in the singular, thus marking a precedence over a specification, a concrete determination that would be that of “an” object, “an” entity or “an” individual.

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where each people would come to settle according to its moment3, because there is no reference to a closed totalization. Similarly, it is not a process that would be easily noticed, and of which all actors would be aware. It is a process of possibility, a “subtle” process, which takes place in latency before the concrete realization of possibilities. It is not that it is “difficult” to perceive. But since it is “tenuous” people most often neglect it, either because they think it is too simple to matter or because, out of rudeness, they ignore it. This process takes place “upstream” of the situation in which we find ourselves, and thus offers the keys to this situation. “Latency” and “tenuous” are so many ways of saying that the process cannot be seen as an “object” for which there is a “theory”. It is “subtle”, upstream of beings, without being “abstract”. It is not abstract from the situation, but it actively participates in its configuration, in an immanent way. 3.2. The open totalities A process of the possible is released by going back upstream from the given determinations of the usual objects. Looking behind what is already known, we find questions, which open through it the chance that the possible will manifest itself. We go back from what is solidified to its possibility, to other conditions, and to the element of the possible. This appears as a process. But this process is not arbitrary. It always unfolds according to a “totality” of the possible, which opens up into a situation. There is never “one” exclusive totality but a plurality, even if one of them can be particularly adapted to a particular situation. The word “totality” refers here, in latency, to all the “conditions” relevant to an adapted knowledge of the context. “Between” these conditions circulates the element of the possible. A totality is not closed and therefore not exhaustive either. It differs radically from the kind of totality that can be a “possible world”, an exhaustive totality, exclusive of others, and univocal4. A totality of the possible is “open” precisely because it unfolds in latency, while conditions have not yet exercised their efficiency. It is offered on the basis of an elemental possible, not logically pre-determined in an exhaustive and necessary way. It therefore does not fall within the scope of “quantity”, which would imply a plurality of entities taken in a single intelligible plan. 3 This is of course directed against Hegel [HEG 98]. 4 But perhaps an open conception of possible worlds, where each one would symbolize an open, fluid, non-totalized situation or context with a partial, non-exhaustive, non-exclusive structuring of the possible (therefore an idea without absolute necessity) would be fruitful.

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A totality of the possible5 is the widest spectrum of the different conditions – theoretical, economic, moral and political – relevant for the determined configuration – downstream of the shared situation. It takes up and deploys these conditions, apprehended upstream of the context, in the latency of the possible. Such a totality must always be released from a defined situation where a constraint threatening freedom is at work. It must loosen the grip of this constraint, which appears first and foremost as a necessity, by freeing up possibilities for the actors. It does so by apprehending the moment when the coherent set of conditions relevant to a viable development of the possible in this situation is outlined. In such a totality, the possibilities are not juxtaposed in an exhaustive way, as in a combinatorial way. Rather, each time they appear as an “archipelago”, in context. 3.3. Propensities An open totality, appearing as a process, is actually a “tendency” or “propensity” at work in the possible6. To express this, it must be unblocked, uncoupled from the necessity that threatens it. There is no exhaustiveness, because a totality of possibilities expresses nothing else than all of an active propensity. The relevant conditions are not totalized logically, but are brought together in consideration of their efficient and ethical value, in context. A totality of propensity corresponds to the maximum opening of the spectrum of the relevant conditions. It therefore differs significantly from a logical, abstract, exhaustive totality, which would like to review all possibilities in a combinatorial way. A totality of possibilities takes into account the conditions at work. The actor must be able to open up totalities in an ever more accurate dimension than the previous ones. To do this, they must set an unprecedented condition, which testifies to its upstream ascent as far as possible. Then, depending on the movement of the process, and depending on the inventive appropriations made by others, the relevant

5 I generally use the word “possible” in the singular to insist on the fact that this dimension, which I call “upstream”, precedes any qualification, any pre-determination of the possible in “units” external to each other, which it would therefore be tempting to include in an exhaustive combinatorial approach. 6 I do not say “an” “origin”, which could be qualified, possibly, as ex nihilo. From the logical sequences that are always already active in the situation, it is a question of going back into the latency of these sequences, to release the possible, from which would be established a continuity, a viability, therefore an assumption of the active conditions. Going back “upstream”, not towards a “defined” origin but to restore the conditions to their conventionality, and thus allow their effective play.

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prior knowledge (scientific, technical, etc.) is taken up, integrated into a new totality, and brought to a greater generality. 3.4. Distinctions (or contingent partitions) The driving force behind this movement towards accuracy is the articulation of ever finer distinctions. The accuracy of the distinctions gives rise to a totality of what has hitherto been latent in an external relation of the conditions to each other. A contingent partition is a distinction such that its terms complement each other, do not exhaust the subject and do not exclude each other. Developing coherence in a rigorous way always ends up ruining a distinction because of borderline cases. Putnam did this with the very powerful distinction between “facts” and “values”7. A contingent partition can be refuted, but it does not aim at absolute truth. It aims to unleash effective potential. Indeed, distinguishing can revive ethical innervation in a specific situation, by actualizing an elemental dimension (that gives meaning). 3.5. A drape of the possible Releasing an effective totality of what is possible is done by going back upstream of given conditions, which have become binding, towards their possibility. Characteristically, an ascent that is based on epistemic or technical conditions will be oriented towards moral values or rules; on the contrary, an ascent from values or rules that have become necessary will move towards efficient conditions. Such an ascent, opening up possibilities, is made concrete by the position, upstream, of a new determining condition (which can be a more exact contingent partition). It is from this condition that a drape of the possible will fall (each fold in the drape being a condition determined by its relation to other determined conditions) which will gradually reintegrate all the relevant conditions, all the relevant knowledge of the past. Each step in this fall of the drape is a revival and an inventive variation on the new condition, but downstream, i.e. it will be immediately understood by its relation to already well-known conditions. There is therefore, at each stage, a loss of originality. Setting a new condition implies considerable responsibility. Indeed, depending on how it is done, the drape will fall jerkily or it will fall fluidly and smoothly. 7 [PUT 04]. Borderline cases: saying that a person is “cruel”, “irritated” or “happy” escapes the “descriptive”/“prescriptive” dichotomy.

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Similarly, from the new condition we could find ways to simultaneously solve problems which were not supposed to be related, and for which separate solutions were sought. Each great human work releases the possible from conditions that had fallen into a mechanical game without meaning. But this possible can only be deployed in its effectiveness through an increasing number of inventive repetitions, clarifications and interpretations, which will in turn end up falling back into a game of habits. Then the constraint will be reinstated. What makes a great author is that in their work we can find new, unexplored possibilities each time. It is as if we had never finished sounding out the open possible. The author thus came into contact with a creative dimension. They may have released something inexhaustible. 3.6. Ethical innervation The ascent to the dimension of the possible aims to bring us back in touch with what could be called an “innervation” common to all the actors in the situation. This creative possible is like the life of the situation, common to all those who take part in it. It can be translated into shared language, customs and traditions. But this is incidental. Language, customs and traditions can become fixed in an “identity”, which excludes some of the actors. It is, much more than that, a gesture of mutual recognition and sincere respect of all for all. This is why this innervation is ethical, not ontological. Being ethical, it is also freedom, since this innervation opens up a continuous perpetuation of the viability of the possible in a situation. 3.7. The viability of the possible If the alienation and negation of freedom come from an occultation of ethical innervation and a forgetting of the effectiveness of the possible, freedom will come from an opening of the possible in the situation, for everyone, and from a viabilization of the possible at work. This means that the possible must be able to extend continuously towards itself, in a smooth process. The situation must remain viable, not fixed in a necessity, not binding, for everyone. “Viabilization” is thus a “conciliation” between the efficiency in a situation and the effectiveness (achieved ethical freedom) that is deployed there. I will insist on this further on.

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This does not imply in any way the transition to what would be the freedom of a “group”. Freedom, if it takes shape in the relationship with others, and therefore in the sharing of this freedom, remains above all the freedom of individual persons with rights. It cannot be such “because” it would be linked to a particular linguistic, cultural or other affiliation. It is completely free only because it is the freedom of everyone, of all individuals without exception, and this as unique singularities each time8. 3.8. The circulation of the possible9 How can we concretely think about this viabilization of the possible? There are undoubtedly cases where we are constrained by the facts in a situation. Not only can we be led to do what we do not want to do, but our being in the world itself can be affected by a loss of meaning, even an alienation, estranging us from ourselves. We are sometimes, or even more often than not, subjected to a constraint experienced as an alienating necessity. For the time being, we must leave aside cases, which are very important and very frequent, of pure and deliberate, sometimes gratuitous, violence that is often self-interested, cases of manipulation and contempt that come from mere human wickedness, cruelty and “all too human” barbarism that we see at work every day. Let us consider, for the time being, only a limited hypothesis, which may nevertheless be more important and effective than it seems. Let us focus on cases where the constraint in the situation comes from the application of knowledge that is inappropriate in the particular context. This can be done in direct connection with a responsibility related to scientific and technological innovation. It can thus be knowledge disconnected from the elemental possible at work in a situation, knowledge that has already deviated from ethical innervation. Indeed, knowledge, deployed in a logical form (articulating explicit conditions), with only a view to efficiency (the ability to achieve expected results), can only be deployed ever further towards ever greater efficiency10. This precisely can bring it out of the 8 This implies rethinking the “individual” no longer as a selfish atom but as a conscious and autonomous person for whom only shared ethical freedom can be effective. It should be noted that in Latin singuli is always used in the plural, as noted by Jean-Luc Nancy [NAN 13]. 9 Bernard Reber regularly asks me, concerning terms like “drape”, “viability”, “circulation”, “deviation”, etc., what the limits of these “metaphors” are. The fact is that there is no “single” “defined” reality for which metaphors would be more or less clumsy approximations. A rigorous thinking of the possible and the process can only take place in a meditation of that which is not simply one or more “images”, but a mediate knowledge of the conventionality of any image, thus aiming, each time, at their assumption. 10 It is not a question of condemning this quest for efficiency, but of thinking what efficiency means in line with the effectiveness of a process.

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ethical innervation of the possible without which, however, it could not have flourished. The responsibility of an actor is, in these circumstances, to restore, mutatis mutandis, knowledge to the element of possibility. Mutatis mutandis shows that a reform of this knowledge is necessary. The path of this reform must be specified by a patient who moves back to the possibility of the conditions (the conditions that opened up the possibility of conditions at work) and also towards the ethical element of the possible that makes possible the situation as a whole, in its complexity. An ascent from condition to condition can always be prolonged, but from a certain point on, it is only prolonged in an abstract way, since the person who ascends always does so from a specific situation. Acquiring access to the element of the possible and the ethical innervation it carries may seem at first glance to be an abstract task, without any real concrete content. Let us try to show two ways in which we can approach it. If there is a logical deviation from the element of the possible, it is that there is a split within the possible. This can be explained in this way: a) It is necessary to distinguish the constructed possible from the creative possible. The first is unambiguously defined in the probabilistic and statistical formalisms which make it possible to orient and plan actions based on refined predictions. The various possibilities are anticipated or listed, deployed in an exhaustive way, exclusive to one another each time. The creative possible, on the other hand, is an intangible milieu in which we are immersed, which means that there is always more to a situation than what we can observe, calculate or predict. Upstream of this situation, in the latency, there is a perennial viability that will allow it to extend ever further, beyond itself. There is a gap between the situation and what the evolution of the situation could be. b) A second important distinction relates to the formalisms that allow the efficiency of the action. On the one hand, there are the purposes to which the application of formalism is subjected, and on the other hand, there is the intuitive content that carries this formalism and is reflected in the interpretation that is given to it. A formal model is always likely to be used in several ways, for different or even opposite purposes. But it never floats in the air. It is always, whatever one may say about its abstraction, caught up in concrete practices making it effective. Determining the purposes for which this formalism, and therefore the direction of efficiency, will be used is not at all trivial and is, in any case, never self-evident. There is a force at work in this instrumentation. But this force is often used in a way that is consistent with the interpretation that the formalism receives at a given time.

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A model can be interpreted in several ways. It is never a simple tool that is only worth its efficiency. It teaches us something about the world or about our actions. This knowledge has implications for how it will be used. It is not enough to see two distinctions here. In most cases, they remain real divisions with unacceptable ethical consequences. Keeping the constructed and the creative possible separate, without thinking about and realizing their relationship, locks us into the alternative of objective reductionist and unilateral knowledge, and intuitive ethical sensitivity devoid of efficiency. Keeping separate the purposes to which formalism is subjected and the interpretation that we make of this formalism, limits us to a similar, although not identical, alternative: a lack of forethought concerning the purposes that we set for ourselves, therefore blind efficiency, or a speculation that does not give itself an empirical touchstone, and that is therefore empty. For medicine, its goal of restoring health cannot be separated from its concept of what constitutes an adapted functioning of the organism. Thinking about the modes of its functioning, in their efficiency, has an influence on what is considered as the doctor’s duty towards the patient. Both forms of the division can be resolved, not in a definitive way, but in a limited way, which establishes a “reconciliation” in context. When we speak of “reconciliation”, it is about much more than an agreement between the actors: an agreement with the element of the possible whence only the agreement between humans can become effective. This reconciliation is always to be regained depending on the situation in which we find ourselves. In this way, we will be able to work towards the agreement of the constructed possible and the creative possible by placing contingent partitions and by avoiding confining ourselves to the search for exhaustive combinatorics. It will also be possible to seek, for a formalism, an interpretation that can lead to applications in accordance with values or rules that we recognize as relevant to the situation. These will be two ways of exercising our responsibility, in context, provided that we keep in mind the elemental content of a process of the possible. After these developments, which attempted, in a first approach, to raise the question of the scientific and technical knowledge of the moment and its efficiency, in relation to an ethical dimension of the process, after having thus outlined the scope of processual effectiveness, it is time to come to a more detailed characterization of responsibility.

4 Universality and Responsibility

4.1. Unlike phenomenology It is worth distinguishing the thesis on the possible that is explored in this first part of the book from the detailed discussions on the topic in phenomenology, notably those of Husserl and Heidegger. It is not simply a matter of following in their footsteps and giving priority to the possible over the real. This was the action of the two founding fathers of phenomenology, who intended to reverse the order identified by metaphysics, in particular, according to them, by Hegel [SER 16]. Claudia Serban has meticulously retraced the stages of the dual enterprise of Husserl and Heidegger. Both of them declared the priority of the possible over the real before proceeding to overcome such a static opposition and instead emphasize their interweaving and co-generation in what they called the real. Thus, both showed the presence of the possible within the real, and this is a decisive step in the shared action of their “phenomenology of possibility” [SER 16, p. 292]. However, and this is where we must note the gaps in relation to phenomenology, the possible interests us here in that it has always already taken up effectiveness1. The concordance of the possible and effectiveness is an element. The forgetting of this element, and the logical deployment that builds on this forgetting, is called necessity. By possible, I mean the effectiveness, the fluid surplus of latency, before forgetting (which is a suffered constraint). In the possibility is effectiveness: to hold on to it, to settle there, is to re-establish, in a viable way, effectiveness as much as the possible. Thus, it can be understood that this concordance, as a process, is freedom. 1 These are not two terms that are set down then brought to interact in a second step.

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This implies that there is no need for an opposition between the two sides of the phenomenological correlation. Holding firmly at the outset to the duality of the ego and the “world” and proceeding to the meticulous correlation of these two terms amounts to positing the transcendental as being definitive and infinitely committed in a relationship with the world that will renew this duality infinitely. However, the ego and the “world”, determined as such, do not exist before their connection. Similarly, the “possible” and the “real” do not exist, in their mutual determination, before their correlation. It is the “intertwining” that is first. Only then are the dualities fixed in place that powerfully “condition” our experience, which we can no longer understand without going through them. Yet they mark a “forgetting” precisely in so far as they are presented as “necessary”. The fact that the intertwining or interrelation is first, and therefore that the real is found within the possible, means that there is not a division between the formal theoretical conditions by which we understand the world around us and this world as we encounter it, with its conditions. We only have access to the world through theoretical conditions and these conditions interest us only to the exact extent that they give us a precise understanding of “what” surrounds us. The conditions are inextricably set and encountered. They are sometimes presented as categories, which allow us to gain access to the context, and in relation to which other conditions, downstream, can only be encountered precisely defined (even if only conventionally). Sometimes they are presented as conventions linked to a theoretical context that makes them appear to be exactly defined, relative to the strict framework set by a theory. Thus, without going through the endless discussions and aporias encountered by Husserlian intersubjectivity, we can understand that the “subject–object” duality is a prejudice, an addition that we put forward at the beginning, at the base, and that we can only encounter at each subsequent stage of the questioning [HUS 01]. In reality, the set of conditions (simultaneously theoretical and given, real and possible) is always already and immediately at the level of a sharing of freedom in a real situation. This also applies to an attempt like that by Stéphane Chauvier [AMP 10]. For him, every possible is a “fiction” and it is “conceptual thinking”, understanding in its “spontaneity”, its “recombinatory power”, which alone accounts for the genesis of the possible. It is of course an avatar of definitorial thinking, but closely determined by the unilateral position of understanding “in itself”, which is certainly capable of

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inventiveness, but is never at any time, for Chauvier, likely to be relativized in a “radical” way. However, understanding, consisting of “fixed” determinations which are likely to enter into combinatorics, in conditions that open up the possibility of other conditions, must itself, radically and completely, be apprehended as relative, conventional, and therefore contingent. Only at this price can one rise to the vision of a generalized interrelationship, where “subject” and “object” are no longer firmly held exclusively face-to-face, like the inside and the outside, that reappears at each stage of the process. The dual position must renounce itself and lose its determinations in the process if it wants to “assume” the conditions in their infinite interrelation, and thus realize its freedom in its precise situation. Only in this way can effectiveness be re-established at the heart of the possibility, and viability gained against the necessary forgetting that threatens it. Only now can it be understood that Husserl and Heidegger did not go beyond Hegel by affirming the pre-eminence of the possible over the real. With Hegel we already find the much more fruitful thesis of a unity of the possible and the real in what he calls contingency. The possible is then only a moment of the contingency of the real2. A processuality affirms the movement of an awareness, the unity of the real and the possible, which, intially formal, becomes real, then absolute. In this process, the Subject gains its freedom from contingency by learning to be a stranger to itself in order to find itself, reconciled, in the Other. The problem, if there is one, is that this freedom is a freedom of the negative, conquered by and in an enduring crossing of the negative. The unity of the possible and the real is a contradiction. The real, at the heart of what is possible, signifies contradiction. In other words, it can only and exclusively be a question of a freedom of “will” and of a determined will. The power of contradiction is the constantly relaunched passage from one determination suffered by the consciousness to another. This passage requires force, an effort that is always repeated. The will is stretched from an antecedent determination to a consequent determination. However, a determined consciousness is precisely not free, insofar as it is subject to the determination that bites into it. The effort that is always resumed, always relaunched against contingency, does not denote a freedom of will. Freedom consists instead of a “reconciliation” (and here again the word is Hegelian, Versöhnung, even if it did not, for Hegel, have its full meaning), an act perfectly devoid of effort, which does not need this effort to be effective. This act 2 According to the penetrating reading offered by Bernard Mabille [MAB 13, pp. 204–205].

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reflects a recollection, a quietude, a perfect absence of disorder, in which the effective conditioning takes place without the slightest jump, without the slightest deviation. The freedom is then to be permanently established in the processuality of the possible, where conditions run smoothly, thus being “assumed”. The assumption is obtained by this ascent towards the possible, where one stands without deviation, in a perfect non-action, where the logics take place without leaving the element of the possible. However, for Hegel, the “contradiction” is the engine that constantly overcomes the duality of the “subject” and the “object”. Here again, it seems, it is the presupposition of this duality that limits the Hegelian concept of freedom. Presupposing subject and object, he refrains from thinking of a generalized, conventional, end-to-end interrelation, where conditionalities do not refer, beyond themselves, to subjects or objects, but reconcile in their pure interrelation what can no longer simply be placed under the duality: (forged) theoretical conditions/(given) historical conditions. Conditions, insofar as they provide knowledge of the situation, work in this situation where they provide objective constraints; the objects we encounter in this situation, we have access to them only as far as they are known to us (through theoretically elaborated conditions). Responsibility requires this constant reappraisal of conditions, starting from the conditions that make them possible, but also from the element of the possible, effective as viability, in context. In this perspective, “categories” are fossilized residues of one-off ascents upstream of complexes of accessible conditions, from which a fall of the drape has taken place. They are the result of a strict upstream ascent, and introduce a new possibility for any subsequent relationship with the world. Newtonian physics has thus introduced a new way of relating to “nature”, which can no longer be circumvented later on, and will therefore constitute an asset for all subsequent advances in this science. But this does not mean that the latter will not introduce new gaps, which will themselves come to play the role of categories. Consider the “spin” of electrons, for example, in quantum mechanics. This notion takes its strict meaning only in the context defined by this theory, and does not correspond “exactly” to a content that could be imagined through intuition. It will be, from this perspective, contingent that this or that category is upstream. More important is the conscious ascent upstream, in the possible, because it allows the “assumption” of effective conditions in context, whatever it may be, and thus constitutes the true universal, going beyond all that can be done by a “will”, however powerful and taut it may be. At this point, we must examine with some hindsight the shift introduced by the effective-processual method in the quest for universality that was metaphysics. It is

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not enough to situate oneself in relation to phenomenology. It is necessary to go back, upstream, to the position of the latter in relation to metaphysics. Metaphysics, with the multiplicity, variety and richness of its questionings, was structured, powerfully and durably, by Aristotle, the first to write a book given, after Andronicos, the title “Metaphysics”. This framework, which is in reality problematic in its structure, tries to articulate the universal and the concrete singular. Logic, the “tool” of science, makes it necessary to think about this relationship. But it slips away. To put it in a nutshell, the universal must descend into the singular to be realized, but the singular must resist. It cannot allow itself to be completely absorbed into the universal, because this would mean the absence of movement and becoming. Metaphysics has, from the very beginning, been caught in an “ontological” perspective: the singular can only fully “be” due to the universal it contains, and this universal can only really “be” by expressing itself in the singular. But precisely this term, “to be”, is polysemic3. In this interplay between the different meanings of the word “to be”, the destiny of truth, in its “scientific” requirement, was at stake. What shift of perspective does an effective-processual thinking bring about? It is no longer a question of holding together the universal and the singular in the same substance, or of bringing them together in vertical participation, with all the aporias that such an ontological approach encounters4. The challenge here would be to maintain the development of effective logics in a possible ethical innervation. It is a question of working for an “integration” of logic into this innervation, or, in other words, for an “assumption” of logics in this dimension. The word “assumption” clearly indicates that it is a responsibility, therefore avoids the need, damaging to freedoms, for a logic that is not integrated into a process of possibility. In this sense, the approach is indeed “ethical” (in reality metaethical) with respect to “ontology”. The incalculable intensification of contingency can be addressed by ontology. But it does so in a meta-ethical way. It considers what makes ethics normative, unlike normative ethics, which identifies defined valid standards. This highlights two critical issues for RRI. Considering the relationship between responsibility and will, the question arises of “who” is responsible within a particular context. In a hierarchical structure, in a 3 Aristotle, Metaphysics Γ.2, 1003a33. All the meanings of the word “to be” are said to be for Aristotle “towards” a unique meaning, that of the “substance” (ousia). 4 See [AUB 97]. The issue was addressed in [LEN 12, p. 39 ff.]

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more fragmented structure, in a group, a company, etc., “who” will be responsible for the abuses, for the deviation of effective logics from ethical innervation? This aspect will be that of “autonomy” – who gives the rule, and who is able to answer? According, then, to the relationship between responsibility and knowledge, how will we deal with the incessant innovation, the unpredictable discovery of novelties, innovative applications of older knowledge, new knowledge “grafts” etc.? Accountability in this case requires much more than following a clearly identified set of rules. It is more than “anticipation”: it is creativity. This will be the aspect of “detachment” – how can we respond effectively, therefore in an element that goes beyond the simple will of the actors? 4.2. Measuring gaps from Hegel Hegel remains the Western world’s greatest thinker of the “process”5. He must be taken as a reference point by anyone undertaking a radical re-evaluation of this notion. We must therefore mention the main differences between his dialectic and the effective-processual method: a) the engine here is not the negative. It is a free, spontaneous, inventive fall of the drape of the possible, by invention and recomposition of the conditions of knowledge, which is precisely such in so far as it overcomes the negative at work in a situation. If the concrete contains the negative, as Hegel claims, life unfolds as an undecided oscillation between the necessary (the constraint) and the possible, until humanity finds in itself the ethical innervation and establishes itself serenely in it; b) there is no “one” Totality that would be the concrete whole of the historical process by which the “Spirit” would move towards full consciousness of itself. From the perspective set out here, there is an always contextual plurality of “totalities”, which are, let us recall, only “propensities” at work in the possible. Once the possible has been identified, such totalities are set up according to the significance that the situation has for the actors, which depends on their position and the configuration of the possible at work. Nevertheless, in a situation, there is most often a propensity that is more appropriate6 and thus more just than the others. This is the question, which we will encounter in more depth below, of the “relevance” of the conditions;

5 Whitehead [WHI 78], who comes in second, is still far behind, along with Plato, who had already contributed some striking insights [PLA 93]. 6 Because we are not starting from a partial “determination” of the actors’ consciousness, but “assuming” the different conditions, each in its own place.

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c) there is no “single”, more or less “linear”, deployment. In Hegel’s work, peoples settle down in a necessary order, through the unique moment that each occupies in the universal History7. China, then India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and contemporary Germany, these moments of a progressive awareness unfold in a historical deployment of the World Spirit. Each builds on the previous one to make its unique and irreplaceable contribution. Here, on the contrary, the deployment is multiple, diverse, polycentric and non-hierarchical. A totality always unfolds in a given context, and there can be digression, improvement, or mutual ignorance of the different processes. There is no ultimate totalization of “one” “World”, only more or less comparable situations, but always unique. The image of innervation (the veins of the leaf of a tree) offers this diffracted intuition, where sap can be found in any place, in any situation. At the same time, there are indeed “decisive” branches of thought that engage unprecedented responsibility. Setting a new condition, upstream, can be the occasion for a responsible assumption of the different conditions that will be redefined downstream, each one making sense in relation to the others in a process of the possible; d) the element is not the concept here. For Hegel, the element is the concept itself, in its dialectical deployment. On the other hand, a pluralistic and nonexhaustive proposal on the elements has been put forward here. A determined language, the fact in its contingency, the possible: all are active elements. There are several elements. This does not mean that they could all be considered in a single plan, which would allow for their exhaustive enumeration. I stressed the particularity of the element of the possible, which enables us to think of ethical innervation in that it expresses a viability of the situation, made tangible by a living agreement of the actors. The possibilities are identified for them and by them. At the same time, the possible maintains an essential relationship with the various sources of knowledge at work (such as the concept). But unlike this, it leads to an approach that envelops and deploys processes according to a creative freedom, not according to a dialectical approach whose spring would be the negative; e) there is no “one” “subject” that would unfold in a gradual awareness of Itself, thereby realizing itself. Consciousness is always related to the actors interested in the situation. This does not mean that it could not achieve effective implementation. 4.3. The finite will It is certainly possible to assume “one” “will” behind structured agglomerates (company, association, NGO, etc.), just as it is possible to assume one behind a people (“general will”) or a constituted minority group (perhaps because of 7 See Hegel [HEG 65], [HEG 98, paragraph 354 ff.] and, for the question of the East in universal History according to Hegel, [HUL 13].

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discrimination felt in common). Yet, “the” will is always that of an individual, who “proves” or “shows” will, or not, after having examined the specifics of the situation “in his or her soul and conscience” and, consequently, acts, or doesn’t, in accordance with the ethical innervation of the situation. The two are “mutually expressed” (entr’exprimés) in Leibnizian terminology [LEI 95]. A collective will expresses the will of the members of this community, just as an individual will reflects its different collective affiliations, which it has sometimes chosen. What is called “good will” is a sincere will towards oneself and others. But it would be illusory to pretend that this type of will is regularly encountered. A will, most often, expresses the awareness of its immediate interests. Thus, it is to be feared that what is called the “general will” or will of the people in a free country is only a reflection of what people think is their common “interest” (i.e. a consciousness that has already been determined). For many this is already a very high ideal, and in fact, such a consensus is already proving difficult to achieve in practice. If the will were, in constant attention to itself, constantly “good”, this would constitute a much higher ideal. But we would not expect it from a concrete community. Politics is about interests and how people view their common and individual interests. However, this does not prevent us from seeking greater sincerity in the expression of the collective will. Indeed, it would be illusory to treat wills as finite and fixed totalities. The Rousseauist intuition that “one” identifiable, constituted and consistent “will” could express the cohesion of a people seems fragile [ROU 64]. Such a will exists only in its expressions, and they are spaced apart and often there is no coherence between them. There is not one, but “several” wills; there are not wills, but “several” one-off expressions of these wills. Inconsistency may, for example, arise from the fact that one expression is linked to a specific community (e.g. a company) while another is linked to another community (e.g. a religion or a church). There is a very large porosity between the different wills, each expressing a different identity. And this can explain many inconsistencies. A will can only become inflexible, and express an unalterable constancy if it is the result of a patiently won “sincerity”. This sincerity is expressed in the “autonomy” of the actor or group. In the following two points, it is a question of laying down some milestones to show how this autonomy of will could exist today. The distance from certain specific interests, depending on the circumstances, is part of this sincerity, as is the consideration of the other, all the others involved in

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one way or another in the situation, as ends and never simply as means8 [KAN 93, p. 106]. But we cannot stop at this Kantian framework. Indeed, the work of transforming the will into greater sincerity is never ending, while the consequences of a bad will are felt every day. But above all, a good will remains “finite”, and cannot embrace all the ins and outs of a broader context. If we want to “realize” this sincerity, and the agreement of a good will with the reality of a process at work, it will be better to rely on the element of the “possible” than on the superficial fiction of a “will” (often in the form of an identity, therefore of an “interest”)9. 4.4. Reconciliation in situation Hegel uses the term Versöhnung, and if there is one achievement of his philosophy that must be preserved, it is this “reconciliation” between what is and what ought to be in the shared life of humans. This implies that “ought to be” does not always remain an aspiration disappointed by the facts and that, in our terms, ethical freedom can be effective. Our responsibility is to make it effective every time. It is therefore not enough to “do one’s duty”, or to apply one or more “values” to which we adhere, even in a thoughtful and contemplated way. It is not enough to conform to certain moral “rules”, either because they are attached to our profession or because we recognize them as valid after sincere and informed deliberation. In reality, responsibility depends less on the application of a particular virtue or rule than on its application in a particular context, or in a particular situation. Sincerity does not lead us to recognize a value as being universally “true”, in the sense that it would make its application laudable in any context. If there is universality, it cannot, today, consist of that, as we will see below. It is therefore the relationship of the value or rule to the context that must be examined. Better still, it is the relationship, within the situation, between values, rules, interests (selfish, knowledgeable, aesthetic, etc.) relevant to this situation that must be examined. This is made possible by restoring the “viability” of the possible in the situation. We have mentioned two ways of doing this. First, ensuring that there is no division between the constructed possible and the creative possible; then, seeking this 8 According to the perspective that is opened here, sincerity will not only involve not hiding interests, but relativizing them, returning them to the archipelago of effective motives, thus putting them at a distance, in order to decide with the whole motivational spectrum in mind. 9 This does not mean that, in everyday life, there are no wills or identities that are expressed and on which we must rely. But this does not give them a (deeper) elemental dimension.

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absence of division by reinterpreting a formalism in a way that allows its viable ethical application, in the service of the freedom of the actors, against the suffered necessities. Ensuring the viability of the context means ensuring that the logic at work is integrated into the ethical innervation of the possible, which is also accessible. This access actually ensures a clarification of responsibility (a clear understanding of what it means to be responsible in a given situation). Since the latter is no longer rigidly linked to certain univocally stated “principles”, but is reduced to a process of contextual redefinition of the relevant conditions at work, which takes into account the situation in a broad and comprehensive way, integrating all the actors10 who are concerned by it, responsibility appears much more clearly and immediately. It is much easier to recognize its essential aspect under its technical apparatus, which remains important. This “disambiguation” is made accessible by a “reconciliation” achieved, in a situation, between the possible and itself. The possible is brought back to itself, which frees up its creative dimension, and ensures its continued viability. The logics are integrated into the revealed innervation. They are revitalized as much as possible. This ensures sustainability from which all11 the actors benefit, as their aspirations are recognized (even if their interests are only partially recognized). It is therefore a completely different interpretation of the situation than that offered by ontology, where what is, structured in a necessary way according to its own laws (which determine it), must be expressly linked to a series of values or moral rules, stated as fixed and set before the plan of what is, on another side that we should refer to as what ought to be. In this vision, of course, it is understandable that a univocal vision of the plan of what is may make the relationship between values and its effectiveness ambiguous. Thus, the “disambiguation” of responsibility takes the form of a reconciliation of the possible with itself. A coherent concept of responsible action implies reconciling 10 This may seem unrealizable. But this is in no way to “deny” interests. In reality, what is required is not to take an interest as “determining” the consciousness of the actors, thus biasing it. The assumption will consist in initiating a process of the possible where all interests will be taken up according to their characteristics, and in their place, according to their degree of relevance to shared freedom. 11 This does not mean that all actors are necessarily ready to put their interests into perspective. It is sufficient that a non-partisan, and therefore more responsible perspective be available for it to be accepted at the time of the decision, even if the balance of power decides otherwise. At the same time, the force always wants to adorn itself with an aspect of legitimacy. So it comes back to sincerity.

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the constructed possible and the creative possible. As long as these two plans are not joined, we are condemned to a partial, and therefore biased, idea of responsibility, where the constructed possible determines the creative possible, and thus subordinates it to an identity. This is expressed from the point of view of the method of processual effectiveness. But we must not be in a hurry to dismiss the point of view of will. Indeed, even if it is not enough, the tension of will is essential to the fulfilment of responsibility. However, from the point of view of will, responsibility is “autonomy”. 4.5. Autonomy According to the Kantian contribution, a will is only free when it submits to its own law. Any submission to a law that comes from outside, any “heteronomy”, is not free. The subject finds in itself the moral law, which is unconditionally valid, and asks for an adhesion motivated by a pure respect for it, and without regard for any sensible interest. For the subject, this moral law is a priori, necessary and universal [KAN 97b]. First of all, it should be stressed that the three terms must be carefully distinguished, which Kant does not do enough. Indeed, an a priori condition is always also, at another point in the process, a posteriori. If it is placed upstream in a process, it will, at a later stage, be a secure acquisition of knowledge. If it opens up the possibility, in a situation, it is not unrelated to other conditions that express our relationship to that situation. Further, a condition is always formulated in a knowledge encounter, which is taken up, or not, in the effectiveness of a process. It is never found already made, just as it is never created, once and for all, through and through. Similarly, we have seen that the necessity of a condition, even of a logical nature, is only relative. As for universality, see below. How can one think, in a situation, of this determination of a will by one’s own law? First, a will can bring together several individuals. They may adopt, together and by mutual agreement, the law of a society, etc. They then recognize themselves in this law and recognize it as their own. But there seems to be more to the requirement of recognizing only “one’s own law”. There is a requirement of “sincerity” that can only be found in a relationship to “truth”. How can the will find, in the situation, a truth that it recognizes as its own? This truth will obviously have to express the possible at work in the situation in the most appropriate way, in a way that is more in line with the situation, and the immanent tendency of the possible in it, than any other understanding. It will have to express the reciprocal relationship of the actors with a unique accuracy, without bias.

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Motives will be considered according to their effects on the freedom of the actors, and therefore according to the necessity they are likely to generate. In a situation, the entire spectrum must be taken into account, the broadest, which expresses most of the relevant conditions (values, deontological rules, pure, knowledge-based, or selfish interests: see the analysis of the case of GMOs below). Taking into account the relevant conditions, in the broadest sense, is part of the exercise of autonomy. This means that a will is recognized as being integrated in a situation involving a plurality of actors, each of whom has the right to respect for his or her aspirations and interests. This will recognizes “its” own law in the expression that reconciles and allows the widest satisfaction of these conditions. This does not mean that the individual renounces his or her individuality. It only means that their individuality opens up to the others, insofar as this openness is required for the exercise of their freedom. To the extent that their freedom is immediately linked to the freedoms of others and to the extent that they understand this, the will expresses this law, which becomes the autonomous law of the group of actors concerned, in the specific situation in which the decision is taken. One criterion for this will be that rights and duties are balanced for all actors involved. Only in this way can a totality of the possible be expressed in the most complete way. And it is under these conditions that the will, becoming effective, will be able to accomplish much more than it would have done from its finiteness, and achieve a reconciliation, in a situation, of the demands and expectations of each individual, where each individual can recognize themselves and bloom in their uniqueness. There is nothing “magical” about this reconciliation. I am not saying that, in practice, freedom will always be understood in a non-partisan way. Most often, decisions will be “determined” by unilateral motives, which will affect the freedom of some. Nevertheless, in this respect, they will damage the very freedom of those who have obtained satisfaction, since it will be “determined”, and therefore “necessary”. I seek to establish a valid concept of what makes motives relevant in context. This question of relevance is that of responsibility. To what extent should motives be taken into account, to preserve the freedom of all? And what could their realization mean? It is therefore not a question of giving ready-made applicable recipes. This would be to give in to abstraction. Reconciliation does not always, or even often, take place. That is not the issue addressed. But if it does not happen, it ruins the freedom of those who take advantage of the situation. The criterion of autonomy (or a freedom taking into account for its possibility that of others) is therefore that the will decides without moving away from the element of a viable possible, where only reconciliation can arise.

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Regardless of the fact that each and every group has its own specific, objective interests in a given situation, a defined weighting, a perspective on the spectrum of motivations at work, may be preferable in that it does not introduce a determination (a partialization, suffered by the consciousness) but integrates into a continuous movement, and therefore smoothly assumes the whole motivational spectrum. It is now necessary to define precisely what is meant by “relevant” conditions. 4.6. The question of the relevance of the conditions (effectiveness) In a given situation, a very large number of heterogeneous conditions always occur. The irrelevant conditions, those that must not be taken into account, are those that risk introducing bias, partiality, into the deliberation. These are the ones that can be grouped under the very general heading of “prejudices” towards others as well as towards oneself. They would revive, at the very heart of the deliberation, a determination through attachment, aversion or fear12. In this way, they would jeopardize the shared freedom that must emerge from it. The non-relevant conditions are therefore those that contradict the ethical viability of the process. It should be stressed that this discrimination of conditions occurs before the situation, in latency, before each condition becomes decisive. Consequently, even once the actors agree on the conditions to be taken into account, several solutions could, a priori, be identified, formulated and put into practice. But how can we determine the relevant conditions? They are the ones which, together, support and enable us to take charge of all aspects of the situation. In fact, they are those that express, together, at best, a “totality” of possible that has been identified in context and requires deployment. Thus, there must not only be “interests”, even if they include non-selfish interests (such as an interest in knowledge). There must not only be moral “rules”. For there to be totality, it is necessary to take into account certain interests, selfish and non-selfish, certain values and certain rules (moral or legal). There must be an “archipelago”13 of conditions that express such a totality. It is not that we always find “one” unique 12 Fear can have a role, as in Hans Jonas’ work, in bringing us to a more lucid awareness of risks. But it must not “determine” the consciousness of the actors. On the contrary, it is important to take it up again, to assume it, in a process. It is not a question here of “denying” subjectivity, but of loosening its grip when it is presented as necessary, of relativizing it in relation to a process in the game that it can have with objectivity. 13 This term indicates that there is not a closed totality in a single coherence plan that would exhaust it, therefore an “exhaustive” plan. Instead, there is a dispersion that expresses the contingency at work in the situation.

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totality at work in context. But, in general, there is one that best expresses the broadest spectrum of conditions. Instead, the discussions will be prolonged because some will want to introduce more selfish, self-interested conditions rather than because of objective and sincere uncertainty about the relevant totality. By discussing what makes a condition relevant in a situation, in its relationship to other conditions, we touch on the universal, without necessarily being aware of it. Let us explain why. 4.7. The universal within plurality We must carefully distinguish between the universal and the necessary. The latter is always related, in any case, to a rational plan closed in an exhaustive way. It can be neutralized by taking a step backwards, in a situation, and by seeking knowledge adapted to the contingency, as it is at work. But the question of the universal remains open. This cannot be a given state of knowledge about the physical world, since this knowledge only finds its legitimacy in a constant questioning of its achievements as it progresses towards accuracy. But neither is it a structured, complete set of determined values or rights that would repeat the exhaustive rationality borrowed from the realm of facts. The universal is at stake in the characterization of the ethical relevance of effective conditions in situations. The criterion is not that a condition applies de jure, or even de facto, to “all” people “without exception”. The universal concerns the relationship of people to other people in context. It must therefore be released each time in a situation. It is the realization of this release, of this explication, in context. The taking into account of a totality of the widest possible propensity expresses this universal. The same cannot be said of a “fixed” determination, nor even of a “fixed” set of determinations, however generous they may be. This does not mean that we should not fight for “human rights” and against their violation. This is even quite consistent with what is being advanced here. But this struggle must be based on a more cautious use of the term “universal”. The universal expresses a sincere relationship, upstream of the situation, to the effective processes at work. It involves everyone’s access to ethical innervation and the accomplished freedom it implies. Following a completely different line of thought, François Jullien speaks of a “universalizing” process, a process that is initiated and relaunched by the eminently human refusal of the unacceptable, identified and illustrated by Mengzi (Mencius) by the instinct to not let a child fall into a well [JUL 08]. The various formulations

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of human rights would be stages in this process of universalization, which cannot, however, be completed. Indeed, as soon as it is named, this absolute that is the universal falls back into ideological biases, triggering a fall of the drape of conditions that in my words redefine themselves in their reciprocal relationships, in an increasingly precise way. Jullien indeed associates the universal with a process, but he brings it to the dimensions of the world and history, which would therefore be “one” world and “one” history. On the contrary, we must insist on the plurality of processes at work and above all on the fact that it is always possible, in a situation, to grasp the whole propensity at work, to embrace the whole process in which we are involved, and to understand it, upstream. Similarly, this process involves the effort that is assigned to each person to release the possible from the situation “in which they exist”, for themselves and those around them. The universal is indeed a processual viability. And it contains within itself an ethical achievement and an effective freedom for everyone. Thinking of this as destined to remain unrealized, thinking of it as a pure “requirement” of reason, is to make the universal an empty, ineffective and dead form. Ethical innervation brings a realization of the universal, such as “reconciliation”, which is certainly always put into play, in context, and always restored, but constitutes an accomplished effectiveness. What does this bring that is new in relation to conventional thinking about the universal? Jullien is right when he identifies the triple root (of the universal, logical [Aristotle], legal [Roman law] and religious [the “Catholicity” of Christianity]) as it is traditionally associated with the West. Aristotle discussed the relationship between the universal and the singular; Roman law applied to all citizens (all free men) of the Empire; Christ came to redeem the sins of all, all children of God. The emphasis is not the same. Nevertheless, the universal brings together, without discrimination current at the time, a plurality that it holds in an ordered structure. It ignores all secondary differences to bring together everything that is known, civilized and ordered, and without which there can be nothing else that matters. Aristotle’s regulated relationship of the universal to the singular offered the Organon of all science, by which alone everything that is knowable can be known. Rome encompassed all the known world. Beyond that, there were only “barbarians”, who could not be part of the ordered Empire and of civilization. St Paul insisted that:

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“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”14. How can we understand this envelopment of all the knowable, of all that matters, and in the light of which the rest does not matter, so much so that it appears as “nothing” compared to this strictly determined and ordered totality “one”? This determined totality is, in each case, an opening that marks a gain in generality compared to a previous step. Logic treated the universal in a scientific way, unlike sophists. Roman law eventually granted citizenship to all free men in Italy and in the various provinces. Christ considerably broadened the perspective in relation to the Jewish religion, for which Yahweh is the God of the Jewish people. The mark of this enlargement is the “circumcision of the heart”15. Does this mean that in all three cases, the unconditional universal has been “achieved”? The logic has evolved and undergone many refinements and reworkings. The law has come to recognize the equality of “all” citizens, not just “free” “men”. Religion was able to recognize children of God (even if it was too late) in the indigenous peoples encountered during the exploration of the Americas, etc. So can we get away with talking about “universalizing” rather than the universal? As we have noted, this should not lead us to postpone sine die the effective achievement of this universal. But what is it that traditionally makes us expect a realization of the universal that would freeze it? This comes, we can suggest, from the fact that, in these traditions, the “language” is “original”, which imposes a definitorial vision, according to which the universal deploys in time a pre-determined content, which keeps its determination and simply actualizes it. 4.8. The originarity of language As François Jullien points out, there are three roots to thinking about the universal in the West [JUL 08]. 14 Galatians, 3:26–28, Authorized King James version. 15 The term already appears in Deuteronomy, 10:14.

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These thoughts can, in each case, be reduced to the affirmation of a primacy of language in its determinations. It is the formal expressions and structures that are first in logic. Rigorously and patiently constructed texts are first in Roman law. “In the beginning was the Word”, in the Gospel according to St John. Language opens the determinations of beings. It makes them possible by making them knowable. This thesis dominates “ontology”. It offers the objective structuring of beings in Aristotle. It constitutes the objective determination of citizens as being “equal” with respect to the law in Rome. It is the divine Logos that creates the world and the prolific variety of beings in Christianity. In this perspective, it is the will that holds the word and deploys it, making the determinations of language in things. Upstream of the language being deployed by the will there is, precisely, “nothing”, only this will that is realized by entering into time. If we move from the question of being to the question of “effectiveness”, and to that of a “processual” effectiveness, the philosopher’s task will be to go back “upstream” of language to identify new possibilities in relation to those opened by language, as well as the possibilities of the language itself. The possible is thus an element from where one can open, state, possibilize conditions, which in turn will open other conditions, other possibilities. There is therefore an inexhaustible, enveloping dimension to the element of the possible. From this point on, a thought of the process, of the “viability” ethics of the possible “in the language” which is at the same time a “viability” of the language “in the possible”, can emerge. This reciprocity, however new, is crucial. Language, in the determinations it offers, poses and encounters, inextricably, must be taken up again in a viability of the possible at work, ensuring the continuity of the fluence of the possible, i.e. its capacity to renew itself constantly from itself, towards itself, this capacity being the imponderable that makes the situation never coincide with itself, never fixed in a determination. Otherwise it is the necessary, therefore the deviation, the forgetting of the process and of the excess where the determination must be constantly assumed. Creativity is not so much that of conditions as that of the element of the possible, in permanent excess in relation to itself, and therefore on the way towards itself, in a fluence which, in a second time, downstream, crystallizes in conditions that fall with the drape in an increasingly precise way, and becomes capable of a new modality of opening up possibilities, an increasingly impoverished fluence. Conditions are deployed “in” the possible. They can be taken over and assumed. But they can come to be weighted with an ontological consistency, as creativity is

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then absorbed within them. However, it will always be complementary and fruitful to adopt an “effective” perspective on their extended interrelationship in the possible, as an ethical process. The consistency of the conditions is related to a fall of the drape, while the effective-processual perspective takes into account a perilous ascent upstream, defusing a configuration of the drape and initiating a new fall. Ethics (in reality “meta-ethics”) thus becomes a relevant perspective on human knowledge. The latter is no longer seen as “separate” from ethics and “true” by the same token. The truth of this knowledge is understood as being intimately linked to its ethical dimension, to the configuration of the processes of the possible where it finds its effectiveness, and by which it will be equally efficient. This truth is not separable from a responsible assumption of it. To assume it means to take it up again in a process of the possible open to perpetuation, therefore attentive, in an impartial way, to the freedom of all the actors involved. The necessity suffered begins as soon as the freedom of some is seen as separable from that of others, and not being built, with theirs, in the same movement. The truth of the conditions depends in part on the process they help to open, and on their place in the configuration of this open process. Now, what can the criterion be for such a responsible assumption, if we live in an era when neither “cosmos” nor “nature” can any longer be “criteria” in this sense? 4.9. An assumption in consciousness (detachment) Consciousness always begins intertwined with complexes of conditions, organized around motives, against which it does not have the required distance. It lacks not only depth, but also coherence. It attaches itself to given complexes, which it receives, constituted, from the outside. These complexes are partially autonomous. They operate independently, deploying effective logics on their own, and are thus capable of achieving defined ends. These logics tend to close in on themselves, thus presenting themselves as necessary, from a definitorial perspective. Access to the possible, even partial and temporary, is a one-off release of consciousness from necessity. It partially abstracts itself from certain traits that made it biased as the consciousness of a “particular” individual and thus acquires a certain freedom. A complex of conditions closed around a motive expresses a partial determination of the will, which is separated and opposed to the freedom of the other actors. It thus lacks the freedom that cannot be satisfied with being that of an individual separated from others.

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When we speak of “consciousness” (not biased by a unilateral motive), there is always a moral dimension in the background. It is a “moral consciousness”. This aspect must come to the forefront. It translates “freedom” which is the truth of consciousness. As long as it is fragmented, constantly jumping from one complex of conditions to another, this freedom is very precarious. It only becomes effective with a continuity that is established in the journey within the possible, and therefore its viability. Through its interest in the freedom of others, it ensures a conciliation that makes its own freedom effective. Ensuring this viability requires us to re-measure, for ourselves, the truth of not only this or that complex of conditions with which we are in affinity. It asks us to evaluate the conditionality itself of the conditions, in its broadest aspect, its meaning-giving aspect. It requires thinking of the process in its configurations, which may turn out to be ethical. It will be the task of the second part of this book to identify some of them. This ethical aspect (as impartial attention to the different freedoms, to the different motives involved) must be endured from one end to the other, and transformed in the sense of a coherence of viability that is ensured over the long term. This ensures sustainability. This is going back upstream to the creative element of the possible. It is not a question of a “determined” “origin” that would have to be located in relation to time, where it would unfold what would already be included in its determination. This is not a “before” of the big bang. The process can be found immanently in each situation, in a withdrawal that releases possibilities, rediscovering a sense of contingency at work, a sense of the conventionality of conditions that were given as necessary. This ascent is achieved by gradually distancing the various objective determinations. It is a detachment from these conditions and a search for the “right” distance to adopt with regard to them, with a view to their assumption. This good distance is the one where the freedom of each person is no longer divided from that of all. That doesn’t mean it is easy to find. Any ascent into the possible is a danger. A consciousness begins by being “determined”, biased. It is then abandoned to external incentives and finds its driving force only in pleasure, fear and affliction. It is thus reactive, not properly reified, but abandoned, like a fallow field. It is a consciousness that believes it can be free without sincerity. It is a partial, conditioned awareness of a relationship between interests that remains closed to a specific sector, and cannot therefore be maintained in ethical innervation, in a viable possible at work in a situation. This consciousness is biased when it is recognized under certain efficient conditions to the exclusion of others.

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Gradually, the consciousness recovers the conditional determinations in itself and assumes them. It is no longer satisfied with just receiving them ready-made. It no longer passively takes up the partial coherences they present to it. It weighs them up. It feels them. It restructures them in the broadest sense. This does not mean that an actor, you or I, is capable of becoming a hyper-scientist, mastering all knowledge. What is required is rather the impartiality of an upstream position, in latency, in the coherence of which the theoretical conditional elaborations, which will take place in an effective processual ascent, each offering its own condition, will have to be adjusted. This consciousness progressively absorbs the divisions that were going through it and made it biased. It overcomes contradictions between complexes of conditions. It tests itself in its moral determination, and brings together its different aspects. It therefore gains in continuity and confidence. It becomes able to assume the conditions from a moral perspective, inscribing them in an ethical (and therefore free) viability of the possible. It is not free in that it delivers something new, something never seen before, a completely new condition. Rather, it will be by delivering a position from which the different effective conditions will find themselves ordered according to a viable continuity for everyone. The most important thing for this is that a consciousness is sincere with itself and with others. This will be one of the criteria of the ethical process developed in Part 2 of this book. From this perspective, sincerity does not express a subjective disposition, a state of mind of an individual “subject”. But, as an objective impartiality at work, it can, with patience, unravel the tangles where a consciousness began to be, entangled with scattered complexes of conditions. In a context of innovation and research, it finds, each time, a state of a certain question that it must appropriate, in order to immanently understand the problems encountered by the viability of the conditions that are already effective, in the acquired knowledge. This appropriation will likely lead to a redefinition of the problematic scope of the issue, each time in context. By gathering, collecting and absorbing the divisions, and reassessing the conditions, this consciousness establishes viability, based on its roots in the precise situation in which it finds itself. It is no longer guided by pleasure, fear and affliction (subjective determinations), but recognizes them as relative and transitory. Why? Because pleasure, fear and affliction make the viability of the possible dependent on external goods. It becomes an external relation, which is not immanently gathered in consciousness. One only sees the efficiency of the logics implemented, forgetting the effectiveness (ethical viability).

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Once this viability has been established by a proven knowledge of what depends on it alone, the consciousness understands the conditions according to the creative ordering that emerges from its unique journey, in its relationship to the knowledge at work. A unique, but constant and resolute journey leads the consciousness from its initial bias, intertwined with various complexes of conditions, to a serenity of knowledge, established in a viability of the experienced possible in context. This is particularly important for research and innovation. Precisely because the consequences cannot be predicted in their diversity, far from it, attention must be paid to the process of the possible that is accessible in a situation. The question of what makes the logic implemented effective or efficient must come to the forefront. Even more so, the question must be asked as to what the different structures of a process may be, and in particular whether some of them may prove to be ethical. The consciousness, maintaining the specific features of its journey, becomes universal, able to grasp the relevance of the conditions at work in a situation, and to let their balanced “archipelago” emerge in latency. This word implies a “latent” totality, which cannot be reduced to exhaustiveness in a coherence plan. This does not mean that, during this journey, the consciousness has reassessed all human knowledge. It is rather that it has thought in depth about the conditionality of the conditions that make up this knowledge, which corresponds rigorously to the time when the situation arises. More precisely, in the current situation of knowledge, it will be a question of thinking in depth about the effective processual structuring of processes, and what links it to effectiveness and efficiency. It will be necessary to consider the status of “conditions” according to the sciences that provide them: physics, chemistry, sociology, psychology, economics, politics, meta-ethics; according to their specificity and their reciprocal relationships. This is the price to pay for measuring our responsibility. Not a complete “one”, but a polycentric and disparate whole whose “criteria” must be found from within the situation shared by the actors. These criteria are objective characteristics that make it possible to recognize the structuring of a process as ethical. The universality of consciousness lies in the fact that, whatever the situation in which it is involved, it is able to adopt “the right distance” from it, and to determine each time the archipelago of relevant conditions, according to an objective criterion. This “good distance” should be seen as a reference to Pascal, who emphasizes that there is an optimal distance from which to look at each individual painting

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[PAS 63, fragment 21]. This does not strictly mean that there are not “several” good distances. But, practically, in every situation, one perspective will be less biased than the others, in that it will not favor a specific interest. It is difficult enough to reach one let alone be overburdened by the assumption that we have to choose from among several. When reading the Bible, for Pascal, this point is charity16 [PAS 63, fragment 270]. It offers the “right distance” for this reading. I have just indicated that there is practically no need to seek to prove the uniqueness of the criteria, and in fact, we will identify four of them in Part 2 of this book. But that of charity nevertheless has the character of not making a “determination”. It is therefore particularly suitable for expressing a position in the “latency” of the possible. In considering a situation, one could argue that there is an optimal point of view which may, depending on the case, be one or the other of the criteria of the ethicality of a process, which the consciousness must adopt, if it wants to assume it, and therefore be responsible towards it, towards all the actors it brings together [LEN 12, p. 93 ff.]. This distance is also that of the “autonomy” of the will in relation to the various biases and partialities that are likely to affect it in this situation. 4.10. Consciousness and attachment How can we understand that consciousness is not determined by any attachment? An attachment can occur with any condition that the consciousness can seize, with which the consciousness can identify and which makes it concrete. It is then a determination which remains in terms of representation, and therefore only deals with representations that are homogeneous to this determination, according to a defined coherence. It makes effectiveness itself a homogeneous condition for this coherence. From then on, this is no longer an ascent into the possible, but an articulation of conditions in a single plane. It is a pre-determination of effectiveness that prevents access to it. An example would be the Kantian “unconditioned” (Unbedingt), towards which a Trieb, an impulse of Reason17, tends, condemned to remain unsatisfied since 16 Of course, readings according to other criteria have not been lacking, starting, as Bernard Reber reminds me, with historical-critical readings. 17 The “unconditioned” would then be a gap out of the sequence of conditions, which is absurd.

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according to him everything that can appear in intuition is conditioned. Indeed, from the point of view of the phenomenon, there are and always will be conditions of conditions up to infinity. If the consciousness tries to set an ultimate condition, where all these sequences converge as they begin (or end), there would be a separate, defined and external term for the sequences of conditions that would decisively condition these sequences. In the terms of this book, it would determine these sequences while being indifferent to the innervation of the possible. If it is not indifferent to it, it is itself, in a specific sense, the possible, in the form of an ultimate determination; the possible would be, in one way or another, involved. But the possible is not a determination. It is one element: the opening of an ethical viability, accessible at any time during the process. The determination, through its ultimate dimension, would either be external to the possible, would be separated from it (being indifferent to it); or it would involve it and the determination would then prevail over the process. But freedom, ethical effectiveness, is the assumption of every condition in the process of the possible; it requires that the consciousness be constantly restored to its viability and therefore never determined by a condition. It is an effective consciousness. What would a consciousness aware of its effectiveness be like? Its continuity would be easy, but it would never deviate from the ethical innervation of the possible. Detached from conditions in the sense that it does not allow itself to be determined by them, it would retain a very differentiated perception of them and could evaluate them in context. Thus, it would always be contextualized itself. Far from floating on conditionalities that would follow one another to infinity, it would always come back to the specific situation in question, which is a question for it at a specific moment. Understanding the relevance of each condition, it would be able to assume each in its own order. This is not “one” theory among others but expresses a universal, such as responsibility, avoiding any determination of consciousness, any identification of consciousness with a condition. To be more explicit, the “achievement”18 that this effectiveness represents does not come from a “nature” that would be opposed to a “culture”, or even a “technique”. There is nothing “naturalistic” about this. Nor is it a “community” that would attempt to “carry out” and “appropriate” its “own” essence, which would ultimately be that of “humans”, according to an analysis that has been made of historical fascism and communism. The consciousness or the possibility that it expresses and liberates is not “immanent” in the sense that it would be “something” that is “already there” before it. The contingent process is conducted in the latency

18 Non-attachment is not an “end” to which one could attach oneself, but a spontaneous accomplishment of consciousness, which can occur after much work.

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of the possible, where many complexes of conditions, relevant or not, operate depending on the situation. Beings are always “downstream”. Knowledge takes shape and becomes more precise downstream, and we only have access to beings through the knowledge we have about them. One being, with its noticeable features, is always very far downstream. They are discreet, even if they are the only one you can see. Continuity is at stake in the latency where these traits are being prepared, in the contingent indecision. The possible, or the latency, in its continuity, is upstream, alone. 4.11. Political pluralism and comparability of value systems The reference points put forward here give full intelligibility to “pluralism”, which is only possible at the level of meta-ethics. It can be argued that a value is only fully realized when it is integrated into a value system, itself patiently decanted over a long period of time into a given “tradition”. In this case, a value derives its meaning from its rigorous relationship to this organic system, whose coherence is reduced to a higher value, which plays the role of the “keystone”19. This architectural construction of an edifice of values shared by a historically constituted community is sometimes considered essential to the legitimacy of these values, which then express an “identity”. A problem arises when several value systems come to coexist in a single political space. This is because, at one time or another, questions of priority between these various value systems will have to be raised. One of the temptations then is to build a meta-system of values (neutral as to the concepts of the good involved), where a new value comes to play the role of the keystone. Utilitarianism thus proceeded with “the greatest amount of happiness”, therefore the maximum happiness for the greatest number. But was it “happiness”, “pleasure” or “well-being”? And what about justice? It was then the will to build a beautiful univocal architecture of values, with a clearly identified summit (which is also a foundation), that came to be questioned. Is the solution to continue to seek a single foundation that would crown and reconcile the different value systems?

19 In reality, such a system can be more or less hierarchical, and is not necessarily monistic. But the generality of the appropach should be maintained.

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One might think that there is no alternative. Without even mentioning two “value systems”, how can two values be compared without relating them, at least implicitly, to a third? Attempts to escape this foundation tropism seem to be producing ambiguous results. It has been suggested that what makes it possible to decide is the importance of values for someone’s life [GRI 86]. The values are thus reduced to a dimension where they make sense. They are no longer considered as simple conditions, encountered or built in a tradition. They are valued for the role they play in the life of the person who is related to them. But isn’t this a “super-value”? The importance of a value, the way a person relates to it, becomes itself a condition, expressed in an abstract way. Where we thought we could identify the interplay between values, from the way they are appropriate, this appropriation becomes a condition, which closes the gap between values by reiterating the forgetting of the possible. But can we not level the playing field of values? Does a hierarchy of values necessarily take place in a single plane of coherence? For Ruth Chang20, there would be an overhanging value with plural values like its parts. The first would not be a moral value, but a prudential value21. Thus the reference to Aristotle and his concept of “prudence” (φρόνησις [phronesis]) in the choice is a recurrent recourse to the plurality of values. In fact, it should not be forgotten that it is always a concrete person who makes the assessment, in context, regardless of the care with which the values have been organized. The criteria must not make the choice “automatic”. The values could be valid on two levels, according to two coherences: the determined values being valid on the basis of the validity of prudence. This tiering would allow play, and therefore the opening of the possible, in the articulation of values by opening up a depth where latency would find expression, and therefore a viability of this possible. But these two coherences should not be conceived according to the same model. If it is to be possible to identify a set of possibilities, and therefore a viability, one of the two coherences, that of prudence, must remain open and therefore must not be exhaustive. Allow me to use the word “logical” here in the sense that it had in my previous book, that of a coherent articulation of conditions accessible in context in order to efficiently achieve the goals we have set ourselves [LEN 16]. In a cohabitation on a territory, there will be a plurality of value systems and therefore a plurality of 20 [AMP 98]. See [HSI 16] for an update on these attempts. 21 Even if we could discuss it to know if it concerned a “virtue” more than a “value” as Robert Gianni indicated to me.

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“foundations” of these systems and the “criteria” that they can represent. Building a unique architecture through trial and error over a long period of time, even when it results in very intellectually attractive systems, does not say anything about what to do if several of these systems “meet”. The risk is therefore that the balance of power alone will decide this. It is not a question of talking immediately about wars, but of a balance of bare forces within society. A foundation arises, as has been said, from the transfer to an “onto-logical” condition of the creativity at work in the possible through a situation. However, while this transfer may be useful to legitimize an order, it is not in itself necessary, and so the foundation itself is not necessary. It is relative, not only to each situation, but to all the other principles that may be opposed to it. The question is this: for a decision to be taken in context, do we really need to compare several value systems in abstracto and in their entirety? This does not seem reasonable. Rather, the values that are “relevant” to the situation in each system should be the ones considered. It would be a question of keeping an open coherence, or even several coherences that interact without possible totalization. And, in fact, the decision will not involve “only” values. The use of a specific condition, for example a “value”, an “interest”, a “right”, etc., immediately induces a “perspective” that quickly closes in by reducing the entire spectrum to itself. Thus, we can speak of “values” in the utilitarian terms of “pleasure” or “well-being”, and moral principles are therefore integrated in this perspective as a means to maximize these values. If we speak of “interests”, we will distinguish between selfish interests and altruistic interests, and pure interest in knowledge, and this other perspective will close in again, obscuring the entire spectrum. Each partial coherence tends to close in unilaterally, and therefore necessarily, and to obscure a living relationship with the possible, whose viability is ethical. Ethics is this repeated absence, constantly regained, of exhaustive totalization. It is free in relation to this exhaustiveness. It seems that if we are to consider as a whole the spectrum of conditions inscribed in the possible at work in the situation, we will have to deploy not only “values” but also “interests” and “rights”, with a more rigorous definition of each of these terms. There will therefore be “discontinuities” between these conditions. And each time, a logic will have to be implemented in order to restore effective continuity between them. Should the distinction between “abstract values” and “concrete value bearers” be taken into account? To the extent that we renounce foundationalism, this does not seem necessary. This recourse is understandable if we want to refer a single value to a plurality of concrete “bearers”. But that’s not the problem here.

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“Values”, “interests” and “rights” are here, as “conditions”, “knowledge”. This does not, of course, mean that they constitute propositional knowledge about nature. It can be knowledge about social life, how to maintain order in a society, how to treat someone fairly, etc. This knowledge is therefore referred to a “concrete bearer” of value, but not as an “abstract” structure. As knowledge, it has “meaning” only in its relationship to what is “experienced” by the actor. And this knowledge is implemented in a viable way based on the formulation of a logic that rigorously articulates the relevant conditions. This is not a perspective relativism. Indeed, it is up to the actor to find a means of access to ethical innervation, to the viable possible each time, in context, in which only freedom will be effective. Although each one is taken from a given perspective, the access to the possible that it will release will be unique, a unique expression, each time, of the universal, in that it takes into account all the relevant conditions. To be coherent and effective, a logic does not necessarily have to be architectonic, and certainly not uni-foundational. It must highlight a partial coherence that cuts across the different systems present in their joints relevant to the situation. This is not just a matter of coherence. The challenge is to ensure viability in our relationship to the possible, which will be enabled by ensuring that all the relevant conditions are consistent, and relate to each other without closing intelligibility in one single, exhaustive and necessary plan. But if there is no fundamental condition, how will we find criteria to decide between the opposing logics? The criterion could always be to support as many as possible of the relevant conditions. This does not require a foundation. However, a correct understanding of relevance requires a capacity to step back and to go back upstream from the logic at work. This ascent can be expressed as “nondetermination of consciousness through language”. Expressions are taken up in the consciousness according to their circumstantial importance. They must not impose themselves on the consciousness as an attachment, a determination. This would open the door to flattery, and therefore to the corruption of will, determined by a biased condition. The integrity of the consciousness is not a “super-value” that would play a foundational role in relation to other values. If this were the case, the consciousness would be determined by this expression: “non-determination of consciousness through language”, which it would in all circumstances put above other values, and to which it would therefore be “attached”. But if detachment gives, as the achievement of consciousness, access to a viable process that is put forward, and therefore provides the possibility of this viability, consciousness will be available to weigh up the relevance of the conditions involved and its degrees, and formulate a logic that takes them all into account.

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This detachment is indeed a “freedom” from the diverse sociological, psychological and economic conditioning that can monopolize consciousness. At the same time, this freedom is ethical. To be fully free, it needs the freedom of others, and it ensures that this is preserved as much as it depends on it. It is therefore a question of identifying, in a one-off way, a logic that satisfies (it is an accomplished freedom), effectively (it deploys the possible already at work in the situation), and in the broadest way (according to the entire archipelago formed by the interests, values and rights) the expectations of the actors. This raises the question of the objective criteria that would demonstrate that all relevant conditions have been taken into account. It will be the task of the second part of this book to try to identify them, in a philosophical dialogue with Chinese traditions, themselves very rich in ancient and abundantly commentated thoughts on the process. Before that, a conclusion will be drawn to reconsider the achievements of this first part.

Conclusion to Part 1

Rather than asking for criteria to establish who is responsible after the fact, it is more interesting to question the means available to make oneself effectively responsible. This “effectiveness” leads us to question the avatars of the classical, religious view of Providence in the form of Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” (which will be more fully explored at the end of this book) and Hegel’s “Ruse of Reason”. The problem is not only that these two models assert that actors do not know what they are doing, but that they come to impose the idea that the bad reasons (for action) are good reasons, suggesting that the good reasons are bad reasons. For Hegel1, great heroes forge Empires, according to their passions, where the World-Spirit will awaken. They create something quite different from what they think they are doing: satisfying their appetite for power. As a result, what are considered, morally, as bad reasons – the thirst for personal power, purely private interests – become, without the actors’ knowledge, the instruments of an achievement that exceeds them, and that they would certainly not have succeeded in producing if they had deliberately proposed it. Bad reasons (that are morally condemned) become good reasons (which allow the fulfillment of the World-Spirit, or economic balances beneficial to all). The problem arises when good reasons (from a moral point of view: limiting selfish appetites, acting with humility) become bad reasons. This is visible in a novel like Darkness at Noon, where the good Communist Rubashov is led to clearly do moral evil: to torture and let innocent people die from whom fraudulent confessions

1 It should be remembered that Hegel does not deny either morality or ethics, but relativizes them within the framework of his system. It is, as with Smith, the epigones that are to blame for retaining only part of the doctrine.

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of treason are extracted [KOE 40]. For him, this is required by the fulfilment of the communist ideal, which absolutely exceeds any individual or personal consideration. In a convergent way, but on the other half of the world, moral considerations have come to be pushed out of the economy, considered as “externalities” that would be harmful to the establishment of balances at the general level, the latter being presumed to occur spontaneously as long as the agents each rationally pursue their own personal interests. However, the philosophical significance of this exclusion from moral motives will have to be established within the broader framework that will be identified in the last part of this book. What can be said at this stage? What model of “effectiveness” has so far emerged which will later become a radical reworking of these ruinous avatars of providentialism? In an upstream ascent, towards the possibility of closed objects offered by the situation, active totalities of propensity emerge within this possible, and their gradual fall downstream is sketched out over the course of inventive revivals reintegrating the knowledge acquired into the perspective opened by the new condition. The defining characteristic of a latent totality is that it takes up within itself the whole spectrum of conditions relevant in the context: thus diverse interests, but also values, rules, objectives, rights etc. When the drape of the possible falls, we can see, possibly with surprise, that problems that we did not think were linked are nevertheless solved by the same minor displacement. On the other hand, problems that we considered to be associated can turn out to be different and follow different logics. Taking into account this spectrum, one cannot, while retaining effectiveness, attach oneself exclusively and restrictedly to a single identity (for example that of a Communist) to which one would sacrifice all other interests and affiliations, or even the interests or the rights of others... Similarly, economic “efficiency”, commonly represented by the Pareto optimum, loses not only all legitimacy, but all meaning (what are, in fact, “utilities”?) as soon as it is considered in an abstract way, apart from a “totality” open and at work in context. It is not untrue to say that humans are generally doing something else as well as what they intend to do. It is probably even quite rare that we do “only” what we propose to do. A decision has many consequences, and in an increasingly contingent context, they cannot be “controlled”. But there are, often at the margins, positions of lucidity, which can allow an fair assessment of the situation2. This may be a

2 As someone like Karl Jaspers was during World War 2.

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“balancing” against a dominant perspective that is too focused on a particular identity or interest. It is therefore always in relation to a latent totality of propensity, in the possible, that a decision must be made. And to listen to such a totality, it is necessary to start a process of ascent in the possible, upstream of the purely factual aspect of the situation. From there, how can we begin to make an initial response to the questions that were raised in the introduction? Can we think of responsibility independently of will? Thinking of the “process” deployed in “totalities” of propensity makes it possible to go beyond notions of responsibility linked exclusively to individual will, and even, on another level, to a will that is legitimate because it is that of the majority. What is taken into account is the heterogeneity of the spectrum of motivations at work, with, of course, weightings that help in the choice. But the responsible decision is not necessarily the one that receives the approval of the majority, even a very large majority. If a large number of people declare themselves in favor of the death penalty, this does not ipso facto mean that it is “responsible” to maintain or restore the death penalty. Consideration of data relating to human rights, proven miscarriages of justice and certain indisputable values may be stronger than a numerical majority. Moreover, even if the individual cannot grasp all the consequences of their decisions, they can grasp, in context, the spectrum of motivations at work and proceed to their relational examination. Thus, one’s will to be free must move in the element of the possible, realized in a context that one is already moving through. To go back upstream in a situation is to identify a possibility that is already there, even if it has been forgotten. An accomplished consciousness, where divisions and determinations have been absorbed, will generally express the demands of the spectrum in the most balanced, open, pluralistic way, even if it may happen that several may prove difficult to decide on. Being responsible, for the actors concerned, will be to identify this option and to rally to it, even at the cost of sacrificing certain motives, which in reality may prove irrelevant. What should this creativity of responsibility be? How can it be marked out, not to reduce it to the already known, but to make it possible? One enemy of this creativity is a certain way of apprehending possibilities, like boxes that are exclusive to each other, and saturating a space together where they

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would leave no gaps. This exhaustiveness of pre-given, pre-constituted possibilities is not just a theoretical aberration. It is also a dramatic impoverishment of the creativity necessary to assume responsibility. Keeping the spectrum of motivations open and not rejecting any a priori, and maintaining a living relationship with the possibilities that are emerging in latency, upstream, is essential to the exercise in action, by everyone, of their responsibility. Thus, the question of responsibility must be linked to that of the injunction issued to each person to find in him or herself a living relationship to the ethical innervation at work in the situation. If this access is not open, it is not because there is no possibility in play but because we have not been able to release it and, therefore, we will be in default with regard to this responsibility. Research and innovation deal with effective logics which link available conditions. Going back upstream in a given situation will return these conditions to their contingency, thus freeing up possibilities between these conditions, i.e. achieving their conventionality. Upstream, they present themselves inextricably as posed and as encountered. This ascent will trigger a process. “Marking” this process may not be the appropriate word. In any case, the assumption by each of us of our responsibilities takes place in a movement that is taking shape according to certain conditions at work and that are already effective in the situation. The actor may take a position on one or more relevant fundamental conditions. He or she may also set a new condition in relation to them, which may lead to a restatement of the relevance criteria. Creativity today takes place in relation to effective conditions and takes up their effectiveness to take it further, by identifying possibilities that were unavailable. This is not only a “threat” related to innovation, but also the chance to be responsible for it. How can we redefine responsibility in a context of radical contingency? At this stage, the concepts of “autonomy” and “consciousness” must be brought into play. Autonomy is not only related to a law that we give ourselves with others, and that we recognize as “our” law, being at the same time the law of the other persons concerned. It encourages us to recognize that our freedom depends on that of others. We are only freed by the fact that other people are free because of us. The moral law

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we give ourselves is freedom3. It is therefore immediately freedom as law. And we share this freedom with others. It is only possible as a shared freedom. Responsibility is only possible because this freedom is shared from the outset and only because of the sharing of this freedom. Being “auto-eleutherionomy”, it gives “itself” “freedom” as “law”. This does not mean that it cannot give itself a value, a principle, a specific right. But this will depend on the context, and on the balance that will emerge, in a given situation between the different elements of the motivational spectrum, in particular between the rights and duties of each individual. We will give ourselves this value because it ensures our freedom through the freedom of the other people involved. And they will be “all” the people involved, concerned or affected, since the freedom of a person – in the strict sense that is ours here and therefore as an effective process, without biased determination of consciousness – does not support the servitude of another. And to give oneself a law, a value, a right, is first of all to verify that it gives freedom to all, to all those affected. To be free by this law, so must others. This does not entail an “attachment”, which would be a determination of consciousness, and would mean that one would be “dependent” on such and such a person, or on such and such a law. Freedom is above all a sovereign “detachment”, which does not imply a separation. No “dependence”: this is, one could say, contained from the outset in what makes “freedom”. That my freedom is linked to that of others does not therefore mean that the integrity of my consciousness depends on possibly hostile decisions, whether they take them voluntarily, freely or not. There is no “special connection” to an ethnic, political, religious or other group that exclusively “determines” us, and that would prevent us from recognizing a multitude of other affiliations and interests. For such a special connection would be dead and would hinder our freedom. By enclosing a community of belonging, it would signal a separation from ethical innervation, which is openness and creativity. This does not mean that we cannot recognize very strong connections with this or that group, commitments that mark our lives profoundly and lastingly. But these connections must not turn into dependencies. They cannot be lifelines to which we cling, because this has nothing to do with freedom. One can be very strongly engaged in community life, but freedom is there when the consciousness remains perfectly detached in this engagement. This does not 3 This is less true of the legal system, to which all citizens subscribe only in the abstract. But laws in this sense are only part of the motivational spectrum at work.

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mean, let us not forget, that it is separate. It remains connected to events, and able to recognize and evaluate the different motives at work. And it does so freely, and not in dependence, insofar as it assumes these motives, far from being determined by them. Engagement needs freedom; freedom cannot become a slave of engagement. Consciousness is pure, completely detached, when it evaluates and compares motivations. Its freedom is established because it establishes the freedom of all the actors concerned by the decision. Fully active in the context, it cannot be enslaved by the non-freedom of some, since they are involved in the situation and therefore it can always fight for their freedom4. Once again, it cannot be said that the connection that binds “my” freedom to that of others is a “dependence”, because it means that I must do everything that depends on me to ensure freedom for them. It implies that not only should no limitation of their freedom come from any of my actions or decisions, but that I should also have an influence in the debates so that this freedom is guaranteed to them, it being understood that in principle I will be supported by these others. In the event of a rift between groups, in this respect, the relationship to ethical innervation is already broken, and what can be done to restore it is of the utmost importance. Autonomy as freedom is reflected in a consciousness that is not determined by any active condition. Freedom, for this consciousness, will be to tirelessly take back into it, in the element of the possible, in its ethical innervation, any effective condition and thus to assume it. “Autonomy” and “consciousness” are central to the possibility of responsible conduct in a context of radical contingency. They ensure action in their effectiveness. Can we return from there to the inaugural question of the introduction: that of a contradiction between the need for a more just situation and reconciliation with the given situation? If reconciliation must be thought of on the basis of the integrity of consciousness (which is not something that is only individual, since the freedom of the persons concerned is involved) which makes it possible to assume the conditions, then the gap between the situation and what it ought to be will still have to be regained between these changing conditions in the need for a balance, and it will never be fully satisfactory for all actors from the point of view of their interests alone.

4 It is not a question of doing it for them in a paternalistic way. But it is necessary to analyze a conflict situation in order to recover it from a position, upstream, where all interests are taken into account, each in their own place, in a consciousness that assumes and does not suffer the determination of a partial motive.

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Two other important consequences of the shift of emphasis from an “ontological” theory to “processual” thought should also be noted. First, we are faced with a mutual belonging of the deontic and the factual, mediated by the “position” occupied in the situation. One is legitimate only through, and with the support of, the other. The rule (principle, institutional rule, value etc.) is only relativized in an effective process of the possible and as long as it does not determine consciousness. The concrete process is deployed only through explicit (moral, institutional, etc.) rules and does not imply the exclusive and univocal definition of a “concept of good”. In this respect, there is an indeterminacy of the ethical possible at work, the content coming only from the situation. In this way, the relevance of the term “ethical innervation” can be better understood. It marks the need for the moment of the rule, of the institution. Marx did not take it into account enough, he who predicted the decline of “superstructures”, and thought only to keep the ethical moment 5. There is a moral “ramification”. But it is done “in” and “by” the defined ethics of a shared freedom. Otherwise, the rules are always at risk of withering away in a mechanical and, paradoxically, necessary use 6. The other consequence that can be reported is this: there should be no “skepticism” about “values” or “rights” here. They constitute “knowledge”, as long as they are just in context. This does not of course mean, ontologically, that there would “exist”, somewhere, “objects” which would be values or rights and that we could “encounter” through our intelligence7. Nor is it, on the other hand, that they are reducible to “subjective” states of mind or desires, and therefore unfounded in this sense. This would continue to require a basis. These two positions imply a correspondence theory of truth that does not apply in the context of processual

5 Marx calls for an effectiveness that assumes that the question of efficiency could be resolved once and for all, and that superstructures, expressing a specific moment in the production process, could be abandoned with the liberating recognition of this process [MAR 82]. We have to reply that the effective process does not have, contrary to what it sets out, a τελος [telos] which would be structurally targeted. It has no assignable breakpoint. And innervation is always based on “values”, “rules” and “laws” and cannot avoid institutional structuring, even if it can be changed in depth. 6 I say “paradoxically” because we generally think that the application of a rule is contingent, subject to the effort of a will that sets it. In reality, if we have no distance from a rule, moral or otherwise, it becomes, by forgetting the possible, necessary. 7 There is no “place” for conditions, but this or that condition is always available, whether invented or not, stored or not, for the consciousness involved in the situation.

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thinking. Values and rights are objectively valid as knowledge8 tuned to the experience of the common life of the actors for the situated consciousness. As a transition: sketch mapping A language always draws a map, in the sense that it is deployed in both the dimension of sound and the graphic sign. But it seeks to translate into this plane a dimension of meaning that goes back to depth. However, this depth can only be annexed, through the topography it reveals, in a very imperfect way. If we consider the approximate sphere of the Earth, it cannot be transferred to a plane without being “torn” or “distorted” in some way [JOL 99, p. 40]. If you want to keep one property, you do so at the expense of others. Respecting the ratio of a shape means deforming the surfaces. Accurate tracking of surface ratios means distances cannot be maintained. However, this is also the case for language. When considering very large scales, the curvature of the globe can be ignored and the deformations introduced can be considered minimal. But, on a small scale, if we want to look at the Western world and China, the plan disintegrates or deforms significantly. The tear introduced by languages, each engaged in its own perspectives, is symbolically represented by the “planispheres” (generally, the interrupted projections, of which Goode’s is the best known), where selected cuts, sacrificing the oceans, allow a representation of the land in a single plane [JOL 99, p. 57]. This fragmentation, tearing or deformation of surfaces reflects those of the perspectives opened by the different languages, which, to faithfully express one aspect, must deform the others. This is even the case at a conceptual level, which captures in a simplified language, a formal language, defined coherences, and is thus even more inclined to develop partial perspectives. What is said here about the two-dimensional nature of languages obviously applies to both alphabetic and ideogrammatic languages. On both sides highly original graphic and sound devices play a role. How can we compare an alphabetic configuration, where the sound of words is articulated in a syllabic way, with

8 “Knowledge” is taken here in the sense of “formulation that gives grip and enlightens a function”. We cannot therefore apply the requirement of a correspondence theory of truth, which requires that a value judgment correspond to an object-value, just as a physical judgment corresponds to a set of facts of experience. In reality, common life offers a very rich experience, but certainly not a pre-determined one that can be broken down into identifiable “units”.

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another where the sound, like meaning, is associated with ideographic representations that have undergone a process of simplification, ideation and schematization before entering infinite recombinations, each time giving words? The grammar itself is different each time, making use, in Chinese, of processual reference points, a given word sometimes indicating only that a process begins or ends, whereas Indo-European languages favor the substantive/predicate scheme. Nevertheless, on both sides, what they want to transcribe is the depth of a meaning, which is none other than the reconciliation we have spoken of, and which can only constantly avoid the grips of a two-dimensional plane, unfolding between sound and the graphic sign. A language can only cut further and further away from this deep meaning. In this way it closes a partial perspective each time. To reject determination is to remain in a gesture that is always in the form of a sketch, which refuses this perspectival confinement, and the tearing of a self-confident logic that always progresses in the same direction, adequately expressing certain data at the cost of an ever-increasing deformation of other data. Thinking in depth does not mean that we should “go out” of the language plane, which remains a good, meaningful approximation on a very large scale. And our lives take place on a very large scale. This does not mean that we should not allow ourselves to widen our views considerably. How can we stay at the level of the sketch, of an open sketch on the depth of meaning, which will constantly correct its approach to data towards “more” relevance? How can we make language the challenge of a wisdom that goes beyond language and whose main gesture is to measure this disruptive, perspective planning of language? This can be attempted by exploring another language, as far from ours as possible. The thought of a non-determining language, without being reflective in the Kantian sense (since the two are determined by their reciprocal relationship), can be compared to those traditions that are long-standing thoughts of the process. These are the traditions of China: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism (in the very specific forms it has taken in this country). A responsibility is therefore engaged here in this thought which is not content to “map” nor to “compare”, but seeks a teaching in these distant thoughts of the process. This teaching will have to be critically assimilated, in a way that can itself become a cross-teaching, for the Western world as well as for China.

PART 2

Four Criteria of the Effectiveness of a Process

Ethically Structured Processes, First Edition. Virgil Cristian Lenoir. © ISTE Ltd 2019. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

5 Summary of What was Learned in Part 1 Using the Example of GMOs

Let us consider, too briefly to reach a definitive position, but enough to serve as an example, the difficult case of GMO cultivation. In the 1980s, France made significant investments in GMO research. At the time, it was at the forefront of this field, which was considered very promising. However, in 2014, a law was passed prohibiting the cultivation of GMOs on French soil1. This question involves many “conditions”, in particular motivations, which define a broad spectrum including interests, values and the rights of the persons concerned. Let us first consider the “interests” at stake. There are the interests of large companies, which are financial in nature. There is the purely scientific interest linked to research: knowledge about the living world, knowledge about the genetic basis of its evolution, knowledge about the consequences, whether desirable or not, of genetic manipulation. There are interests related to the need to feed an ever-growing world population, even if these are generally overestimated. Indeed, effective solutions for developing countries can be much simpler. There are also the huge healthcare costs in the event of dangers that are linked to GMOs and diagnosed too late. What would the relevant “values” be? First, there is the need to feed the world’s rapidly growing population. This problem can be solved, let us repeat, by simpler, 1 See [LEB 16], where the author explains the history of this reversal in a factually well-documented way. He himself, having been an actor in GMO research, adopts a favorable attitude towards their cultivation.

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more directly effective solutions. There is the need to protect the health of consumers, perhaps the most important value. There is the value of a free science not constrained by politicians. There is the value of political responsibility, under which the politician must limit the unbridled appetites of large firms, ready to do anything to increase their profits. The “rights” are mainly those of people not to be used as guinea pigs, not to be exposed, without their consent, to potentially foreseeable dangers, even if they are not properly assessed. It is therefore their right to be respected and not simply treated as objects. But the main issue is the relationship between large firms and small producers. The latter are directly threatened by the development of GMOs. The right of small producers to subsist, compared to large groups, guarantees greater diversity, and is part of an alternative kind of consumption based on what is grown locally. Interests, values and rights define only a sketch of the set of conditions that are relevant in context. If we look at the “situation”, we see that a significant change occurred between 1980 and 2014. A climate favorable to scientific research, inspiring confidence and raised hopes, was followed by a period of mistrust, where the emphasis was instead placed on returning to traditional (in the wake of someone like Pierre Rabhi), “natural” and “ecological” methods; to summarize, where ecosystem resources are used without turning to “violent” action such as genetic modification. This change in the situation is crucial. It can of course be attributed to the media’s influence on public opinion. And, in fact, associations like Greenpeace skillfully use the media to serve their cause. But there is much more to this turn towards ancient knowledge, long put aside in preference for intensive agriculture. An alternative model of development is emerging, and this goes far beyond what we could put down to a fashionable phenomenon. This does not resolve the issue, for it is possible to encourage the rediscovery of traditional knowledge relating to the cultivation of the land without giving up a promising field of scientific research. It is true that the world’s population is still growing and that the area of cultivable land is not growing as fast. Will we be able to feed everyone with a return to this “organic” agriculture that is considered more responsible? On the other hand, doesn’t abandoning genetic research on plants just arbitrarily close a promising avenue? Unfortunately, there are precedents. Let us think of mad cow disease, to mention just one case among a whole series of health scandals. It is no secret that the health of consumers has already been put at risk by the negligence of large companies, and

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this undoubtedly contributes significantly to the mistrust of the population regarding what is seen as a new way for humans to play the sorcerer’s apprentice. Of course, from a scientific point of view, the danger of GMOs to humans has never been rigorously established, nor has its contrary. False rumors have been spread, including that the seeds of transgenic plants are in any case sterile. Again, there are many transgenic plants, which are all very different from each other. Should they be banned purely and simply “en bloc”? Should only research in GMOs be allowed? And if so, how can this be supervised? Not all conditions are necessarily relevant. For example, one argument must be recognized as completely inadequate: that “others are already doing it, and if we do not follow suit, we will fall behind”, blindly following like sheep. Further, a politician cannot responsibly engage in such a gamble that involves the lives of all their constituents. If there is an economic price, well, it will have to be paid. This is the strength of rights. But then you have to be consistent. Can we ban the cultivation of GMOs in France and at the same time import them from abroad, especially for livestock feed? It should be added that the presence of GMOs is indeed permitted in France: a threshold is set at 0.9%, at European level, below which GMO labeling is not necessary. Prohibiting work on plants for research purposes seems, under these conditions, to be an extreme solution. It is precisely through research that we will be able to identify possible risks and their remedies, considering that we are already in fact consuming GMOs. It will, of course, be necessary to establish the conditions for non-dissemination of the seeds into nature. Only scientists can find solutions to this, as long as they are allowed to search within carefully defined limits. The emergence of the paradigm emphasizing the return to traditional knowledge, and the widespread use of “ecological” methods, seems in any case to be a path to explore and develop first of all. It actually takes shape as an ascent into the possible in relation to the knowledge implemented by productivist methods. The major producers, exploiting large domains, implement unilateral coherences, their strategies being “determined” by the rationalization of production, and the optimization of profits, and not taking enough into account the risks associated with these coherences. These risks are primarily health risks, arbitrarily minimizing consequences that have not yet been scientifically tested. But they are also linked to the definition of a productivist model, where small producers no longer have a role. The conditions taken in these productivist coherences come to play as necessary. Producers are caught in a race for productivity. The conditions are imposed on them as necessary.

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A withdrawal, distancing ourselves from these conditions, could restore them to their contingency and unmask their conventionality. The race to productivism is not necessary. It is certainly one of the options available. But the new “paradigm”, that of a return to traditional cultivation, reveals viable possibilities for small producers. It reactivates conditions that had been forgotten in the race for productivity. These are, for example, cultivation methods that do not require the use of pesticides. They rely on natural methods to control certain parasites, methods that have already been tried and tested through the years but that have been forgotten. This ascent into the possible frees up an archipelago of relevant conditions. No longer being subject to a necessary vision of the conditions involved in productivism, the actors regain access to the conditions that have been presented above: values, the rights of consumers and small producers, the interest in maintaining small producers, and local, seasonal varied production. With this ascent, each of these conditions has regained relevance. And it becomes possible again to refer to them, to implement them in a differentiated way. They will be implemented, finding their effectiveness, from the latency dimension, which restores conditions to their contingency and lets them play, each in its own place. In contrast to a situation in which the interests of large firms are monopolizing the market, without leaving room for small producers, alternative conditions are finding their way into the context. Small producers are finding opportunities. And, therefore, they can implement these conditions linked to sustainable production. The viability of the situation, for both producers and consumers, is closely dependent on the effectiveness of these conditions, which had been rejected in favor of productivism. Going back into latency makes it possible to take into account, and endow with effectiveness, the whole spectrum of conditions, from interests to values and rights. As soon as the interests of the major groups no longer determine the situation, the bias they introduced is lifted, and all the conditions can be freely taken up, endowed with effectiveness, in a consciousness (shared by the actors) where each group will find its place as a moment of spectrum deployment. Consciousness will thus “assume” each condition, instead of letting itself be determined by just one of them, the productivist variable. This deployment of the spectrum of conditions, of motives, which is as broad as possible, constitutes a fall of the drape, following the upstream ascent allowed by the new production paradigm. Each condition, each interest, each value and each right – which appeared to be relevant according to the spectrum defined by this ascent, a spectrum that reaches from rights to duties – finds satisfaction according to

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the configuration of the possible which is that of the actual process deployed. A consciousness attentive to the ethical innervation of the possible that passes through the situation in which the actors find themselves, and through which they are actually related to it, assumes every condition that finds its place in the objective process deployed. The freedom of the actor thus appears effective, following a defined condition, in and through the process in which the freedoms of all the actors involved are deployed, according to their condition each time. This consciousness is not grasped in the “determination” of a condition that would separate the freedom of one actor from that of others, thereby ruining it. It “assumes”, escaping bias, all conditions, according to the broadest spectrum, achieving the freedom of all actors according to the concept of this freedom, i.e. as long as it does not imply a separation and a denial of the freedom of others. This interpenetration of freedoms expresses what makes the conditions relevant. Any condition that achieves a freedom that is not separate, not defined in a biased way, will be relevant. It will be thus provided it is assumed, in the situation, in its place, at the same time as the widest spectrum of effective conditions. Effective means that they achieve freedom through the other freedoms involved in the situation. This realization follows an objective structuring of the process at work. This structuring draws an archipelago of relevant conditions, not in a necessary articulation, but according to a fall of the drape. This expression refers to the way in which, in a contingent process, each condition finds its place and is therefore realized by redefining itself in relation to the other effective conditions in a succession, where this redefinition is less and less creative until it reaches saturation, and therefore a necessity, that only an upstream ascent and the beginning of a new process can dissipate. A fall of the drape deploys a contingent process each time according to a defined structure. Each fold (each condition), taken in a constant redefinition in relation to the already effective other folds, is likely to become a determination, and thus to introduce bias into the conduct of the process downstream. The process will only remain viable, and therefore effective in considering the widest spectrum of conditions, if we succeed in maintaining a viability of the possible, the possible that crosses the situation in which we find ourselves, and therefore if we avoid a partial determination of this possible. Such a determination can only be closed in a forgetting of the possible, which it will present as necessary, according to a partial bias. A fall of the drape of the possible, if it is to remain viable, moves with the consideration, each time differentiated, of each relevant condition. Consumers’ rights, in terms of their health, the rights of small producers to offer a diversity of

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available products, and better quality, are endangered by the long dominant productivist paradigm. The return to a sustainable development model is likely to restore viability to the situation, making it effective for a wider spectrum of motives. The step back introduced by the strong return of this model allows us to identify possibilities by returning the productivist model to its contingency. It allows the consideration of a broader spectrum in a new fall of the drape deployed according to an ethically structured process. The rights of consumers and small producers are considered without ruining those of large firms, which still dominate the market. The spectrum is broadened. Therefore, the question with regard to GMOs will not so much be whether or not to allow it, but how to allow it yet ensure that it serves a multitude of relevant motives. How can we avoid it leading to the ruin of small producers? And if, with the current state of research, this cannot be avoided, it should be prohibited without prohibiting the research itself. To deny the interest of knowledge, which is that of science, is a heavy price to pay. This interest must remain effective. The task will therefore be rather, and above all, to test its compatibility with the broadest spectrum of other effective conditions. If this compatibility does not exist for the moment, it should be made possible, in a reconfiguration of the process at work. The fall of the drape will therefore take into account interests, values and rights, which it will redefine in their mutual relations as the process progresses. This process will make each one effective by taking it back into a configuration of the viable possible. Two modes of conditionality should be identified here. First, motives can interact with other motives. This is what we have just seen: the interests, those of large groups and small producers, and the values, the rights of consumers and producers, can be satisfied without one of them being closed off and without cutting off the efficiency of the logic from the effectiveness of the process. However, influenced by an interest in knowledge, there is another interplay between conditions that are objective, expressing concepts patiently developed in a science (the “spin” of electrons, etc.) of meticulous experiments, involving complex instruments (Bell’s inequalities, tested by Alain Aspect, which refuted the theories with hidden variables in favor of quantum mechanics) [DEL 84]. Each new condition, tested accurately, leads to a redefinition of the field of the theory in which it is taken, which it reconfigures from the new position that has been reached. This is also the case for research into GMOs, which responds, strictly speaking, to an interest in knowledge, and deploys a series of conditions patiently developed and tested. The different translations of genetic modifications, their viability, their

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possible dangers, all this is carefully tested against the facts. Deploying an objective field of knowledge, the set of conditions nevertheless remains caught, at another level, in the interaction of the various motives that animate the actors. Once again, this is not a question of settling a debate that is in fact very complex but of establishing, by way of illustration, certain dimensions where the scheme of the “effective process” can work. This finds itself redeployed, in the current situation, on the condition of a return to ancient knowledge, and this dimension must be encouraged. What we should be urgently thinking about is how these “organic” and GMO crops could co-exist before banning GMOs outright. 5.1. The transcendental: four categories of the definitorial, a test for the thought of the process The example that has just been developed seeks to make clear how a process of the possible can be effective, i.e. ethical, in the sense that it achieves freedom for the actors. At the same time, it is clear that not all processes are ethical. More profoundly, the question will therefore be to identify objective “criteria” for the ethicality of a process. These will be reference points that will make it possible to recognize, each time, whether or not the process that is about to begin will be structurally ethical and favorable to the freedom of the actors. Such a criterion should make it possible to establish, in context, the spectrum of relevant conditions. This will be a criterion for the relevance of different conditions. It should make it possible to identify this spectrum as the widest, most complete spectrum available in the situation. The spectrum of relevant conditions, given by the criterion, will be a structural characterization of the initiated process. It will characterize this structure as ethical. This will make it possible to objectively assess the responsibility of research and innovation stakeholders, by understanding the structure of the processes they help to implement. At the same time, this implies a redefinition of responsibility, which is no longer simply compliance in its action with existing rules, but a creative response, in a contingent context, to threats to effective freedoms. This creative, responsible response to threats to freedoms requires lifting what was once a structural dualism for the entire history of thought in the Western world. It has separated theoretical knowledge and ethical reflection, or knowledge of what is and what ought to be.

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This separation is necessary under the definitorial hypothesis, and is explained by its predominance. If a condition is only made possible by other conditions, each of which consists of an exact determination linked to a field of conditions that correspond to this determination, a multitude of condition fields will emerge, each taken in a defined coherence plane, each condition making sense in the game defined by the other conditions operating on the same plane. The researcher is confronted each time with coherence planes that refer only to themself, self-referenced and autonomous. If this is true for two sciences, such as medicine and physics, it is even more so between a constituted science and ethical knowledge. However, here, knowledge is no longer considered as being exclusively taken up in coherence planes that are becoming autonomous, but as able to open a “process” of the effective possible. In this, a condition is not only taken in relation to a defined plane of conditions, but also to the element of the possible at work in the situation. The definitorial hypothesis is thus overwhelmed and relativized. Nevertheless, this hypothesis can teach us something if it is confronted with a thought process. It contains four requirements that will be relativized in the transition to such a thought. It is therefore necessary to focus on the transition from the definitorial hypothesis to effective-processual thinking. This involves, as its main asset, the lifting of the theoretical/ethical separation, which was supported by the definitorial hypothesis. I will confine myself to noting four aspects of this transition without claiming exhaustiveness. Indeed, this would require the consideration of a single homogeneous and exhaustible coherence plane, which would be contradictory with the current undertaking. The originarity of a language, from which the different possibilities downstream would proceed, carries with it a definitorial thought. A definitorial set of conditions2 would be such from four perspectives that meet at least four conditions, which would be categories. They would therefore be part of the transcendental. They would make our relationship to the world possible in the most general way at a given moment. A definitorial process requires a priori categories, which are the “pure” source of possibilities. Not only pure “conditions” but conditions that are the

2 Such a defining game, between conditions that are only possible through other conditions, can also legitimately be called a “process”, but cannot be an “effective process”, which is taken in relation to the element of the possible. The first type of process can only move in a forgetting of the ethical viability of the possible.

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source of the possibility of the other conditions, and therefore of the presentation of things through these conditions. A process is definitorial from the perspective opened by at least one of the following four conditions: a) the pre-definition of the concrete upstream, the latter having already been specified from start to finish. The determinations would always come from previous determinations and the conditions would be opened exclusively by conditions; b) the abstraction of logics, which would come from outside in relation to a manifold whose ordering would be constrained, forced, suffered, in direct opposition to ethical innervation; c) a concept of logics as ontologically “full forms”, from which phenomena would hold a reality which would only be derived, against the concept of a plurality of latent totalities; d) a will able to master its ends, which would know what it wants each time, and would give itself each time the reason for its will, against a concept of an undetermined consciousness. Each of these four conditions expresses, under a defined aspect, what makes definitorial thinking, in opposition, each time, to a defined aspect of the effective process. If the concrete definition precedes itself, this removes any depth from the process. This levels off the upstream and downstream since, even in the latency, the definition is perfect. If the definition is external to its object, and determines it from the outside, this introduces an abstraction, an a priori, which is floating as if above the concrete, “separated” from the ethical innervation that flows through it. If the logic is the fully determined original that the concrete imitates3, from which it derives its determined being, this difference in level – the reference to a full form that would exist above all for itself, the becoming-unfolding as an image, and the indifference of the Form to this image – this one-way relationship would be opposed to a thought of “latent” totalities of the possible and to the continuity that they allow. If a will is locked in a fully controlled game of conditions, if we remember that a will is essentially logical, that it consists only of its course forward, always moving 3 The Platonic μιμησις (mimesis).

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further away, it can only constantly renew and relaunch its attachment to defined ends, against the concept of a consciousness, free because it is not determined. In all four cases, from all four perspectives, the conditions come before the possible. Only one condition makes another condition possible. There is a precedence of conditions over the possible, and the possibility of conditions comes from previous conditions. We are therefore in the definitorial, accredited by the originarity of the language. If language, whether it is the divine word in the Bible or the word of the Vedas in India, makes beings be, if it is the condition of existence of the created, then this language, in its essential determinations, will also be the condition under which the given will be given, and it will therefore be the transcendental. Its determinations will be categories. We will only have access to the concrete through these categories. At the same time, these categories ensure us access to the concrete in what makes it exist, acting, in the exteriority of the determinations in relation to each other, therefore in its efficiency. However, whether we refer to the concrete through its external determinations, as efficient, or stick to a pure logical process (blind to the element of the possible), it is only a hypothesis. The four traits identified are only categories under this assumption. This presupposes and implements, in the relationship we have to the concrete, a concept of knowledge as pure logic, as de jure external to the concrete. If knowledge connects objects externally, they will be neutralized, since they will appear uniformly from this exteriority. Thus, knowledge will be pure, definitorial, closing a plane of coherence, seeing in an object only what it has expressly put in it, as expressed conditions. But this neutralization has serious consequences. It is supposed to be nothing less than the separation between theoretical knowledge about what is and thought about what ought to be. This separation is expressed by the four criteria identified: a pre-definition of the concrete, the abstraction of a separate logic, the full form of a logic-paradigm and a will able to master its ends. According to these four perspectives, knowledge is each time closed within a single homogeneous plane. Under the definitorial hypothesis, four perspectives (at least) are operative, each based on a category directly opposed to a structural condition of the ethical process: pre-determination of the concrete/upstream; abstract logic/ethical innervation; full logical form/latent totalities; a will able to master its ends/undetermined consciousness. These four conditions are categories, and therefore fall within the scope of the transcendental, and prohibit ethical thinking of the process, but only under the definitorial hypothesis. However, a category is not fixed once and for all. A condition can at one moment be a category and at another a simple formal tool. It remains to be seen how these categories can be put back in motion, restored in their

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contingency, made once again conditions among others, by relativizing the definitorial hypothesis, by returning it to its contingency. This hypothesis must be maintained if we want to perfectly control the known object, if we want to be sure that there is only what we have put in it by definition. In this way, we want a knowledge that would exhaust the object according to a defined coherence. But such knowledge is ceaselessly contradicted by a constant questioning of knowledge, progressing towards ever greater accuracy. This questioning expresses an elemental dimension of the possible on which the definitorial process of knowledge operates. However, the latter is deployed to the exact extent that it forgets the element of the possible that allows it. The definitorial hypothesis requires this forgetting, which is supposed by the illusion of control. But the rethinking that takes place every time, and through which knowledge progresses towards greater accuracy, requires a rethinking of this appearance of control, and therefore of the definitorial hypothesis. The definitorial hypothesis is conceivable from at least four perspectives, each expressing a category, therefore a defined mode of the relationship of the actors to the world around them. These categories, which are no longer necessary, are returned to their contingency. The regulated set of conditions, which used to operate each time in a defined plane of coherence, opened by a category, returns to the effectiveness of an ethical process. From categories, each of the four conditions becomes the expression of an effective tendency, of an active structuring of a process, which makes it identifiable and therefore qualifiable in relation to an assumption of responsibility that must be that of the actors. These four reference points of what makes a process ethical appear in contrast to the four traits that made the process definitorial, and implied the necessary separation between knowledge about what is and knowledge about what ought to be. It is therefore appropriate to rule out this hypothesis, if only by hypothesis. And since this implies the separation between objective knowledge and ethics, it will lead to an objective questioning of ethics through an effective thought about the process.

6 The Responsibility of a Meeting: China

Let us try to further clarify the relevance of this challenging development for responsible research and innovation. What has been said about defined conditions grasped in efficient logical articulations can be seen as a rigorous development of what is commonly and thoughtlessly referred to as a “framework” that allows responsible innovation [FIS 16]. The problem with such frameworks is their status. To say that such a framework is “abstract”, and therefore external to the situation under consideration, is to subject the action to a double duality. The “descriptive” falls outside the “prescriptive” and is opposed to it, just as the “form” diverges from the “content” and faces it. As soon as there is an abstraction of logics with their conditions, i.e. the “frameworks” that are applied and pressed onto a situation, one finds oneself caught in a dual thought. However, dualities block the process at work. The descriptive is external to the prescriptive and faces it. They cannot be confused. Form is opposed to content and is strictly distinct from it. Efficiency is therefore placed outside of effectiveness and responsibility becomes problematic. A responsible relationship with the enlisted “frameworks” requires a rethinking of their status, no longer as abstract, but as caught up in “processes” that give them

Ethically Structured Processes, First Edition. Virgil Cristian Lenoir. © ISTE Ltd 2019. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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effectiveness. This requires breaking down dual thinking in the two ways mentioned above. The responsibility towards the effectiveness of such frameworks will be to think of them in a processual way. This will have to explain their effectiveness, in context. However, there are very old and sophisticated traditions of thought which do not involve dualist assumptions. These include in particular Chinese traditions. To put it simply, the use of these traditions should make it possible to think about the process processually, i.e. to assume the form in the content or to think about a prescriptive dimension of the descriptive. It is a question of seeking “criteria” for such a processual thinking about the process, therefore a continuous passage of the dual terms from one to the other. Dualities will be overcome if there is such a viability of the passage from form to content and from descriptive to prescriptive. The “frameworks”, and therefore the logics with their conditions, will thus be “assumed” in a viable process of the possible, which will have been identified. At the same time, “defined” conditions will be included in this movement of the possible and therefore assumed. These conditions will express defined “positions”, and the process of the possible will be a fall of a “drape”, each position being a fold that is positioned in relation to the relevant folds (or previously effective conditions). Let us specify a few methodological points regarding this use of the Chinese context. This is not an attempt at “comparison”. The challenge is to test, trial, enrich and expand the conceptualization offered in Part 1 of this book. This will therefore be put “to the test” against the traditions which have, in the most constant way, thought about the “process” in all its nuances. The focus of the questioning will be to support the concept of a process that is immediately and fully ethical. It will have to reconcile, in particular, the descriptive and the prescriptive. This is not an attempt at “comparative philosophy” in the sense that we do not adopt the usual prerequisites of such an approach. It is not a question of postulating a philosophia perennis that we would try to find, in various detail, on both sides. It is not a question of identifying a τελος [telos] towards which the different traditions would converge and which would be the criterion of their accomplished “truth”. This is not about stating the “laws” from a “progress” that would be found on both sides. Above all, it is not a question of making one of the poles the criterion of the other, as if to say that China would have to anticipate Western theories in order to be

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legitimate. It is not a question of saying that the East would come to regenerate the West with its “wisdom”. Indeed, the West itself is rich in resources and today’s China would greatly benefit from regeneration in this way. It is not a question of “importing” “values” from China nor of acclimatizing to them. It is also not a question of formulating new insights into each other’s language and categories (even if this would be a useful and long-term project). It does not mean working on your own language to make it capable of receiving content from elsewhere. Someone like François Jullien has done remarkable work in this regard1. Above all, this issue is not about deciding between them. Nor is it making distant traditions “compatible” or commensurable. However, it is also not for us to simply list the differences here, displaying an erudition extended to notions as well as to political, historical and other realities; nor to reduce these differences by attempting risky identifications. We do not intend to bring one back to the other (especially not in a hierarchy); or to offer a monolithic view of one or the other. We do not seek to postulate a word for word correspondence. We will avoid any “syncretism” in the sense of a colorful alloy of unassimilated elements in a flattened vision; avoid a purely objective and relativistic attitude (the trap of an approach that is too anthropological and makes inappropriate use of erudition). Nor should we confine ourselves to a vague “cultural dialogue”, since what concerns us here is “knowledge”. Last but not least: we will not play into the hands of a determined political power. How, then, can positive options be taken? The detour to China makes it first of all possible to avoid making clear separations between disciplines right from the beginning. Rather than radically separating philosophy, religion, politics, etc.; or the three main currents of Chinese thought, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism; or the different currents within Confucianism (School of Principle; School of the Heart-Mind, etc.), as a Western reading of these traditions invites, it is possible to have a more attentive perspective on mutual borrowing and the complex interrelationship that existed between these currents and did much to make them flourish. Someone like Lao Siguang is already moving in this direction2. This detour into China is therefore an opportunity to apply the concept of history that appears throughout Part 1 of this book. This, seen as a process, is complex, pluralized, and in no way unique, negative or finalized as we are used to seeing it in the West. Against the backdrop of a drive, an imbalance suffered or assumed, there is a diversity of totalities of propensities within the possible, a plurality of reminders and omissions, of falls of the drape of the possible and of repetitions. The only 1 See in particular his books listed in [JUL 07]. 2 [MOU 03, p. 32], note 1, refers to [LAO 80, p. 43-68].

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framework adopted here is that of the totality opened by this book. It brings into play totalities that are open in the distance; finds these openings in an imminent way to make them accessible in the present. The aim is to test the concepts of “history” and “philosophy” in a reality, China, to which Hegel simply refused to apply them. This shows how the lines have moved. It is because Chinese realities resist being integrated into a single dialectized, finalized, historical schema that it is possible to propose another schema where history resists its Eurocentric, monolithic and finalized reduction. Nor is it a question, and this must be clear from what has been said, of returning to a full concept of the “origin” that would be unique and ineffable. A central distinction in Chinese thought is the one between “external royalty” (外王, wai wang) and “internal wisdom (or holiness)” (内聖, nei sheng). And it is common today to think that Chinese traditions would have things to teach us about the second, but nothing about the first. In other words, we could take from them their teachings on wisdom and how to live well but not their knowledge on the objective world or how to govern. However, the mutual teaching which we wish to introduce here postulates that what we have to learn from China cannot be reduced to “inner wisdom”, even if it does “also” include that wisdom, which must not, of course, be adopted externally. This of course implies that this teaching cannot be reduced to a more or less structured set of concepts which the university professor would teach from their chair. There is a “practice” of the texts and from the texts, even if nothing says that this practice cannot be adapted to everyone and to the context in which they live. These practices may not be strictly dependent on the framework of traditional academies, monasteries, etc. The main challenge, however, remains to create a place for a responsible meeting between the West and China based on the requirements of ethics, freedom and efficiency. This place suggests, in one way or another, that a viable “symbiosis” between the two worlds of thought can be achieved at a time when the economic worlds have long since become interdependent. The aim is to identify the defined relationship to Chinese traditions that is required by an actual thinking about effectiveness (i.e. ethical efficiency) which would actually be efficient. To this end, it will be necessary to clarify partial configurations one by one, amend them, limit them and balance them in a reciprocal way in a context to be explained each time. The aim is therefore to find a place where an effective totality can be deployed and which would be opened by the same token. This place where the two worlds can meet is not immediately universal. It may not be suitable for a meeting between the West and the Islamic world, for example. This should be considered separately and other totalities will open. But this will be

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discussed elsewhere. The place of a meeting must make it possible to assume, in a general way, what was assumed respectively by each tradition. Going back upstream, it is indeed an “assumption” that is being sought. And, in return, it can be sought through an attempt to rigorously define the concept of “responsibility”. The meeting itself must be effective, and the assumption made. To do this, we have chosen to compare some relevant classical texts and put them in order with regard to the current question to be developed (that of responsibility), without “imposing” external categories on it, but by drawing conclusions from its internal operations for the categories set out in Part 1 of this book. It is therefore a question of comparing several traditional totalities of propensity, returned to their immanent movement, with regard to the question of responsibility today, thus confirming or expanding possibilities of both practical and theoretical thought. This is possible because it is not based on the assumption of an intelligiblesensible “separation”. The following will bring to the fore four distinct totalities. These four moments are not intended to be exhaustive. They each aim to highlight an ethical aspect of the process in response to the four conditions identified in section 5.2. More precisely, I seek to clarify that which can be structurally ethical in a fall of the drape. This is indeed an immanent configuration, where each condition is redefined in relation to those that are relevant at a given time, in what is a movement of the possible towards its own viability. It is a question of highlighting the “criteria” for this fall to indeed be ethical, and therefore allowing the broadest spectrum of conditions accessible in context to be effective. It simply refers to its universality. Of course, not every process is ethical or universal. We explore four falls of the drape, and how each involves an ethical dimension in effectiveness. This is crucial for the effective accountability of actors in context. Thus, it is a question of moving the lines, of slightly shifting each tradition in its relationship to the other. On each side, one step should be taken towards the other. This is what is sought under the term “symbiosis”. Each can continue to develop on its own but without ignoring the other, opening up to mutual learning. The detour to China makes it possible to understand knowledge that is not given according to a watertight partition between disciplines. This is because even the most general knowledge only makes sense in classical China if it opens up to a practical application in concrete life, allowing a transformation of the thinker. Taking into account this absence of compartmentalization, of traditions that do not know the classical doctrinal separations in the West (the intelligible and the sensible world; the theoretical and the practical; the logical, the physical and the ethical), we will take advantage of this open relationship to knowledge to introduce and put into play two distinctions: that of content and form, and that of descriptive and prescriptive. These distinctions are well put from the outside by the questioner. They

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amount to polarizing content and form; descriptive and prescriptive. This is indeed an interpretive hypothesis. At the same time, it cannot play out in the same way as in a Western context. Indeed, the presentation of the content must be done here in the very way of the content. The thinker, by thinking, puts into practice what they think, which is very Chinese. It is indeed the ethical relationship to knowledge that is at stake. Or, in other words, it is the status of effective “frameworks” of thought. But this relationship is challenged by the introduction of a distinction (content and form) which, seeking a prescriptive form, immediately puts objectivity into play3. In Chinese traditions, thinking about the process has been particularly elaborate. But this thought was not about the relationship between form and content, nor was it an objective approach to the process. The latter can be said to be “objective” insofar as it is likely to occur several times, while remaining recognizable as such a type of process, and is likely to be implemented as such a type of process, even in a context where the other separations would still be at work. This therefore opens the door to the distinction of several types of processes, some of which may prove to be ethical. What will make a process ethical is to be sought in the relationship of the content with the form of that process. The form of a process is the objectivity of the logic4 it deploys. Content is concrete knowledge, applied in its movement. In terms of form in relation to the content of the process, that which is unceasingly viable, i.e. opens up a viability, an absence of determination of conscience, without foreseeable end, is ethical. In other words, the form is assumed in the content. The process is thought of in a processual way, not in an abstract way. The criterion of this assumption, expressing a defined relationship between form and content, is itself formal and therefore objective. The distinction between the types of ethical processes will have to identify, for each, its own specific criterion. Since many processes are not ethical, four criteria, i.e. four types of ethical processes, will be identified here. Each criterion will be derived from a condition which, under the definitorial hypothesis, could be considered as a category, directly contradicting, in each case, a 3 In this context, objectivity plays a role other than in the duality it forms with subjectivity. It simply means a reference point that works in the same way for all the actors involved, which is therefore common to them insofar as they are involved in this situation (see the next section). 4 It is the fact that it is a comment made in a modern language (therefore an efficient language, as is also modern Chinese, worked upon by its encounter with the West) that implies that the process takes a “logical” form. The introduction of the form/content distinction is, one might think, the minimal disruption required to talk about ancient Chinese traditions today. At the same time, this disruption cannot be underestimated. On the other hand, it can become an asset for a thought that would restore the logical efficiency at work to the ethical realization required (in a classical perspective that nothing authorizes, therefore, to rule out) by the application of knowledge by the thinker in their action, i.e. a restitution of content to themself.

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condition essential to ethical thinking about the process. The pre-definition of the concrete becomes a thinking about the upstream; logical abstraction becomes ethical innervation; the full form of a logic becomes a plurality of latent totalities; the will able to master its ends becomes undetermined consciousness. From being “categories” under the definitorial theory, each condition is turned into a formal (objective) “criterion” of the ethicality of a process. The distinction between form and content does not imply a definitorial presupposition as long as there is no anteriority of the form, but the form is recognized as capable of being assumed (immediately) in the content (so that the form is not full and does not capture and appropriate the creativity at work in the possible). If the two are held together in the process of their development, ethical viability is achieved. The assumption of form in the content of the process implies moving in the propensity of an open totalization that lifts the divisions within the possible by deploying this content according to a fall of the drape that covers all the old knowledge involved. The conditions will be redefined by being included in this movement of the possible. The fact that this resorption of divisions can only be achieved on the basis of four criteria is not stated here. There is no guarantee that these criteria are exhaustive. Nevertheless, they provide a good starting point for a discussion of the problem. The objective criteria will be identified and the content implied by the texts extended, developed to enrich the concept of the process proposed here. The content, developed in its relationship to the form, will reveal new dimensions of the categories proposed in Part 1 of this book. It will also be an opportunity, in the form of the presentation, to propose several types of approaches to what a process is. First, the question of the “Way”, as traditionally found in China, will be rethought in order to achieve its requalification from what is here understood by the term “upstream”. This is a reversal of the pre-definition. Then, the Chinese refusal of a “separation” from this origin will be highlighted in relation to “ethical innervation”. It is a reversal of logical abstraction. Next, the Chinese refusal of a univocal, ultimate totalization will be called upon when thinking of “plural totalities”. This is a reversal of the full logical form. Finally, the Buddhist refusal of any intrinsic ontological consistency of phenomena will lead to a better understanding of the “drape” of the possible. This is a reversal of the concept of a will able to master its ends.

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In all four cases, the thinking about the process does not leave the classical Chinese categories intact, but it moves the lines by placing them in the perspective of its ethical requirement. But first, let us specify the example that will allow the various conditions to be used in a precise way. We can remain in the problematic field opened up at the beginning of Part 2, starting with the question of GMO cultivation and its ethical implications. 6.1. The common thread: a project led by INRA in France, between 2001 and 2003 The Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA [French national institution for agronomic research]) wanted to carry out an in-depth study, between 2001 and 2003, in connection with the implementation of an experiment on GMO champagne vines. This period saw the development of skepticism and increased mistrust regarding GMOs in France. The company Moët et Chandon then decided to abandon a research project on GMO vines, developed in partnership with INRA. The decision was made to donate all experimental equipment to INRA in Colmar, France. The latter then decided to develop the project in which we are interested, in particular with the aim of defusing the challenges that were expected from anti-GMO activists. The idea was to back up the legitimacy of the decision by providing the project with a deliberative component5. Indeed, a team of HSS (humanities and social science) researchers was included in the project. It brought together two INRA sociologists, a project manager at INRA and a consultant from Initiale, part of the Pluridis network. This team was inspired by participatory technology assessment approaches. It set up a working group. This included 14 people including researchers (specialists in vine pathology or plant virology); actors in the wine sector (winegrowers, winemakers and nurserymen); and members of society (a teacher, a specialist caseworker). This group met for seven days. However, independence issues were identified from the outset. Indeed, two thirds of the members of the group belonged to INRA. 5 This case is developed in the book by Sophie Pellé and Bernard Reber [PEL 16]. The authors refer in particular to the final report of the working group, available at: http://inradam-front-resources-cdn.brainsonic.com/resources/afile/236123-0d0cb-resource-rapport-final-dugroupe-de-travail-pdf-.html (link consulted December 2, 2015).

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It was therefore decided to convene an independent evaluation committee to evaluate the implemented procedure and the results that would emerge. In fact, two major problems were likely to compromise the project from the outset. The working group was not set up to ensure the statistical representativeness of the population. Members were chosen on the basis of the diversity of worldviews they represented. However, some profiles, such as NGO representatives, were discarded on the grounds that they would favor strategic interactions that would undermine deliberation by compromising the free exchange of arguments. The second problem was that INRA’s general management had announced from the outset that the conclusions of the study would only be advisory. They committed solely to publicly justify decisions that would contradict the conclusions of the working group. That is what happened. It was decided to continue the field trials on transgenic vines, even though two out of fourteen votes in the working group had opted to stop. This decision, failing to take into account the complexity of the deliberations, was a suffered “determination”, in the context of the conditions at work, which called for the second “determination”, which was the mowing of the GMO vines in Colmar in 2010 by 54 determined reapers from anti-GMO activist circles. In both cases, a condition partially biased the process of the possible at work. Since then, the “framework”, the conditions implemented by the logic, have become “abstract”, external to the situation. The process has ceased to be viable, blocking itself under the double duality of a form external to its content (difference between the deliberative content and the form of the final decision) and a prescription external to the description (the composition of the working group is prescriptive and differs from a statistical, descriptive consideration of all the actors). On both sides, the process is not viable. It gets bogged down in the two aforementioned dualities, and the effective logics, the “frameworks”, are “abstract”. Their efficiency no longer corresponds to the effectiveness of the process of the possible at work. The process is no longer thought of in a processual way. The form is no longer assumed in the content. And the prescriptive falls outside the descriptive. This means that the spectrum of conditions taken into account is too narrow and therefore the universality has been missed. Now, what objective criteria of this stagnation, of this non-viability of the possible, therefore of a lack of universality in the deliberation, could we identify?

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6.2. Four objective criteria of the universal 6.2.1. “Sincerity” as a criterion Let us begin by noting that some profiles of the actors involved were excluded a priori when the working group was composed. This was the case, in particular, for representatives of NGOs working against GMOs. The reason given was that they favor strategic interactions over a free and open exchange of arguments. This reason, if sound, makes it possible to insert “sincerity” into the exchanges between the actors concerned, not only as a psychological factor whose realization would help to locate an acceptable compromise, but also as an objective “criterion” of what makes the effectiveness of a process, and therefore the universality of the deliberation. This criterion, “sincerity”, allows, “makes possible”, a processual thought about the process, thus a viability of the possible, its smooth perpetuation. This “assumption” of form in the content can be thought of as the intersection of three classical notions in Chinese traditions: the “Way” (Dao, 道), “non-action” (wu wei, 無為) and “sincerity” (cheng, 誠). There is, for Confucius and the first Chinese thinkers, the conviction that speech cannot exhaust the Dao, 道, or the one who realizes it in their action, the Sage, 聖6人, Sheng ren. The Dao, which is found in “Taoism” but which is also a word common to the different schools, refers to a way, a path, to walking, to saying, but also, in an absolute sense, to “The” Way ordered by Heaven and which is up to humanity to accomplish. In this sense, the Way is everywhere, so that one can never leave it entirely, but at the same time, being extremely tenuous, only the Sage will fully realize it in their actions. It is all around us, passing through people, it generates and supports them, and allows them to deploy their humanity, once they have listened to it. It is close to what was in the first part called the “process”, with the major difference that it is traditionally “unique” and has the dimension of an “origin” for beings. The fact that the Dao is inexhaustible through rational discourse is already made tangible in the very structure of three of the major Chinese classical works. The Lunyu, 論語, or the Analects (literally “conversations”) of Confucius with his 6 The terms are given as they are found in ancient texts. It would not make much sense to refer to “simplified” Chinese, which is now used in mainland China.

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disciples, take a form divided into multiple fragments which are not linked to each other in such a way as to deploy content, but which must be meditated upon, read and reread, by infusion, and be put together throughout the book so that they can be put into practice. The Daodejing, 道德經, by Laozi is presented as a series of 81 extremely concise stanzas which call for the same kind of reading. As for the Yi Jing, 易經, or Book of Changes, its construction, through multiple strata, its use of non-verbal graphic devices next to comments, is as confusing as it gets7. In all three cases, the word admits itself as powerless to identify what is ultimately at stake in the developments: the Dao, therefore a process with a cosmic dimension, and the wise person who can realize it. This intuition of a Dao that is in itself unspeakable8, which escapes any sort of definition, which is not reducible to specific conditions, destroys at its root the concept of a pre-determination of the concrete (which would precede itself logically, in language) in favor of an emphasis on latency and the subtlety of the process where language can be taken up and assumed. The Confucian sage practices the ren 仁, the virtue of humanity. This character is formed by the radical ren 人, “person”, and er 二, which means “two”. This virtue therefore begins as soon as two people meet. Laozi takes the opposite view of this notion. “Heaven and Earth do not show humanity (天地不仁, tian di bu ren)”; “The sage does not show humanity (聖人不仁, sheng ren bu ren)”9. For him, the virtue of humanity only appears when his practice has already disappeared. Talking about this virtue already proves that the common people no longer practice it spontaneously. It therefore marks the fact that they are not left to their spontaneity, but that an intrusive power is already exercised by the powerful, that is to say that they act 為, and have already abandoned the government that respects the nature of beings, government by not acting 無為 wu wei. Thus, on both sides, there is a thought about the process, about the Dao, 道. But some people think of a process as intrinsically a-moral, while others see a moral dimension to the process. Although this latter option does not even enjoy unanimous support among the Confucians, it is radically opposed by strategists, legalists, Taoists, and in general by other Chinese schools. It receives influential wording from Mencius (380–289 BCE), for whom people are good by virtue of the “nature” (性, xing) they receive from Heaven.

7 See Rudolf G. Wagner’s analyses in the first part of his book [WAG 03] on Wang Bi (226249 CE). 8 See the opening of Laozi: “The Dao that can be named is not the Dao of all time”. 9 Laozi, stanza V, 1 and 3.

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Taoists prefer a spontaneous balance, which will be established between the existing ones as long as the power leaves them to themselves, as long as it does not interfere with their spontaneous nature. Let us remember that the expression 自然, zi ran, literally “so of its own”, “spontaneous”, is also often rendered by “nature”. According to this perspective, deliberately seeking to carry out the practice of ren 仁 would actually interfere with the nature of beings. It would be a bias, for the sovereign, to show mercy or magnanimity. At least, this would be the case if there was not a gap in the Taoist approach. Indeed, they postulate that it is sufficient for the sovereign to leave beings to themselves, to their spontaneity, and that this is at best achieved by a policy of nonaction or non-interference, wu wei 無為. However, for this spontaneous balance between beings to be established, an additional element is required. It requires the “sincerity” of each person. But sincerity, cheng 誠, is a Confucian notion. It is particularly active in the Zhongyong 中庸, or The Doctrine of the Mean, a work generally attributed to the grandson of Confucius, Zisi, in the 5th Century BC [ZIS 09]. In this writing, what could be translated as “sincerity” takes on an essential dimension in the search for wisdom, but also a cosmological significance. It is not only the fact of not lying but a constant attitude towards oneself and others in which we must persevere. “Sincerity is the path followed by Heaven. To realize it sincerely in oneself is the path followed by man”10 [ZIS 09, II 1a, p. 590]. The virtue of humanity must be realized in everyone through patient study and uncompromising attention to oneself, in our relationships with others as well as in solitude. Sincerity refers to this patient practice. It is what, in the “form” of the process (the structure of the fall of the drape, therefore the definition of the conditions in relation to each other), allows its assumption in its concrete “content” (its implementation). In this sense, “sincerity” is a criterion for an ethical process. However, for Taoists, this tension, this attention, and the intentional conduct they imply, interfere with the spontaneity of beings and prevent it from being realized. Yet, is it enough for people not to be constrained by law to realize themselves? This may be true for people who live in small villages isolated from others, who do not care about knowledge or travel, and are simply happy to have a full stomach. This is the type of society that Laozi promotes. But in a more complex society, where competition between citizens has already begun, non-action is not enough without sincerity. Laozi tacitly acknowledges this, linking the appearance of the virtue of humanity to a period that is already a time of decline.

10 This is enough to rule out any “subjective” or “psychologizing” interpretation of sincerity (which is much more than voluntary here).

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Yet is he right to posit a golden age where, through non-action, everyone realized themselves, everyone realized the Way of Heaven or the Dao, as a cosmic process? If there has never been such a golden age, the Dao, 道, must be rethought, as a process, not as an “origin” and not as “unique”. If the Way is indeed indeterminable, inexhaustible by discourse, and therefore does not contain a predetermination of beings as they are realized downstream but constitutes a place where sketches play freely, it constitutes only the “viability” of the situation in which we find ourselves. It is a process of released possibilities, in the sketches, against the current of solidified realities downstream, and only in appearance necessary. Therefore, in each situation, it must be possible to initiate this ascent, and to identify new possibilities. If the Way is not an “origin” seen in a blessed past, nor a single instance, and if the society which Laozi already saw, crossed by competition and battles, does not correspond to what he imagines, “sincerity” (which Laozi does not think) could be a decisive element for the realization of this Way. In other words, it is no longer enough to let spontaneity restore itself. A “voluntary” dimension is needed in the conscious pursuit of this spontaneity, and therefore of the Way. This willingness, taken in a relationship to the ethical effectiveness of a viable process, is “sincerity”11. The respective positions of the Taoists and Confucians therefore reflect the decisive difference between a pure thought about the process and a thought about the will in the process where the will and the process, which are a priori distinguishable, nevertheless work together. Sincerity makes it possible to think of a will at work “in” a process and the viability of that process in relation to that will. Thus, sincerity would be a central notion for efficient thinking about the process. It is in fact an active dimension, involved in the “form” or “manner”, of the fall of the drape, a reciprocal definition of the conditions in a process, described here. This does not mean that non-action should be ruled out. Indeed, will cannot be enough, and sincerity itself requires more than will. It must be part of a totality of the possible, in a process. And the initiation of such a process, the release of a totality of the possible, is done by going back upstream in a situation. In this upstream, a downstream is not pre-determined, but there is an interaction between the conditions, which will fall back downstream in the characteristics of the situation, and the knowledge we have of it. This fall will therefore be contingent. This is the place to denounce a dramatic confusion with Han Feizi, the theorist of legalism, that implacable doctrine according to which order in the Empire would be 11 I do not have to make mine here the profoundly Confucian conviction that sincerity is essentially linked to the practice of rituals.

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ensured by the sole, automatic and merciless application of laws12 [FEI 03]. Associating himself with Laozi, he sees non-action in this automatic application of the law, which was not thwarted by any “pity” or “magnanimity” on the part of the Emperor. But, for the first Taoists, the application of punishment is already an “act”, wei 為13, and among the most violent act there is. Punishment creates fear and prevents people from spontaneously expressing their nature. Han Feizi therefore neglects the possibility of a fixed, sharp-edged legal structure, made necessary by forgetting the Dao. If for him the law (fa 法) expresses the Dao of non-action, it is because automaticity is confused with spontaneity. He forgets that spontaneity is only possible through sincerity that can only be horrified by the punishments envisaged by the law of the time. The Emperor’s clemency can be compared here to the moral considerations considered by economists as “externalities” which would disturb the game of the Invisible Hand. This view will be developed in Part 3 of this book. But it can already be suggested that the consideration of moral motives, allowing a broadening of the spectrum of motives at work, makes possible a universality of deliberation which is missed by the play of selfish interests alone. Sincerity is a possible criterion for this universality. Indeed, it allows the widest spectrum of relevant motives (interests, values, rights, etc.) to be taken into account in a situation. It is an “objective” criterion insofar as it escapes any “psychologizing” or “subjective” reduction. It is an objective “propensity” that must be sought to be made active in a concrete deliberation among the actors concerned. It is nevertheless true that, in practice, some actors will favor the logic of strategic interaction and will demonstrate themselves to be impervious to rational arguments. Sincerity cannot be taken for granted from the outset. Nevertheless, excluding a priori certain defined actors from this sincerity makes its realization impossible. The question then becomes: how can we implement the conditions for achieving this sincerity for the greatest number of actors, aiming to ensure an interaction that is as broad as possible, or even complete, based on the rational exchange of arguments? Perhaps it would have been possible to include “some” actors from the NGOs opposed to GMOs, by applying a selection procedure? In any case, their a priori

12 Lawmakers have often died themselves from the enforcement of the laws they had promoted. See [CHE 97, chap. 9]. 13 See Wang Bi’s reading of Laozi, as interpreted in [WAG 03, p. 158].

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exclusion is undoubtedly a major factor in the “determination” of the situation that followed: the mowing of GMO plants. “Sincerity” is not easily evaluable in an objective way. Nevertheless, it can constitute an objective “criterion” for the effectiveness of a process, by taking into account the broadest spectrum of motives (conditions) that it allows. It is a criterion in that it allows a viability of the possible, in a processual thought about the process, therefore an assumption of the form in the content. Is the concept of the upstream that emerges from this chapter, correlated with the sincerity that allows us to go back and the non-action that allows the drape to fall in a responsible way, not in danger of falling into a logical principle “separate” from the effectiveness of the situation? In this way, the upstream could lead us back to the concept of an a priori, logical and necessary structuring of the sensible world, which would thus be pre-determined and reduced to being able to express only pre-existing logical determinations. Thus, no real “ethical innervation” could be achieved that crosses the life of the actors and simultaneously allows them to share an effective freedom and to each re-vitalize themselves in an unseparated upstream. The innervation, and therefore the effectiveness of the responsibility, requires nonseparation. 6.2.2. The “non-separation” criterion (from the “framework”) The INRA project that was taken as an example has one particularly interesting aspect: the co-construction of problems among the team of HSS researchers and the participants. The idea was to avoid the “framing” of the problems by the experts alone. This is evident in the results. For example, the initial question asked to the group was: what is “... the opportunity of carrying out field trials of rootstocks that are potentially resistant to the grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV)?” At the end of the first phase of work, this question was reformulated as follows: “What philosophical, social, economic and technical aspects are at stake through the field trial project of transgenic rootstocks? In the overall research needs on vine diseases, how can we define priorities and choose the types of arbitration for planting Colmar’s transgenic plants? Should GMO-vine research be continued at INRA and, if so,

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what are the conditions for transition to the field within the strict framework of a research objective or for a possible transition to varietal innovation?”14 Stakeholders were therefore involved in the development of the problematic framework. The latter was not imposed by experts from above. It was not implanted from the outside, in an abstract way. It is certainly possible to discuss the methods of deliberation that have been put in place and to wonder if they allow for a real consideration of the voice of each individual. But the very idea of taking into account the diversity of points of view involved in defining the problematic framework seems to be an undeniable asset in favor of the process deployed. It allows an assumption of the form (the problematic framework) in the content (a viable, therefore effective, possible). This is to the exact extent that the “framework” is not “separate” from the situation and imposed on it from the outside. In the context of classical China, and I will focus here on two examples from the 12th and 17th Centuries, we find the requirement of non-separation from what can be rendered by the term “principle”. The term li, 理, is often translated thus. It uses the character for jade, on the left, and on the right an element that is both phonetic (li) and semantic since it denotes “the interior” in a general way. It is therefore the inner vein of jade, which structures it and makes it alive. The first to use the term in the sense of “principle” was the Taoist Zhuang Zi, but it was also used by Buddhists, although it remains above all a central notion for Confucians15. Zhu Xi was born in 1130 and, because of the occupation of the North, could never go to Confucius’ birthplace, in the former principality of Lu. In his youth, he devoted about ten years to the study of Chan Buddhism, before returning to the Confucian Dao. He therefore shared a mistrust of Taoism and Buddhism and the disinterest in action to which they can lead. However, this disinterest is inscribed in Buddhist doctrines which maintain that the world is illusory, putting forward, according to some readings, a principle, li, 理, that is separate, transcendent.

14 See [INR 02, p. 2]. See also [PEL 16 p. 153], note 10. 15 See the beautiful passages devoted to it by Anne Cheng [CHE 97], in particular pp. 475– 479.

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For Zhu Xi, a new emphasis on the link between study and action, political and social commitment, requires a reconsideration of the role of the “principle” and a strong affirmation of its non-separation. The pair ben ti, 本體 (fundamental constitution), and fa yong, 發用 (functional manifestation), refer to the difference between what constitutes a being and the way in which this constitution is implemented, put into action, deployed in the phenomenal domain. For Zhu Xi, according to his understanding of Buddhism, the “emptiness” that it puts forward would be a “constitution” without “function”, therefore something purely abstract, separate, which would be a contradiction in terms, since there is never a constitution that is not implemented, nor a functioning that is not the implementation of a constitution. The important thing here is the rejection of any separation. Another structuring pair put forward by Zhu Xi, inherited from the “Great Commentary” on the Book of Changes, is the “upstream” and “downstream” of the (visible) forms. This is particularly interesting since it was used to translate the word “metaphysics” into Chinese. The latter was rendered by the expression xing er shang xue, 形而上學, literally “study of the upstream of (visible) forms”. But we must mark the limits of this translation. For Zhu Xi, the “principle” is “upstream” of visible forms. Being infinitely subtle and unbound, it differs from concrete, visible and tangible forms. But this does not mean that it is “separate” from the visible forms. Indeed, as soon as there is a principle, it is put into action in concrete energies (yin and yang). And as soon as there is energy, it is only concrete because it is driven by the principle. This therefore differs from what might naively be understood by “metaphysics” as the study of the “separate” or “transcendent” (which would in fact be closer to “theology”). Thus, we come to the third pair of opposites: the “principle”, li, 理 and energies, qi, 氣.The principle is not sensible. It has no form and is not locatable. However, without it, energies could not be put into action and take the various forms of the concrete. The energies are only set in motion by the principle. However, without them, it would not generate anything concrete. As with the first two pairs, they are therefore complementary opposites for which it is not possible to separate one term from one pair to make it work separately from the other. Each term therefore derives its validity and explanatory power from its relationship to the other. Bringing together principle and energy in a single doctrine, Zhu Xi reconciles the Cheng brothers and Zhang Zai. This is not the place to go into details16, but for Cheng Yi (who, having died 22 years after his brother, brought his ideas to greater

16 Let us refer to Anne Cheng’s analyses [CHE 97, ch. 17–19].

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maturity), the principle is able to account for all phenomena, being “what makes (each existing one) work as it does”, suo yi ran, 所以然. Everything therefore has its own principle that makes it what it is. For his uncle Zhang Zai, on the contrary, it is the energies that explain the beings: sometimes subtle, sometimes condensed, sometimes rare, sometimes gathered together, sometimes invisible, sometimes visible; they reflect the different processes that we see at work in the world. This opposition between the Cheng brothers and Zhang Zai provides an opportunity to identify a defined type of “drape fall”. I propose to call it a “dual polarization process”. The process dissociates, proceeds by notional polarizations, and leads to dualities that split the field of conditions and therefore the motives. The process is increasingly split and leads to increasingly fine distinctions and oppositions. I am not going to pause here right now. But it may be useful to identify some types of drape falls, at least the most common ones. Zhu Xi manages to reconcile the two perspectives. Energies are always driven by a principle; the principle is never “outside” given energies. The two work together to produce the “ten thousand beings” (wan wu, 万物). But Zhu Xi introduces an additional term, tai ji, 太極, or “Supreme Ultimate”. This is the unique, ultimate principle. But this does not mean that it is “separate” from energy processes. It is certainly “upstream”, while they are “downstream”. But they are closely linked. Wang Fuzhi17 would want to distance himself from Zhu Xi. He started from a classic statement in the “Great Commentary” on the Book of Changes: “A yin (陰), a yang (陽), that’s what we call the Dao (道)”. The Taoists would have made the Dao a principle apart, superior and independent of energies (yin and yang). From then on, the integrated functioning of Heaven-Earth became incomprehensible. It is indeed from the unfailing link between the Dao and the yin/yang that the transformations that bring about the “ten thousand beings” become intelligible. As soon as it is separated, the Dao becomes an unintelligible and frozen, but also sterile, entity since it no longer has a base or support in the energies. It becomes a hypostasized reality floating in a vacuum [GER 05, p. 129]. Buddhists, on the other hand, would make a symmetrical mistake by indistinguishably confusing the Dao and the energies. However, it is essential to distinguish the two without separating them. Otherwise, we become confused. As soon as one has a confused vision of the world, and questions its reality, or conceives an entity frozen in suspension in a vacuum, understanding is distorted, and the person withdraws into himself, despising the action. In this vision, as the Taoists fear death, they retreat into lifelong practices; as the Buddhists hate life,

17 Wang Fuzhi lived in the 17th Century. See [GER 05].

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seeing in it an illusory succession of suffering, they can only turn away from action [GER 05, p. 184]. The mistake of the Song Neo-Confucians, for Wang Fuzhi, would be more subtle, but would lead to the same result. Another sentence from the “Great Commentary” on the Book of Changes says: “We call Dao what is upstream of visible forms; and qi what is downstream of visible forms”. (形而上者之謂之道，形而下者之謂器) [GER 05, p. 95]. The term shang上 in modern language refers to what is above, and xia下 to what is below. Qi 器 is a homophone of 氣 (energies), but has the distinct meaning of “object” or “instrument”. Xing 形 designates a concrete form, accessible to the senses. But the terms “upstream” and “downstream”, which Wang Fuzhi uses, can be misleading for him. While they are language commodities, they should not obscure the fact that there is no “separation” between Dao 道 and qi 氣. Both are the obverse and the reverse of the same process. They can only work together and with each other. For Wang Fuzhi, Zhu Xi let himself be trapped by the terms and consequently his “principle”, 理, under the name of “Supreme Ultimate”, 太極, which is a separate entity, therefore devoid of life and unable to animate energies. This lack of reflection could only lead to a disaffection for action and commitment in the world. Such a repositioning in relation to the thesis of predecessors, each of whom has set a condition, draws another type of fall of the drape. I suggest calling it “fall by accentuating the line”. Indeed, each position takes aims to restore a condition in its effectiveness. This is the case of “non-separation”. Each author wants to return to the condition of non-separation, which he accuses his predecessors of having betrayed. Thus, the conditions are reconfigured in their relationship to previously set conditions. This is what a fall of the drape consists of. And it is a fall of a particular type, a recognizable fall, unfolding by accentuating a line. The three pairs identified in Zhu Xi act in a complementary way. One term cannot be separated from the other. Otherwise, the process will be blocked and the effectiveness will be missed. In the example we are interested in, the INRA project, the problematic “framework” cannot be separated from the process of deliberation. As for the three pairs identified in the Chinese context, the framework acts, as a form, “in relation” and only in relation to the concrete content of the deliberation. This allows us to think about what it means to “assume” a form in the content. Both operate in a reciprocal relationship that keeps them together in effectiveness. If the form begins to play “separately” from the content, it becomes abstract and external to the situation. It cannot therefore be taken up in an effective

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process of the possible. And the different conditions, expressing motives, will fall outside each other, facing each other, instead of being taken up in a viable process of the possible. “Non-separation” can thus act as another objective “criterion” for the ethicality of a process. If it is effective in a given process, this because it is ethical and configures a viability of the possible at work, where the form is assumed in the content. It is not something subjective or psychological. It reflects an objective disposition that can be identified in a situation. It attests that the process is not blocked in a form/content duality, but can continue, smoothly, in a viable way. If it is identified as effective in a situation, if the “framework” is not abstract, and therefore separate, in this situation, it is because the form is taken up and assumed in the content. Thus, non-separation is a criterion for the ethicality of a process. The plurality of criteria provides reference points for evaluating a process. This does not mean that the compliance of the latter with one criterion renders its assessment on the basis of the others unnecessary. While each of these is objective, they are not mutually exclusive of others. An evaluation of a process, with regard to the actual assumption of responsibility it shows, is enriched by its comparison with several criteria. Each situation brings its own particular ethical disposition, which will occupy a specific place in a fall of the drape. But the driving force behind this fall is indeed an ever more accurate deployment of ethical innervation. Taking the latent form of this or that totality, and without it ever being exhausted, ethical innervation spreads, from the condition posed upstream, in the possibilities that have been released. The innervation needs open totalities to push its accuracy even further. But it can never constitute a whole itself. The research process requested by INRA, which did not meet the sincerity criterion, satisfies, at least partially, the non-separation criterion. The plurality and impossibility of totalizing a process may appear in another way. 6.2.3. The “viability” criterion The notion of the “framework” must not be separated from the process. From another angle, it should not be confined to an overly narrow range, which risks losing the maximum amplitude sought for the motives taken into account.

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In this example, it should be noted that the deliberations were not limited to technical issues. Many recommendations were made, in particular to define the conditions to be met for the use of GMO vines. However, the deliberations highlighted the need to “develop research in the human sciences to deepen [...] the foundations of the symbolism(s) of wine in France and in the world” [GER 05, p. 10; PEL 16, p. 153]. The aim was to reduce the negative image that could be attached to GMO vines. It was also a question of developing various cultivation methods in order to preserve the genetic diversity of the vines. This attention to the symbolic dimension, to the interpretation, to the representation that we have of the objects and practices that are evaluated, aimed to avoid an overly “narrow” framing of the problems. Such narrowness would risk the deliberation missing the dimension from which the effective practices made sense. By confining itself to this overly narrow field, the deliberation would ignore the background against which alone the relevance of the framework could only be seen. Thus, there would be a gap between form (the “framework”) and content. The first could not be assumed in the second. And the “viability” would be lost, the process getting bogged down in dualities. Let us return to Zhu Xi, who put the whole Confucian tradition into perspective and fixed for centuries the “canon” of the classics that would be the subject of Mandarin examinations. He went through an existential crisis between 1163 and 1169. This appeared in connection with a passage from Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean): “When joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure have not yet arisen (wei fa, 未發), it is called the Mean (zhong, 中). When they arise (yi fa, 已發), at their appropriate levels, it is called “harmony” (he, 和)”18. The problem for him was to think of the relationship between wei fa and yi fa, latent and manifest, that is, in the context of emotions, rest (meditation or contemplation) and activity. This was of primary importance, since the condemnation of Taoism and Buddhism was based precisely on the fact that they diverted people from action. But Zhu Xi does not want to give up the meditative exercises advocated by these two currents. He therefore integrates them into the Confucian Way, giving them a different orientation. Then the question arises: can Confucians adopt these exercises and keep their teaching oriented towards action? Is there not a contradiction between “rest” (contemplation, therefore meditation) and “action”?

18 Translation by A. Charles Muller – http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/docofmean.html. The text is taken from paragraph 1 of Zhongyong.

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The solution was suggested to Zhu Xi by Zhou Dunyi’s use of the expression “Supreme Ultimate” (tai ji, 太極). The expression comes from the “Great Commentary” in the Book of Changes. But Zhou gives it a different turn by associating it with the terms wu ji, 無極, “No Ultimate”. The formula that opens The Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate is as follows: wu ji er tai ji (無極而太極): “Without Ultimate, and yet Supreme Ultimate”; and the continuation gives: “The active Supreme Ultimate generates the yang, but at the limit of the activity, it is at rest; being at rest it generates the yin, but at the limit of rest, it is also active. There is an alternation of activity and rest, each being the basis of the other” [ADL 14, p. 102] (author’s translation). In Zhu Xi’s reading, “No Ultimate” and “Supreme Ultimate” are not two separate things. The expression “No Ultimate” only clarifies the “undetermined” dimension (without form, wu xing, 無形) of the “Supreme Ultimate”. It is precisely this indeterminacy that allows it to never be exhausted and to always generate yin and yang, rest and activity. This means that there is an interpenetration of rest and activity, which are not two separate entities that should be linked. It is this reading that would have enabled Zhu Xi to overcome his spiritual crisis or practical aporia. Indeed, there is no “dualism”, therefore no “contradiction”, between rest and activity, and nothing prevents us from regularly practicing sitting meditation and simultaneously being engaged in the world with political responsibilities. There is therefore a “continuity” that is preserved whether one moves from rest to activity or vice versa. The Tai ji always remains at work, generating rest from activity, activity from rest. In this regard, it should be noted that the word ji, 極, refers to the “ridge” of a house, the ridge beam, but also the pole in the expressions “North Pole” or “Pole Star”. It is not only an “end” but also a “middle”. This makes it possible to understand that when the yang has reached its “end” point, it is also the tipping point where it turns into yin. The extreme is also a middle. And this is what allows the “continuity” of natural and human processes. For the Lu brothers, 無極而太極 must be read, on the contrary as “No Ultimate, and then Supreme Ultimate” and understood, in the line opened by the Dao De Jing19, as the affirmation of an origination of the “Supreme Ultimate” in the “No Ultimate”. According to this perspective, Zhou Dunyi would have remained attached to Taoism and it would be wrong to say that he was the one who reactivated the Confucian Dao after 1400 years in which it had been forgotten.

19 See stanza 28.

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If the quarrel could never be resolved, it is because the word er, 而, has two meanings: “No Ultimate”, that is, “Supreme Ultimate” on the one hand, but also “No Ultimate” and then, in a second step, “Supreme Ultimate”. As both readings were philologically possible and correct, the quarrel turned into a polemic and held an important place in the creation of two competing schools of thought: the ChengZhu School, also known as the “School of Principle” (理學), emphasizing an external examination of the principles of things and the study of texts; and the LuWang School (founded by Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming (1472–1529)), known as the “School of Mind” (心學), which emphasized introspection and attention to the mind. The process represented by this separation of the two schools can be described, in one of its aspects, as “a process by exploiting linguistic resources”. It is certainly not only the word er, 而, that “explains” this process. But its ambiguity played a role that should not be underestimated in the later fall of the drape. Such a fall can therefore be guided by the use of the accessible meanings of the relevant language. What is the fundamental difference between the two schools? Lu Xiangshan emphasizes unity and continuity of the mind20. His formula is xin ji li, 心即理, “Mind is principle”. There is only “one” mind, in which both the wise men of antiquity and Lu himself and his disciples participate. Conforming to this mind, in its continuity, huamanity realizes itself and realizes the fullness of the meaning of humanity, ren, 仁. But Zhu Xi sees that this doctrine ignores the evil that humans are capable of. If we all participate spontaneously in the mind from the beginning, evil can only be born from thoughtlessness, from a wandering that temporarily masks the purity of that mind [CHE 97, p. 511–512]. Zhu Xi put in place a more complex system to account for evil. It is based on Cheng Yi’s formula, xing ji li, 性即理, “Nature is principle”, as well as its distinction between the “Dao mind” (Dao xin, 道心) and the “human mind”, (ren xin 人心). The first is the moral nature conferred on people by Heaven; the second concerns the emotions and desires related to energies in people. Both are legitimate, but the latter risks deviating and generating selfish behavior if it is not kept under the control of the former. Maintaining this control requires continuous effort and careful study. An immediate realization of the mind (Lu) is therefore not enough21.

20 See [CHE 97, c. 19]. The word xin, 心, which simultaneously refers to the mind and the “heart”, is rendered here by “mind”. 21 This is not unlike the internal discussions in Buddhism which oppose “sudden” and “gradual” conceptions of the spiritual path. We will discuss this in the following.

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Lu Xiangshan replied that distinguishing the “Dao mind” and the “human mind” was tantamount to endangering the continuity of the mind. There is only one mind, not two entities that should be linked. But Zhu rejected the argument. This distinction does not introduce duality. But ignoring it can lead to a confusion between the two. However22, if we only know the mind of the human being, we risk relaxing and losing the appropriate attitude. If we only know the Dao mind, then moral nature (xing, 性) and “destiny” (ming, 命) would be disjointed, and the mind of Dao, consequently, without effectiveness. The distinction is necessary if we are to be aware of the continuing mutual influence of the two dimensions. This influence must allow the direction of the Dao mind over the human mind, which is not a negation of the latter, since the latter is not simply “bad”. The study allows a “continuous” vigilance exercised from the Dao mind over the human mind, which allows the realization of the moral nature of humans, therefore the virtue of humanity, ren, 仁. Continuity, which is first mentioned in the formula that opens The Explanation on the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate and in the short word, 而, which was bitterly discussed, is therefore central to what distinguishes the two schools, each of which seeks to realize the moral nature of people through different paths. This continuity is a structural component of an ethical process. On both sides, what is at stake is continuity. Whether the “mind is principle” or “nature is principle”, these are two ways to restore continuity between rest and action. The challenge of this continuity is also the possibility of evil. Taking a position on this issue therefore entails responsibility. Viability is lost when conditions play out externally in their mutual relationship. This is the case if the evaluative framework is out of step with the effective framework. The form is no longer assumed in the content. If the symbolism attached to the vine is at odds with the practices of the winegrowers, if the latter led to the ruin of the former, then the technical framework of the experiment was too narrow, and the continuity of the process was compromised. The situation was blocked by a disjunction between the symbolic dimension and the productive dimension. There are, in a process, only the precise possibilities opened by determined conditions and the active element of the possible. These conditions are logical and can be related to previously explained conditions, as well as to this element. Thus, it is possible to go back upstream, to the possible hidden under the available conditions. We achieve the situation in which we find ourselves when all the 22 See the passage translated by Anne Cheng [CHE 97, p. 509].

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relevant conditions have been integrated, upstream, and thus a new condition has been set down. The ascent along the relevant conditions which, when integrated, will unfold a latent totality of the possible, which will fall as a drape, takes the various conditions that are accessible, different in each situation. Since the possible is grasped under given conditions (and the element of the possible upstream), this upstream will be accessible in the plurality of ascents, each expressing a specific situation. INRA’s project meets, at least to some extent, this third criterion, that of viability. Going further, how can we understand this interrelation of conditions from their possibility, which can only be perceived each time in relation to the situation in which we find ourselves, that is, by their relevance to that situation? 6.2.4. The “non-attachment” criterion One of the stumbling blocks to the experiment that we are using as a guideline was identified from the beginning. This is the lack of independence of the participants. The study is conducted by INRA and assesses INRA research [PEL 16, p. 153]. We can refer, for example, to a letter signed by several NGOs: inf’OGM, Greenpeace and the Fondation Sciences Citoyennes23. While NGO activists are explicitly excluded from the working group, two thirds of the HSS team members belong to INRA. What is at issue is the bias introduced into the deliberation by the “attachments” of the participants to determined24 interests. The problem is not that the participants have interests but arises when these interests “determine” the decision-making, for example if one makes this or that interest the “criterion” of the composition of the deliberation group.

23 Letter available at: http://www.infogm.org/IMG/rtf/ogm_vigne_1_1_1-2.rtf (link consulted May 20, 2017). 24 Robert Gianni suggests here that a distinction be made between “role” and “identity” since, indeed, those deliberating are technicians but above all they remain human. In my words, they are not necessarily “determined” by their interests. But here, I am precisely trying to show conditions that will reveal that the actors have not been determined. This is not self-evident. The deliberation process has objective characteristics.

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However, there is indeed a major oversight in the composition of the deliberation panel. If NGO activists are excluded from the outset, it is tantamount to excluding an interest in preserving the environment. We act as if this interest were not dissociable from a strategic attitude that is that of the activists. But this interest is therefore not given the importance it would have in terms of a statistically representative analysis of the population. It can no longer be held together “with” the other interests, which would nevertheless be the condition for an effective “nonattachment” that would be obtained through deliberation. If deliberation makes possible a decision that reflects a “non-attachment”, this does not mean that participants will simply deny their interests. But the process will be made viable by an open discussion of all motives, where they will be held together in the broadest, most extensive way. Thus, the spectrum of relevant motives, taken into account in the decision, will be as broad as possible and the universality of the deliberation will be effective. The criterion, in this precise sense, will be “non-attachment”. A fourth type of “drape fall” can be distinguished here, each condition being defined as a statement of position in relation to a complete set of relevant conditions effective at that time. This is a process “by a reversal of perspective”. Huineng is considered to be the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism (禪). It is from him that this current takes its essential features, as the fruit of a school of Buddhism perfectly assimilated to the Chinese spirit. He is described as illiterate, probably to emphasize his method, which was that of a “sudden” realization of Buddha’s nature, as opposed to that of Shen Xiu, who insisted on a gradual transformation, obtained by studying the texts. This is the classic opposition between the “gradual” (jian, 漸) and the “sudden” (dun, 頓)25. Huineng takes a position both on the relationship to the texts and on the relationship to meditation. In both cases, a “reversal of perspective” comes into play. The relationship to the texts makes it possible to show this. It is useless to approach the texts with only a fearful reverence since they are there to transmit the words of one Buddha to other Buddhas. The sūtra is there to guide the Buddhist to an awareness of the Buddha’s nature that they carry within them. By becoming aware, they realize this. Realizing this, they themself became a Buddha, not inferior to the one who wrote the sūtra. This should not be misunderstood. If you have not seen in yourself the nature of Buddha, you are not a Buddha. But as soon as you see 25 As indicated above, the dispute between Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan can be seen as an inventive repetition of the opposition of “gradualism”/“suddenness”.

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it, you become one. Only this realization separates the ignorant from the Buddha. But it makes all the difference between a person entirely caught up in the cycle of samsāra, attached to an object, a text, or their ego, and a person who has realized that there is no difference between samsāra and nirvāna by suddenly managing to free themself from any attachment. If Huineng had not heard a monk recite the Diamond Sūtra in his youth, he would never have been able to go down this path. The texts are therefore important, and Huineng in the Platform Sūtra cites the classics, but they are only instruments to achieve enlightenment, which no one else can do for us. As for meditation, the reverse is similar. Huineng rejects the idea that sitting still and not thinking about anything can contribute to our Awakening. This does not mean that meditation should not be practiced. But he has a dynamic vision of it. One can meditate without sitting in the seven-point posture. Each exercise in daily life can become an opportunity for meditation. There is, in Chan, the wu nian, 無念, which is translated, a little quickly, as “absence of thought”. In reality, what is targeted is thought in the absence of thought, in the idea that “the human mind is not thought, but the emptiness and peace that form the basis and source of thought” [FAH 95, p. 85]. Meditation cannot be an end in itself. It must become an instrument at the service of the Awakening of the concrete person who comes to see the patriarch to be guided. It must not be purely passive, but must involve the entirety of the person seeking Awakening in its dynamism. This simultaneous transformation of the relationship to texts and meditative discipline is enlightened by Huineng’s use of the couple ti, 體 (basis, constitution)/ yong, 用 (function, implementation). “Contemplation and knowledge are one thing and not two, for contemplation is precisely the basis of knowledge, and knowledge exactly the implementation of contemplation” [FAH 95, p. 31] (modified translation). This complementary pair emphasizes the fact that contemplation (dhyāna)26 and knowledge (prajnā) cannot be separated or conceived independently of each other. Both meditation and study must be balanced and conceived in their relationship to the dynamism of the concrete person who wants to reach an awakening. There is therefore no attachment to a determined text or activity. The formal criterion of “non-attachment” expresses the ethical aspect of the process by a reversal of perspective. This undermines the main objection made by the Song Confucians (and beyond that) to Buddhism, that of putting forward an “Absolute” which would be a 26 These are the two Sanskrit terms, testifying to Huineng’s position in relation to the heritage of Indian Buddhism, transmitted to him in a straight line, from Buddha, through Bodhidharma (twenty-eighth Indian patriarch, who introduced Lankāvatāra-sūtra to China). Huineng would then be the sixth Chinese patriarch.

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“constitution” without a “function”. But it must be recognized that even if Chan considers the human being in its dynamic concreteness, it nevertheless does not encourage political commitment in the world in the sense that Confucianism does. Traditionally, Chan combines in its concept “non-duality” (bu er, 不二, literally “no two”), “emptiness” (kong, 空) and “inter-relation”. Here we must understand these terms in relation to the problem of an ethical process. Non-duality gives access to emptiness in the sense that it is above all a rejection of the two extremes of being and non-being. A common mistake is to assume that Buddhism teaches that everything is an illusion. However, it does not at all reject the ephemeral phenomena that enter the consciousness and disappear immediately. What it condemns as illusory are the judgments of being and non-being that we automatically add to these phenomena. Illusion is not the phenomenon, but what we believe the phenomenon is. It is the opinion we have about the existence of the phenomenon, or its nonexistence. It is the “attachment” that we show to the phenomenon by adding this judgment concerning being or not-being to its simple ephemeral flow. To judge it as existing is to want to make it last, and therefore to be attached to it in this sense. To consider it as not existing is to reject it, so to remain attached to it in a negative way. The judgments of affirmation and rejection are in addition to the phenomenon that springs from the consciousness. They determine this phenomenon. They determine consciousness. Consciousness determines itself, objectively, in the form of a separate object that we consider “to be” before us as something closed. It does so in a proliferating way because, by accepting the existence of such an object, we are led to accept that of many others, to infinity. The determination of consciousness supports itself and renews itself. It takes place in causal chains, deploying conditions as determinations to infinity. Each condition is therefore put forth as determining consciousness, by objectively putting forth a being or denying a non-being. However, such a determined consciousness is non-free. In reality, phenomena cross consciousness without determining it. And a free consciousness considers them and lets them pass without attaching itself to them: even better, it takes them back into its effectiveness and assumes them. Likewise, conditions, as knowledge, do not determine consciousness. They emerge within it while being “empty” of being and non-being, thus not arousing any attachment on their part. They allow a continuous transition from the linguistic condition to the phenomenal thusness that it expresses and for which it offers an understanding. Knowledge does not imply a determination of consciousness. The conditions are taken up and assumed “in” the consciousness, in a completely detached way. That is, the infinite inter-relationships of conditions and phenomena unfold spontaneously without biting into the consciousness, which simply takes note of them and, eventually, orders them by leaving them to themselves. Consciousness is the dimension in which these inter-relationships unfold without freezing in a determined, and therefore non-free, figure.

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But if this inter-relationship is infinite, how can we understand that we are aware of it from a precise position for which only certain conditions are relevant? Otherwise, we would have to take into account an infinite number of conditions and any decision would be impossible or arbitrary. Even if inter-relationships of a causal or other nature go on ad infinitum, both to the past and previous states of conditions that remain effective, as well as to conditions simultaneously active in the present, a “decision” or an “action” is always part of a latent totality of the possible taking place from a specific condition, upstream, for which not all conditions are relevant. It is a whole, that is, latent, certainly, but precise, in a given situation, from which we refer to the possible, which does not admit any conditional conjunction. Thus, if it is certainly possible to say that there is condition after condition to infinity, then the lucid actor is in an “unconditioned” situation in the sense that it allows the relevant conditions to be taken into account for “this” totality of the possible and of it alone, against the background of the element of the possible. However, consciousness remains of course open in a “viability”, an availability, which is reinvented at every moment. And it can be reintegrated into other active totalities, but never into the abstraction of an “infinity” of conditions. This consideration of the relevant conditions by a consciousness that is not determined by judgments of being and non-being, signs of attachment, is in reality an “assumption” responsible for the situation. Nishitani Keiji tries to think of the Awakening as that moment when the burden of karma, which makes the settlement of each debt the occasion for the next debt, becomes light and like a game, as the moment when we understand that this karma is itself completely empty and that the production of debt is an illusion27 [NIS 83, p. 253–254]. Realizing emptiness for oneself as non-duality, therefore as “nonattachment”, is the way to live up to one’s responsibility. A debt that can only be paid by being renewed can only be overwhelming. A determination can only open to other determinations of consciousness by itself, in the objective position of new objects. On the other hand, a detached and free consciousness can collect all the relevant conditions and ascend into their possibility, without allowing itself to be determined unilaterally. A determination bites into the consciousness and gives it a unilateral orientation. Detachment is a guarantee of impartiality, of taking into account all relevant conditions, each in its own place. 27 This is not the place to discuss the relevance of the classical notion of karma to think of a sequence of conditions. Let us simply point out that the Buddha recognized this karmic causality only as one causality among others. See [WIJ 06, p. 123]. It is the inter-relationship of these various causalities that must be taken into account. This avoids an overly unilateral consideration of karma.

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Attachment marks a determination of consciousness by a biased condition, which causes the content to fall outside the framework. Non-attachment is, on the contrary, a criterion for an assumption of form in the content. More than a psychological disposition, “non-attachment” appears to be a characteristic feature of an ethical process. This feature, like “sincerity”, “non-separation” and “viability”, is an objective, structural criterion for taking the broadest possible account of the relevant conditions in context. These four criteria characterize the objective (repeatable and identifiable) “form” of an ethical process. With regard to the example of the INRA study, the four criteria appear relevant. While the study has responded relatively satisfactorily to the criteria of “nonseparation” and “viability” (insofar as the framing of problems does not come only from experts, and the symbolic dimension is also debated), it is failing in relation to the criteria of “sincerity” and “non-attachment” (since some actors are dismissed from the outset and there is a risk of a lack of independence regarding the researchers). The four criteria thus appear to be non-exclusive of each other. They allow a fine, modulated reading of a given situation. 6.3. Four types of “fall of the drape” It is necessary to clarify by examples what is meant by the “fall of the drape” of the possible. These are, of course, processes. We have just identified, in passing, four specific types of processes: “by dual polarization”, “by accentuating a line”, “by using linguistic resources”, “by reversing perspective”. In each case, these processes concern the way in which conditions are configured in relation to relevant previous conditions in what becomes a process. In a “fall of the drape”, each fold is nothing other than the relationship between active folds upstream, in the element of the possible. It is appropriate to take as examples themes from contemporary political philosophy, probably more meaningful to the reader than Chinese themes. Let us consider the dual polarization process. An example of such a polarization is the pair formed by “the just” and “the good”. Rawls’ formula initiates the process: “The two main concepts of ethics are those of the just and the good” [RAW 09, p. 50].

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The polarization made effective in the positions taken in relation to the reception of Rawls’ book does indeed oppose a concept of the just, based on an approach that discards the concrete belongings of the subject (through the “veil of ignorance”), and a concept of the “good” (which is based on traditions, relationships, shared belonging). On the one hand, belongings are sources of bias; on the other hand, they are rich in the ethical relationships that take place in social life. The two terms come into play in opposition to one another. A split takes place. It becomes necessary to take a position. But the question on which we are invited to take a position, that of the priority or not of the just over the good, implies that we are already moving within the dual polarization of the just and the good [RAW 09, p. 57]. The process unfolds in the form of a dual polarization. The drape of the possible falls back into the form of the polarization of the just and the good. Authors who are in line with Rawls’ book, A Theory of Justice, will take a position, downstream, with respect to the condition set by him, upstream. Their conditions will unfold the possibilities opened by the Rawlsian upstream ascent. The opposition between liberals and communitarians will develop this dual polarization for a long time [HUG 09]. Let us now look at the process by accentuating a line. Reference can be made here to Michael Sandel’s book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. The author cites Rawls’ position on Kant: “To develop a viable Kantian concept of justice, it is necessary to detach the power and content of Kantian doctrine from its background of transcendental idealism and reformulate them into the standards of reasonable empiricism28” [SAN 10, p. 39]. Rawls therefore considers the Kantian approach as too “abstract”. He does not believe that an abstract and disinterested subject can, without arbitrariness, set out principles of justice that are valid for everyone. He also doubts that the legislation produced by such a subject can be applied to real human beings.

28 He refers to [RAW 77, p. 165].

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He therefore tries to keep the framework of the theory of the social contract while overcoming the abstraction of the Kantian subject. This is the whole point of the “veil of ignorance”. But, for Sandel, Rawls renews Kantian abstraction. As he wants to keep ethical robustness through the “original position”, he is condemned to repeat the postulation of a disembodied subject, which he nevertheless explicitly proposed to overcome. Sandel’s position is clear: “To imagine a person incapable of such constitutive attachments is not to conceive of an ideally free and rational agent, but to imagine a person entirely devoid of character and without any moral depth” [SAN 10, p. 261]. This is a fall of the drape by accentuating a line, in this case the rejection of the abstraction of the subject, which sets out the principles of the just. Each of the two authors wants to accentuate the line, to escape abstraction. It is not necessary to decide whether one, both or neither has succeeded. The important thing is to identify the shape, the structure of this fall of the drape. Sandel takes a position, downstream, with respect to Rawls and proposes to assert the same condition but in a more consistent way. The drape falls back into this accentuation of the line. Let us describe the process using linguistic resources. A third type of fall of the drape can be seen with Michael Walzer. Indeed, he distinguishes between several distribution criteria, each of which is valid for a given good, within the sphere of that good. There are many spheres and justice emerges insofar as each good is distributed according to the criterion that is attached to the “social meaning” of that good [WAL 83]. For example, justice requires that wealth, education and health are not distributed according to the same criteria. Indeed, the shared social meaning of these goods is different and each time implies a different distribution criterion. If wealth obeys the laws of the market, it cannot buy access to a diploma. When it comes to health, need is the criterion, not the wealth of the patient. Each sphere therefore has its own distribution criterion and keeping the spheres distinct, preventing the encroachment of one into the other, is the challenge of justice.

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It is here that linguistic resources are at stake, it is the shared “meaning”, accepted within a given society, of a good, that gives the criterion of its distribution. Thus, the different meanings, the different possible senses of the word “good”, draw a fall of the drape, each condition (wealth, education, health) being configured by its relationship to the other conditions. A fourth type of fall is by reversing the perspective. An example can be taken from Alasdair MacIntyre. The change in his case operates between the falsely universal point of view of a rationality unconscious of his fundamental options and that of a shared tradition, with its criteria of rationality inseparable from the history in which this tradition took shape. “Where the viewpoint of a tradition implies the recognition that the debate lies between competing concepts of rationality, the viewpoint of the forums of liberal modernity presupposes the fiction of universal common rationality criteria (whereas) the viewpoint of a tradition cannot be presented independently of the historical situation” [MAC 13, p. 431]. Where a point of view unconscious of its anchoring in a tradition was inclined to transfer its options to the level of a supposedly universal rationality, shared from the outset by all stakeholders, it is necessary to understand that each rational criterion is constructed and depends on the context in which it was stated. This can be read as follows: it is at the moment when we see that the supposed universality of the rationality criteria used by liberal modernity is illusory that we reach a true generality, which is that of the unavoidable dependence of any rational criterion on the context and tradition in which it is formulated. In a change of perspective, a truly general vision of the interdependence of the criteria in relation to the context of their emergence, whatever these criteria may be, is found at the cost of reversing the false universality posed by the liberals. It should be noted here that the four types of processes, or falls of the drape, that have been reported are not necessarily “ethical”. The examples that have been chosen, by their bias, since they highlight a dimension of justice at the cost of a broad concealment of the dimension of interests, actually mean that the “universality” linked to taking into account the broadest spectrum of motives is missing. The exposure of the four types of fall of the drape is therefore independent of that of the four criteria of the ethicality of a process.

7 Obstacles to an Ethical Consideration of the Drape

Two major obstacles can be identified. First, does such a vision not imply the concept of a “nature” and, what is more, of a “normative” nature? Second, does it not use “wisdom” in a way that would be inadmissible today? 7.1. Overcoming the question of a normative nature We have encountered several figures of what could be called “nature” in China. Better still, each time it is the way in which this nature plays out that makes it possible, it seems, to take on the descriptive/normative distinction, that: a) For the first Confucians, humanity receives a “nature” from Heaven; as soon as one is born, one inherits this nature (which is, according to Mencius, good) and the obligation to cultivate it. b) For Zhu Xi, we can certainly say that the principle li, 理, is metaphysical and not physical; nevertheless, this would use a distinction that is not Chinese; the principle is given by Heaven and Heaven, Earth and the ten thousand beings are indeed what can be translated as ordered “nature”. c) The same is true if we consider the distinction between the “Dao mind” and “human mind”; in its close union with energies, the principle must be cultivated and followed through assiduous and continuous study; the Dao mind is, here again, conferred by Heaven. d) As far as Chan is concerned, it clearly emphasizes, with Huineng, the importance of “seeing into one’s own nature”, which is the “nature of Buddha” that everyone must find in themselves.

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It therefore seems that, following the four well-defined avenues that we have outlined, in each case, what makes the “ethical” dimension of the process stand out respectively is indeed a “natural” dimension of this process. To find in oneself the natural, so-called “ethical” “gift” and to cultivate it constitutes, in each case, with its defined specificities, what makes the process effective. 7.2. Obstacles related to the concept of a normative nature European modernity, which began in the 17th Century, has undermined such a perspective. Indeed, the transformation of knowledge and the development of science and technology are such that we can no longer think of a univocal, centered and unified order that would be given as such by nature and to which we would only have to adjust ourselves. Today we are confronted with fragmented1, unorganized, proliferating diversities, given by particular sciences and rationalities that are increasingly decentralized and therefore not integrated into a single order, even as they gain in accuracy. This is due to a specific process that began in Europe. This is a “decentralization process”, which is in reality a special case of a “process by accentuation of a line”. Without wishing to discuss it in detail, since this would take us away from our subject, let us retrace its broad lines, trying to identify its full scope, which is often fragmented in the specialized study of this or that particular episode2. This process was operated by successive decentralizations of nature with respect to humanity, who found themselves placed “outside of” this nature so as to understand and control it. With Copernicus, the Earth no longer occupies the center of the world, but the planets revolve around the Sun. Humans no longer inhabit this central place intended by God, but just one planet amongst others. With Kant, we only have access to things through the specific forms of our sensitivity and understanding. This could be seen as a Copernican “counter-revolution”, since things now revolve around the subject, whose cognitive forms they accept [MEI 09]. But, in reality, it is indeed humanity who is denied access to everything, as in the “thing in itself” (Ding an sich), that escapes their categories. Humanity is again decentered in this sense. With Darwin, nature is decentered in relation to humans, who are now a late species that has appeared on the abundant tree of life. With Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, it is humans in their culture who find themselves decentered. The State and, in general, superstructures are not something that could manifest a natural law. Morality does not express a transcendent truth. The unconscious holds a decisive, though previously unsuspected, place in human life. 1 See [NAN 11], especially Chapter III, “ De la struction”. 2 Alexandre Koyré’s masterful analysis is still an excellent overview of this [KOY 73].

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The State, morality and consciousness do not express a nature that has been ordered by God “in readiness for” man, who would occupy its center. Finally, we are witnessing an ultimate decentralization with the loss of the distinction between nature and technology. Technology, a human product, is escaping humans and our planning control at the same time as it is simply ruining the notion of a nature that would be its opposite and on which it would operate from the outside. Technology is based on natural processes (think of the progress of medicine), which it makes possible to prolong, but it does so by setting itself as a natural process (since we do indeed live longer) at the same time that natural processes appear to implement sophisticated “technology”. Humanity no longer uses technology that perfects nature, which would imply a centrality. Not only are we ourselves natural, but our technologies are a nature implemented by this particular species called homo sapiens, which is itself infinitely decentered with its now autonomous technological/natural productions [NAN 11]. What are the consequences of this decentralization process? It should be noted that it is impossible, first of all, to appeal to a nature that would offer a univocal order of a normative kind on which we would have to base our behavior. Let us observe, however, that what has been developed above is not a thought about nature, but a thought about the processes. In the cases studied, nature only intervenes to allow a processual thinking about the process. However, it is this agreement of content and form that is ethical. If nature brings, in the four cases studied, an ethical dimension to the process, namely, sincerity, non-separation, continuity and non-attachment, it is, in each case, by giving the processual content a processual form. It makes the thinker part of their thinking, involved in ethical work on themselves. Both the moral “nature” of Mencius, as well as the “principle” of Zhu Xi and the “nature of Buddha” of Huineng mark the profound agreement between the process that is thought out and the thinker’s own effort to be part of this process. For them, “nature” was a content available and usable to express this agreement. It is from there, by cultivating this gift from “Heaven”, that everyone could join in this process of Heaven-Earth where ten thousand beings live. From this gift, ethical inclusion in the process became possible. However, would it be true to say that the process is no longer conceivable, for one who is decentered, in a processual way? That the thinker can no longer be involved, in the effectiveness of their life, in the process that they think about and in which they live3? Would they not be condemned to the position of an eccentric, external judge who questions the objects, who is destined for the separation of their ethical life from their knowledge? 3 This is not simply the involvement of the observer to the extent to which quantum mechanics has drawn attention to it, but an involvement of the ethical life of the thinker in what they think.

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7.3. Normativity in thinking about the process A processual thinking about the process would be an effective thought, a thought of the process in its element. At the same time, it must be adapted to the current scientific and technological knowledge. These new knowledge contexts, deeply involved in the fall of the drape of decentralization that has just been mentioned, constitute the main challenges for processual thinking about the process today. Each of the four cases studied above has been developed, according to its content, in the following sense: the good nature of Mencius towards consistent upstream thinking; the thinking of an unfailing reciprocal link between principle and energies towards an ethical innervation; the continuity between the “human mind” and “the Dao mind” towards a thinking about plural totalities; the “nature of Buddha” towards a dynamic notion of consciousness. The four concepts related to “nature” therefore extend respectively to four dominant lines of the process theory that was presented in the first part of this book. If we introduce a consideration of form, each concept when related to nature disappears, leaving, in front of the redefined content, an objective criterion for the assumption of form in this content: sincerity, non-separation, continuity, non-attachment. The process is neither “natural” nor “artificial”. It is a category of effectiveness. It consists of opening a situation to its viability on the basis of the relevant conditions. It is therefore based on the conditions offered by science and technology, but not only these. If these conditions are ethically neutral, it puts them back into a totality of the possible, which is no longer ethically neutral. It is not that there is a “nature” that is normative but a process, processually thought, is likely to manifest an ethical structure. This renewed thinking about the process, in order to itself be processual and to involve the ethical life of the thinker, implies formal signs, or signatures, of this agreement between the content and the processual form, thus the assumption of the second in the first. It is indeed the (efficient) form that is assumed (and therefore effective), each time. However, in this concept, the role played by sincerity, non-separation, viability and non-attachment is to “signal” in a neutral, objective way, the agreement of content and form that has been identified in the examples. They allow a processual thinking about the process, a thinking in which the ethical life of the thinker is involved. This ethical life requires sincerity (towards oneself and others), non-separation (with an illusory backworld), viability (from one moment to the next) and non-attachment (which does not mean indifference but impartiality), with

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sometimes an emphasis on one or the other of these traits, depending on the process in which one is involved. However, they are “also” structural, objective conditions of a process at work. As such, they cannot be considered simply as “subjective” or “psychological”. These are four ways in which an ethical structuring of an efficient process can emerge and be recognized. This expresses the possibility of a convergence of efficiency and effectiveness. This should not be surprising. Indeed, there can be no freedom without taking into account the interests, values, needs and knowledge of the other people involved with us in a situation. Carrying out our projects while taking these into account is our autonomy. Everyone thus has the best opportunity to achieve their rational goals. So, the best chance of efficiency is linked to the effectiveness of a process. Efficiency cannot avoid effectiveness. Otherwise, freedom (thought of as non-determination) is ruined, in favor of an illusory concept of freedom (as the achievement of the goals that determine will). That people have a false concept of their freedom is largely a psychological, subjective question. I would like to confine myself here to an objective consideration. What then can we say about expressions such as “natural borders”, “natural rights”, “natural laws”, etc.? Their legitimacy cannot be based on the number of people who accept them or have an interest in them. But neither are they found in a given nucleus without human intervention. Human intervention is always there as soon as there is knowledge, and where there is human intervention, there is possible deconstruction. The legitimacy of specific rules comes from objective criteria that describe a precise, ethical structure, a fall of the drape of the possible, in a specific context of knowledge. But is there not, in all the above considerations, the presupposition of the possibility of a wisdom, which would in reality be linked to that of a relationship with the cosmos which is no longer ours? Is this wisdom possible outside of this relationship with the cosmos? Or from what experience can this wisdom be realized today? 7.4. Another fall of the drape in Europe: the loss of “wisdom” What is the process, in Europe, that has gradually made the realization of lived wisdom problematic? Without wishing to explain in detail this fall of the drape, it is sufficient for me to note that this is a process by dual polarization. Let us consider the conceptual pairing “content/form”. What is the scope of such a use? In reality, historically, there is a dual polarity at the base of this pairing: “potential/actual” and “matter/form”. However, if these two dualities were united

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with Aristotle, where they reflected, together, the unity of ουσια (ousía)4, they have gradually come to be dissociated, even opposed. Where the dissociation of the two pairings plays for Saint Thomas in favor of the “act”, since the duality of “matter/form” must itself be actualized, the Kantian moment gives priority to the “form” [GIL 00, p. 104]. The constitution, in his case, of a doctrine of objectivity, is based on the disjunction of the “phenomenal” as a field of experience, possible only insofar as it responds to the pure categories and the forms of space and time, and the “noumenal”, which ensures the possibility of freedom, but remains out of the scope of experience5. If the noumenal cannot be given through experience, the duality of form and matter comes first, upstream. If the form gives the framework in which the sensible manifold can only be given to me, their polarization is first. The form cannot be assumed in the content. The process cannot be thought of processually. The wisdom of an act in accordance with form is a priori impossible6.

4 Metaphysics, H, 6, 1045a21-25. 5 KAN 97a, A 235 ff./B 294 ff. (A refers to the first edition; B to the second). 6 We should undertake a long exploration of the neo-Aristotelian currents that are available as alternatives and also mention authors such as Paul Ricoeur, among others. But this would require an excursus in relation to the topic at hand: how can we explain the objective ethical conditions for innovation and responsible research; and how can a detour to China provoke a radically new way of thinking about these conditions?

8 Objectively Ethical Processes

8.1. Practical wisdom As the act has been dissociated from the form, a withdrawal towards the first would mean a renunciation of efficiency, and therefore of effectiveness. The change of emphasis will consist of requesting an assumed form from its content. But this can be done according to a double emphasis: on the “creative possible” or on the “consciousness”. Why does the relationship between these two terms seem problematic? It is not a question of identifying a third term from which they would proceed, and which would reconcile them as having a common “origin”, but of simply clarifying their relationship. I want to suggest that this is related to the role that “will” plays in the spontaneous representation of the two terms. Will is often viewed unquestioningly, in its activity of determination, as an “element”. Why is that the case? It wants the ends to be determined every time. This does not mean that, philosophically, it cannot be interpreted as a will that wills itself, insofar as it keeps rejecting its goals once they have been achieved. But it is not enough to have deconstructed the absolute finalities (the end of history in a fully self-aware “Spirit” (Hegel), a “supreme being” (classical metaphysics) or a “total man” (Marx)) to be done with finality in general. People usually set themselves specific goals and try to achieve them. Rather, the end of absolute ends leads to the proliferation of individual ends (the ends of an individual, a company, etc., which are generally maximizing ends in a particular domain). The will wants ends; and efficiency is its ability to achieve them in a concrete way. Through these ends that the will sets, it determines consciousness and the creative possible. When consciousness allows itself to be determined, it appears as conditioned, therefore as non-free. Therefore, these ends that the will imposes on the

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consciousness are not effective, to the exact extent that the one who wants them is acted upon by them without his or her knowledge. He (or she) believes he knows what he wants. He thinks he knows he wants to do. But in reality, he is willed, as long as he allows himself to be determined. The will, on the other hand, determines and delimits constructed possibilities. Based on the creative possible, it imposes itself on this in its determinations as a necessity, to the exact extent that it organizes its forgetting. This forgetting becomes operative when the will is seen as an “element” at each stage of the process. Humans begin by wanting and most often we never leave behind our will. This is why the will appears to us as the element in which we move. Taking itself for an element, a will believes that it can assume its actions from itself. It believes it can access responsibility from within itself. However, whenever it wants, the will wants its interests or its identities. It is therefore tempted to reduce the conditions relevant to interests relating to gain or identity, shifting the assumption of responsibility to a balancing that would be ensured by the element of the will itself. But as will is not an element, this balancing remains an illusion1. Willing determination (the act of determining the objects constructed by this act) is not an element, even if, grasped by the given logics, it can deploy effective processes. A willing consciousness, or a constructed possible, can be efficient without being effective. In other words, they may or may not initiate an ethical process. The elementality of the possible therefore remains essential in understanding what an ethical process is. Why does seeing will as an element make the relationship between the “creative possible” and “consciousness” problematic? The creative possible seen in the hypothesis of an elementality of the will becomes, through and through, a possible constructed by this will. The consciousness seen under the same hypothesis becomes a psyche conditioned from beginning to end. The first becomes purely objective; the second purely subjective. Their relationship becomes problematic. If the will is not an element, its determinations can be taken up in the ethical process of a real element, the possible, where they will be assumed. This ethical process can be considered from the double perspective of the creative possible and consciousness, without the relationship of these two terms becoming problematic, since each expresses a perspective on this assumption of determinations (of form).

1 This will be developed in Part 3 of this book, about the Invisible Hand.

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8.2. Ethical knowledge A process can be ethical or it can be unethical. It may consist of a contingent set of conditions, taken up according to a coordinated or uncoordinated plurality of logical sequences dictated by interests. These conditions, as determinations, will be knowledge to the exact extent that they will allow the action undertaken to be efficient, and therefore the achievement of the goals set (which may include conformity with the experimental results in the exact sciences, in the form of an interest in knowledge). Knowledge always refers to “conditions” in or through which the situation makes sense. It is an encounter with objects that surround us and that are for us only through the determined knowledge we have of them; it is a formal development that satisfies an interest in knowledge only if the situation itself, with its gravity, gives itself to understanding in these conditions. How then can we understand what is meant by “ethical” “knowledge”? It will be said thus as soon as it allows access to the ethical innervation of the creative possible at work in the situation. Going back to the possible, the forgetting of which makes the conditions necessary, it will open up a viability within this possible. It will move in the realization of the absence of pre-determination, on both sides, on the (concrete) side of objects known in a situation as well as on the (abstract) side of the formal expression of the knowledge of these objects. If there were pre-determination, objects and theory would fall outside each other, into a face-to-face situation without effectiveness. Knowledge is an encounter, without any necessary pre-formation that could be classified once and for all in the routine of the well-known. In this respect, knowledge will allow the “viability” of the possible within the situation, in the assumption (ethics) of the form (knowledge expressed in a language) in the content (the creative possible). It is necessary here to distinguish between, on the one hand, certain conditions (values, rules, rights, etc.) which may be valid in a situation, provided that they contribute to completing an archipelago or a whole spectrum of possibilities (alongside the various selfish or identity interests), and, on the other hand, the criteria which have been presented here of the ethicality of a process. What is the major difference between the two? The former may express feelings or emotions but they do not always do so, far from it. However, if this is the case, they fall on the “subjective” side of motivations. But this, in general, is no more than the interests do. The latter express an ethical viability of the process, thus a sustainable access to the creative possible. A process is no more objective than subjective, although it has these two aspects on the outside. Nevertheless, insofar as the four criteria, expressing the relationship of assumption of form in content, are

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themselves formal, they can be called “objective”. They do not build objects, but express, each time, a defined relationship of knowledge, not subjective, from form to content. Assumption, which is processual, is not something objective. But the criteria for this assumption, as expressed, are. This means that they are likely to be challenged and rigorously redesigned with the gains in accuracy of the theory. 8.3. Judging Values, moral rules and rights involve judgments, in situations, about people who do not respect them. These judgments relate to individuals or groups whose behavior deviates from these conditions. Expressing our “attachment” to the latter, judgment reflects a “determination” of consciousness through will. That the will is in this case moral and speaks of a (possibly) legitimate revolt in relation to (what can be) violent, alienating and destructive behaviors is something to be considered. Nevertheless, a thinking of the process invites an inversion of judgment within judgment, which realizes an assumption of the form (of the stated judgment) in the content (the viable possible). If we do not want judgment to be confined to being an external denunciation without consequences, judgment must reflect not only a subjective condemnation, but also an effective assumption of responsibility in relation to the situation. This means not condemning this or that, but “weighing up” the situation in such a way as to best help the victims. Weighing up here means an impartiality that helps and compensates for imbalances without lingering over the judging, in a determination of will, of singular individuals, which could reassure someone in the position of absolute rule, willing, possibly, to rely on it in order to commit in turn the unacceptable. A moral judgment can become a violent determination, even the most violent of determinations. Precisely because the person who formulates it condemns others in the name of a moral principle, he or she may be led to consider the violence inscribed in this judgment as legitimate. However, the latter presupposes a good conscience on the part of the person who states it. In more detail, one can consider that ensuring this good conscience is the most powerful motive for the pronouncement of the judgment. If the person does not need to feel reassured that they are complying with the rule, or better yet, if they do not need to prove to others, by their conviction, that they are honest, then they will probably not overwhelm the other with such anger. This aspect justifies not treating a moral principle as essentially incommensurable with a selfish interest. A rule may actually involve much more

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violence than a defined interest. It can also be just as “conditioned” by mental, psychological and subjective motivations. The requirement of non-determination by defined motives, a prelude to their assumption, applies to all conditions, regardless of their place on the motivational spectrum. Responsibility comes, in this effective sense, to undetermine (assume) the judgment. 8.4. Christianisms and processes Christianity is traditionally associated, without wishing to provoke any arguments, with a teleology, that of a Last Judgment. But can the Christians (in their various forms) still assume their universalism? Here we could take up the question of secularization: is there an originality of modernity with respect to societies where the Christian religion had a much stronger social influence? This would require addressing the debate between Carl Schmitt, Karl Löwith and Hans Blumenberg [MON 12]. For our purposes, it will be sufficient to note that when a theorist like John Milbank intends to propose a theological reading of modernity, he sees his gesture as a return to “a” tradition, a determined perspective, even if he questions what makes this tradition unique in relation to others, since it is in a relationship with “this” that perspectivism, relativism and nihilism have emerged [MIL 06, pp. 262–263]. Milbank proposes, against the tide of modernity, a reading of the social sciences based on their theological assumptions. But, despite his efforts, it seems that his return to a teleological dimension weakens, whatever is said about it, the traditional universality of the Church. Thinking of returning to this universality, that of Christian tradition, by highlighting the way in which it shapes the entire development of the social sciences, shows that the teleological scheme itself is in reality connected to a very particular tradition. Before returning to the question of Christian universalism by linking it directly to the teleology it sets up, it may be interesting to ask whether Christianisms are, at a high degree of generality, incompatible with thinking about the process. I would like to briefly suggest that this is not the case. Ethical innervation can be perfectly read as a life in Christ2, where the creative possible is the inexhaustible action of a God concentrated in a continuous creation of

2 St Paul, Epistle to the Romans, 8, 1 ff.

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every fact and condition, in the living heart of an experience of this creation, which is that of the believer. This creation of the world, where interior and exterior no longer have any place, is at the same time, at every moment, a humbling action for God who, for our redemption3, accepts radical contingency. The serene and peaceful life of the believer, sharing in the City of God, is made in the acceptance of this contingency within his or her heart. However, this is only “one” interpretation of ethical innervation, with several others still possible. Let us verify, on the basis of the four criteria, that it is viable. The worst enemy of faith, in a society where religion is influential, is hypocrisy: a) Sincerity reminds us that life in Christ must be fully internalized, according to this interpretation, if we claim an ethical innervation and therefore a realized freedom. b) Another enemy is dualism. We cannot abstractly separate the “City of Man” and the “City of God”. The latter has consistency only because it is a freedom realized in God among men, therefore among all the men we meet, whether their practices are in accordance with their faith or not. To know oneself in all circumstances as a child of God, and to live in this knowledge, is to have gained access to the City of God, which need not be sent to a backworld, “after” physical death4. The promise of eternal life, in spirit, has nothing to do with a life that would be chronologically infinite, in a succession, after the contingent adventure of physical death. Frankly, this question arises only internally and can only be dealt with rationally on the basis of logics which are of interest to Christians alone, whereas the four criteria objectively concern effective freedom as a whole. c) Continuity indicates that it is not enough to simply disdain interests for gain. Christianisms must take into account scientific and technological advances, or otherwise they will close off partial logics and will not be able to establish a continuity of ethical innervation, thus ending in the “separation” of a City of God that will have ceased to be effective. d) This life in Christ will also be a life without attachment, as soon as the subtlest attachments have ceased, that to a life that would be “chronologically” located after death, or that to a judgment that irrevocably condemns one’s neighbor. The question of the Last Judgment therefore deserves to be revisited in the context of a thinking about the process. This Last Judgment is associated with “a” date, an “end” of Times. It comes after the temporal unfolding of a “History” which 3 Although the theology of redemption is particularly reminiscent of the 19th Century, it remains a salient feature throughout Christian traditions. 4 Since death is not a biographical episode that should have an afterwards in a temporal sense.

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is unique, successive and finalized by Salvation. However, ethical innervation is accessible from any place, any situation. It introduces a plural, sporadic effectiveness, with no other purpose than the constantly renewed viability of access to the creative possible, in what can be called the “Holy Spirit”. Therefore, the teleology must be thwarted and no longer play the role of a universal. History has no “unique” end that can be assigned or predicted where the Final Judgment should take place. The Final Judgment arrives at every moment for the true believer. In reality, this Final Judgment has always already happened, in the form of all the judgments that people make at all times, on all things, with irresponsibility, with a disconcerting absence of empathy and charity, and by which they judge themselves in all justice before the Holy Spirit. The Final Judgment is no longer to be expected at the end of future times. It is to be sought, by the sincere believer, in an attention to the violent judgments that they themselves are often inclined to make towards their neighbors, without always being so demanding towards themselves. Universality is no longer the objective condition of a Final Judgment but the assumption of every condition in the Holy Spirit where the believer resides at every moment. Ethical innervation and its effectiveness, in this interpretation also, presuppose an openness to all the knowledge that science brings through the various conditions under which it is formulated. While some logics will be for internal use in this interpretation of ethical innervation, others, related to the objective aspect of knowledge, will be relevant to this innervation as such and will be included in the assignment of relevant conditions. Some Christian “values” will appear to be relevant in this objective context. But Christianisms, as lived interpretations of ethical innervation, and therefore as an “experience”, will not be reduced in any way to a more or less structured set of “values”. The life of the believer, through communion, prayer and confession, is rich in experience. Through integration into it, Christian values take on meaning and effectiveness. However, we cannot simply oppose, like John Milbank, an “ontology of peace” with an “ontology of violence” [MIL 06]. But the experience of peace, of serenity, must be lived in the midst of the most brutal violence, which is always already factually given, with people, near or far, in the past or the present, who share this peace. There can be no “separation” between peace and violence, but peace must be maintained and affirmed when we cross violence, and against it. Augustine tried to give points of reference in the ambiguity of a historical time when he distinguished the operation of two principles of judgment and action, one based on possession (the City of Man), and the other on faith (the City of God)

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[AUG 94]. But according to him, neither of them is perfectly realized on earth. They are rather two Ideas in the Platonic sense. Thus we see that those who wanted to achieve one at the expense of the other could only fail. Political Augustinianism in this sense marks the failure of the City of God, while Hobbes could only avoid its challenges. But is this ambiguity, coextensive with history, between the two Cities, and the certain march for the believer towards the coming of God, a “process” in the sense of ethical innervation? The latter is realized, not once and for all5 with a univocal end at the end of Times (the Last Judgment6) but, in a plural way, in situations, with its continuity that each time needs to be ensured (responsibility). It cannot be “concretely” achieved, since it is a never-ending and creative reappraisal of the concrete from its possibility, which avoids the need for it to be closed off. History no longer having an end, the unresolved ambiguity, for a believer who intimately understands the meaning of history, is entirely surrendered to the faith nourished by this understanding. But it is therefore a faith which, as a lived meaning, is already an “experience” of life in the Holy Spirit, in Christ, an experience which joins that of the “creative possible”. “Reconciliation” (promoted by Hegel, a good Lutheran) requires that what is happening should agree with what ought to happen, that is, that responsibility should be effective. In the terms of the reference points that have been put forward here so that we can speak of an ethical “process”, and thus of ethical innervation or achieved freedom, sincerity defuses hypocrisy and cynicism; non-separation avoids the entrenchment of a given domain (a backworld) in relation to other relevant conditions in a whole; continuity overcomes the gaps that may arise between conditions, which would then risk being taken in an artificial or solely logical continuity; non-attachment avoids the biases resulting from worldly belongings7. We find the four objective criteria again, this time from a more restricted perspective which is that of the Christian traditions. A value that is particularly important in a Christian context, charity, can be put into practice by the believer without necessarily being aware of its importance for sincerity (which it presupposes and extends) or for non-attachment (which it gives effectiveness).

5 Let us recall that this ambiguity also means, for Augustine, that the believer, in this life, can never be “certain” of being elected. 6 It would be necessary, in all rigour, to renounce any thought of the Last Judgment as external and as putting an end to a succession that would be of a temporal or historical nature. 7 In the event of non-compliance with these criteria, the conditions, losing their elemental anchorage and the relationship to their own possibility, become automated in a technical and stereotypical, necessary functioning (only one possible is accessible with respect to the situation).

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These four criteria are objective but open to several interpretations while maintaining their effectiveness. I have suggested that Christianisms could offer at least one viable interpretation in this context. Universality is not that of interpretation8 but that of the assumption allowed by objective reference points that decide the relevance of conditions in a situation. However, the interpretation cannot be arbitrary since effectiveness is based on it, which gives meaning and offers habitability, a life rich in moral and practical points of reference, in ethical innervation. This innervation, not being separated, faces a gap that is always renewed between what is happening and what ought to happen; at the same time, in continuity, it achieves a shared and lasting freedom, which is an accomplished responsibility. It is, for example, through the virtue of hope, that the Christian can be responsible beyond the limits of their own will. Thus, the two reference points of “non-separation” and “continuity” make it possible to think, in their articulation, the relationship of the ever-recurring gap between what is happening and what ought to happen and the reconciliation of an effectiveness assuming the efficiency of the logics at work. Similarly, “sincerity” and “non-attachment” open up other possibilities for thinking about this relationship. The first is attentive to the injustices that cross the world and never fails to find and fight them; the second is the source of a reconciliation that gives the actor the strength to continue this fight, and to live up to their responsibility.

8 A universality which would be that of an “identity”, “Christian” for example, to the exclusion of other identities would be illusory.

Conclusion to Part 2

This part has given us a distinction between four types of fall of the drape. These are four modes of configuring conditions in relation to conditions already active in a process. These are the processes by dual polarization, by accentuation of a line, by use of linguistic resources and by reversing the perspective. In addition, four objective reference points have been specified to test the ethical structure of a process, and hence the relevance of the conditions, in their archipelago structure. These are sincerity, non-separation, continuity and non-attachment. They were presented as criteria that could introduce perspectives revealing the ethical nature of a process, with regard to the specific case of a project relating to GMO developed by INRA. These criteria were validated using a detour to China. Once the distinction between form and content was introduced, four defined sets of conditions identified in the Chinese context made it possible to see it not as a duality, but rather as an assumption of form in content, i.e. a processual thought of the process. Based on the four configurations identified in the Chinese context, extensions were made to central aspects of the concept of the process that is deployed here. The latter is thus at the crossroads of “steps taken towards each other”, which must find its position in the proper place of a peaceful encounter. It is possible to think of responsibility independently of will. The latter, relating to identities, is always reactive and constitutes a superficial reflection of a power game. It only wants to be “against” the other wills. Its action is also punctual, even if

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it is repeated. It is not an “element”1 which could have an achieved ethical freedom as its effectiveness. It may want, in accordance with such an element, the creative possible for example. And in this case, it is this conformity that makes the effectiveness. But it can also deviate from the relevant element. And then it is the will itself that allows itself to be carried away and misled, caught up in trivial power relations, unable to take the necessary distance from the given situation. Responsibility requires compliance with the effective element in the situation. It requires effectiveness: no more, no less. It does not consist in wanting this or that (determined) thing, in this or that way (always the same), but in making the ethical effectiveness prevail, carried by the element of the possible, liberated by the release of all the possibilities, upstream, which only ask to be deployed in a processual way, in a possible fall of the drape, each fold, each condition stated, positioning itself in relation to the others, taking up relevant previous knowledge, until saturation in context, which will require a new rise upstream. Responsibility can no longer be limited to the application of already established rules or laws. Faced with the considerable contingency that prevails in the unpredictable innovations of science and technology, it must itself become creative. How can we understand this creativity of responsibility? Based on objective criteria which do not restrict it but make it possible. We have tried to identify an ethical structure present in some processes. There are of course many processes that do not have an ethical dimension and are exclusively focused on the efficiency or ability of the actors to achieve the objectives set by them. We suggested that the four criteria that make a given process ethical are sincerity, non-separation, continuity and non-attachment. Each time, these are objective criteria that inform us how much the relevant conditions have been taken into account, covering the broadest spectrum or archipelago of conditions that meet the latent totality active in the situation, i.e. selfish interests, interests of knowledge, etc., and values, rights, rules, laws, etc. These criteria, taken two by two, provide a partial answer to the paradox identified in the introduction. We can only be responsible for situations where what is happening does not correspond to what ought to happen. However, responsibility requires reconciliation, precisely the correspondence between the two, which would be the only sign of a fulfilled responsibility. But responsibility must be able to be fulfilled, at least sometimes. It would make no sense to impose a responsibility that could never, a priori, be realized. However, the realization of responsibility has the effect of cancelling it, with the correspondence obtained from what is happening and what ought to happen.

1 Schopenhauer and Nietzsche make the mistake of treating the will as an element (even if it is unethical in their case), just as the mechanism of the Invisible Hand thinks it can rely on the selfish will of the actors as an element (ensuring a spontaneous balance).

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This can be understood in two ways, based on the stated criteria. “Non-separation” and “continuity” work together. Moral conditions (values, rights, etc.) must not be separated from the process, otherwise they would fall into a partial and ineffective totality. They must maintain a relationship to efficiency in the situation. This makes it possible to establish a continuity, a viability between all registers of conditions, with the process taking into account, in each case, the relevant conditions. Thus, the actor remains attentive to deviations, and discrepancies between what is happening and what ought to happen, and acts to reduce them while remaining immersed in the immanence of the actual ethical process. If, for example, an interest for gain leads to the determination of consciousness, unilaterally, the form, the applied framework, becomes abstract. It falls outside the content. There is discontinuity and the form is no longer assumed in this content. “Sincerity” and “non-attachment” work on their side. The actor will remain sincere in the face of discord, the manifest injustices with which they will be confronted, all the time being detached (which does not mean indifferent) and therefore free, actively (responsibly) assuming the conditions instead of letting themself be determined by them. Responsibility must be redefined in our context of radical contingency. I propose only a few thoughts that point to a sketch of what such a redefinition could be. Let us simply note here that a thought of the process is intimately linked to a concept of history. The latter is no longer unified, finalized. Its driving force is no longer the negative, but the creative possible which we try to reach. Gaining access to this creative possible releases new possibilities in the – already automatic – game of conditions. Once they emerge, conditions threaten, in the more or less long term, to deviate from the possible from which they originated (remember that they come from the element of the possible “and” from conditions that have previously emerged). This freezing of conditions, downstream, corresponds to the forgetting of their possibility and to a mechanical, stereotypical application of these conditions, which we believe to be efficient because they have already worked in the past, without a careful return to the new situation we are in. Faced with a more or less structured set of fixed conditions, one will have to patiently question the possibility of these conditions in order to return upstream, towards the creative possible, and to free new latent totalities, which will in turn produce a fall of the drape. History finds, in each of these falls, in the situation, an opportunity to move forward, but not towards an “end”, and certainly not towards “one” end, but towards an ever more precise reconfiguration of the conditions that do indeed provide an ever finer and more differentiated knowledge of the situation. For example, from the time of Einstein onwards, a large fall of the drape has taken place in the form of a reconfiguration, as part of a process, of the fundamental

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conditions of physical science, space-time and its curves, wave-particle duality, etc., but also experimental devices, the experiments of Alain Aspect2, the Large Hadron Collider, at CERN, etc. There is a plurality of historical sources that constitute each situation where a totality has been identified. Sources that are not origins, unless the concept of origin is rethought as a diffracted plurality at any time in history. History unfolds in a plural way, from a multiplicity of centers and, off-centered, it unfolds its contingency. The latter is not only irreducible, but is increasing more and more, relying on ever more sophisticated scientific and technological innovations. The more complex the conditionalities and logics, the more contingency there will be. But the possibilities constructed by theory, interacting with the creative possible that crosses a situation, can introduce an ambiguity with regard to responsibility. This is paradoxical, as such possibilities explicitly aim to remove ambiguities from the situation. In reality, they introduce a complexity and distinctions that can obscure a responsibility in context, which would otherwise be obvious. We come to believe that it is the responsibility of politicians to reduce social spending, whereas in a rich country, the responsibility is precisely to share this wealth more equitably. The introduction of quantified indicators at a European level as part of New Public Management policies has introduced such ambiguities. We have to decide on the unambiguous definition of certain terms, for example the expression “to have a job”. However, this univocal term may cover very different realities in the minds of Europeans. And the fact that politicians deal exclusively with these indicators can be a source of ambiguity in relation to a responsibility towards citizens that would be quite clear without them (acting to promote decent and sustainable jobs). Moreover, a thought about the process leads to a reconsideration of the question of the universal, locating it not in one or more rules of justice, or in one or more values, or specific rights, but in a careful consideration of what makes the relevance of the conditions that enter into a deliberation or a choice in context. It is this “relationship” of this or that condition with the context that makes its relevance universal. Some objective criteria for this relevance have been identified and outlined above. Thus, what is universal is not a value (which could lead to a “separation” from the conditions of effectiveness), but the latent totality of open possibilities in context and the broad spectrum of conditions that it takes into account in their relevance, from values and rights to selfish interests. 2 [DEL 84], in particular “Au crible de l’expérience. Une interview d’Alain Aspect. Propos recueillis par Stéphane Deligeorges et Anita Castiel”, p. 129 ff.

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This concept of the universal calls into question many of the usual ways of approaching current issues in political philosophy. If we take again, for example, the distinction between the “theory of the just” and the “concept of the good” – the former implying a universality located alongside a pure deliberative procedure, involving subjects under a “veil of ignorance”; the latter posing as universal values or norms received in a given tradition – the universality is in danger of either being separated (articulated in an abstract procedure), or of being partialized and reduced to a given statement of identity. This aporia, central to the controversy between liberals and communitarians3, could be radically reformulated from the concept of the universal that is offered here. The relevance of the conditions provided by the different actors involved in the decision should be assessed in the light of the objective criteria of what makes a process ethical. Thoughtful exchanges between the West and China must not, for their part, remain blocked because of the latter’s affirmation of “Asian values” that would be different from the “human rights” promoted by the former. Similarly, Chinese traditions should not be put forward “only” because they have anticipated insights that have been developed in the West. Both must be able to exchange much more freely in relation to fears and power relations in order to achieve a “symbiosis” and a balanced mutual development. Chinese texts have been deliberately discussed here to show that they can be valuable for a discussion of the universal. Since efficiency requires the implementation of processes, this book attempts to identify the potentialities of an ethical structuring of some processes so that effectiveness can be combined with it. Perspectives: a transition to Part 3 In what sense should we develop what has been said about the possibility of a process presenting an ethical structure and the criteria for identifying this in context? One could outline a three-point method: a) establish that what makes science and technology efficient, including political science and therefore methods of government, is their processual approach to knowledge; b) establish (which has been attempted here) that some processes have an effective ethical structure, that they achieve a shared freedom, which takes into account the motives of the actors in an impartial way, without there being a “determination” of consciousness and thus the introduction of a bias from one of these motives; 3 There is a huge amount of literature on this topic. A good introduction is [HUG 09].

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c) propose to pursue efficiency in science, technology and government, based on processes that present and implement an appropriate ethical structure (for example, one of those identified and characterized here). Based on this, is it possible to propose an example that reflects the three points that have just been identified? How can this method be applied to a specific case? a) Galton bring into convergence three formal tools that had remained separate up until then: “the ‘normal’ distribution of sizes, popularized by Quételet; the distribution of the population into social categories, used by Booth in his survey on poverty in London; the idea of heredity of individual, physical and psychological attributes...”4 which is Darwinian [DES 08, p. 17]. He does so from a eugenicist perspective, moving from an observed distribution of sizes (Quételet) to that of an attribute that he calls a “genetic value” or a “civic value”. He distinguishes eight social categories, based on economic, social and cultural indicators, in an attempt to verify the “normal” distribution of this attribute in the population. From this point on, he advocates a policy that limits the fertility of the poor, so as not to jeopardize the “global capacity” of the Nation. As revolting as this program may be, it is nevertheless by working on it that Galton developed tools such as the “median” and the “fractile”, introducing the notion of “rank” in statistics, paving the way for the benchmarking instruments that now organize competition between States. It is no longer a question of analyzing a totality, but of “qualifying and comparing individuals in order to guide their behavior”5 (selecting efficient behaviors) [DES 08, p. 18]. Between a concept that favors the selection of the “best” and the tools that organize generalized competetion, the formal relationship is clear. The processuality implemented in these formal transformations can be called “by opportunistic transposition”. It does not meet the criterion of sincerity, nor that of non-attachment (Galton favors the interests of his own class), nor non-separation or continuity (he imposes an abstract scheme, the Gaussian curve, on a much broader content, which would require us to also speak of “rights” to be respected, especially those of the poorest). The process therefore does not involve an ethical structure which would meet even one of the four criteria identified in this second part of the book. b) In a second step, let us try to specify the problems related to this processuality in its last phase, that of benchmarking.

4 The boxed text is taken from one of his earlier works [DES 10, p. 143]. 5 In particular note 8.

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The main problem is certainly the “comparability” of the policies of the different European countries. When measuring the unemployment rate, for example, it may be that everyone has a different definition for this rate, offering broader and narrower concepts here or there. In the context of this book, what criteria are violated? On the one hand, it is “continuity”: indeed, in the economy of a political discourse specific to a country there is a semantic continuity of terms, a language, which allows a consistent analysis of a given situation. Imposing a common index on all European countries can only jeopardize this continuity, even if we adopt the “soft law” concept, which allows a flexible integration of European laws by each State. Second, it is the “sincerity” that is being undermined. How can we believe that politicians won’t be tempted to adopt definitions that are more favorable to them and that reflect their action in the most advantageous way: for example, an a minima concept of work that would mechanically reduce the unemployment rate? Under these conditions, what type of process should be favored? Could we not make the ethical criterion of continuity effective through a process by using linguistic resources? Without wishing to say that it is actually the only feasible route, let’s suggest this route. How can it be translated into concrete terms? c) Introducing continuity at the level of the process, of the falling of the drape, can be done by introducing an additional indicator that distinguishes the different meanings of the word “job” and assigns them a coefficient according to their use. Thus, politicians would not be pushed to deploy the weakest sense, a job offering very few guarantees and security, since their result will be weighted at the end on the basis of the nature of the employment concept they have chosen. After all, isn’t it customary in some sports, such as diving, for the difficulty level of the dive to be taken into account in the score? Such a weighting could remove the appeal of an indicator based on an undemanding notion of what it means to be “employed”. It might be able to provide a more reliable picture of the results of the policies implemented at the level of each state. It could thus become part of a strategy to remove the “biases” that undermine an objective comparison of them. What has just been suggested is a “remedial factor” to indicators organizing competition between European States, based on the thought of the process developed in this book. But could we not constitute the thought of the ethical process as an “alternative” to ultra-liberal governance? What does this thought make us able to say about the myth, so well established that it itself becomes invisible, which does so much to give credence to the benefits of pure economic competition and deregulation, I mean that of the Invisible Hand?

PART 3

Demystifying the Invisible Hand

Ethically Structured Processes, First Edition. Virgil Cristian Lenoir. © ISTE Ltd 2019. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

9 The Limits of the Freedom of Neoliberals

9.1. Myth and ideology “Demystifying” does not mean simply “rejecting”. It is a question of seeing what poses a problem in this mythification and then, possibly, identifying the limits that are essential for a schema of the Invisible Hand. The myth1 constructed from the work of Adam Smith is based on the schema of an order or a harmony realized through the selfish behaviors of economic agents. The image of the Invisible Hand refers to a “systemic automatism” whose model can be found in mechanics, the ruling science of the time, and even more so in statics. When stable equilibria are considered, there are frequently restoring equilibrium forces. Nicolas Bouleau points out to me that this scheme has already been demystified today in at least four aspects: a) The object of exchange (e.g. bread sold by the baker) is not well known. The client requires ever finer descriptions to build trust. The seller tries to preserve it by using invisible additives that can enforce market prices.

1 For the core of this third part of the book, I benefited from the remarks of the mathematician and economist Nicolas Bouleau. He cannot be held responsible for any errors found in the manuscript. This beginning of Chapter 9 owes a lot to him, even if he does not approve of my distinctions relating to freedom.

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b) A wide variety of ways have been identified in which the price charged by the baker depends on that offered by others. c) Dynamic pricing is based on “trial and error” which may diverge. d) The automatism of the Invisible Hand is nowadays reflected in the creation of waste (pollution) which is “external” in the economic sense, i.e. a transformation of the context generated by an activity that has repercussions in terms of costs for agents who were not involved in this activity2. However, on this last point in particular, classical and neoclassical economics cannot be of any help to us. This waste is “anti-merchandise” in the sense that you earn money by getting rid of it. It therefore has a negative value. The analysis I propose is at another level. It aims to attack the Invisible Hand using that which gives it its strength and which is not included in what has just been said. It is a non-critical concept of “freedom” that makes Smith’s schema so plausible. However, it can only be disappointing in the face of the philosophical concept of freedom that is at the heart of this work. The freedom of neoliberals is a “determination” of consciousness that has been satisfied and which, therefore, makes us forget the fact that it is “suffered”. Such a determination divides wills and pits them against one another. On the other hand, philosophical freedom achieves a viability of the possible, taking into account the broadest spectrum of conditions. This makes it universal. The Invisible Hand is a “myth” in a precise sense. It is a pictorial representation of a thought, which it legitimizes by making it sensible. It objectifies an image, thus broadening its scope, but simultaneously subtracts it from any confirmation by the facts. The latter are considered under the condition of the Invisible Hand and not the other way around. The representation is indeed that of a non-incarnated (invisible) influence that causes individual wills, in their unconstrained play, to accomplish a general plan. This influence can be transcendental. But it is generally seen as spontaneous and immanent to the free play of individual wills. The myth of the Invisible Hand is interesting in that it legitimizes this freedom of the wills of all, provided they are interested and selfish. But doesn’t this myth, as a pictorial representation, carry dimensions that go beyond the thought it legitimizes? Does it not smuggle in, does it not leave unquestioned, positions that we find today in the economic and political vulgate?

2 N. Bouleau reminds us that today the automation of the Invisible Hand plays a role in the financial markets, and its lack of efficiency (in the traditional economic sense) is regularly attributed to volatility.

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The thought expressed by the myth is that the economic field, left to its own devices, regulates itself, but additional and more costly positions can also be associated with it, still related to this myth. Let us mention three of them: a) freedom means, for everyone, the ability to pursue one’s own selfish goals, interested in gain, without hindrance; b) interference with the ethical and legal-political fields hinders the self-regulation of the economy; c) the economic field offers a paradigm of self-regulation that could be advantageously applied to the legal-political sphere. For the moment, let us take position (a). The Invisible Hand can be attractive in this respect, because, being a spontaneous and immanent regulation, it avoids ideology. The latter, in the Marxian sense, is the expression, which can take various forms (moral, legal, institutional), at the level of a chimeric superstructure of the concrete economic infrastructure of the productive forces and the relationships of production3. The fact that individuals do not recognize their own work in these expressions alienates them from this act, which becomes autonomous and dominates them. The Invisible Hand, expressing spontaneous compensation at the level of the actors who implement their will, frees them from “ideological” bodies that would come from outside to alienate them. The legal-political field would, in this respect, be an obstacle to the exercise of individual freedoms, while the Invisible Hand, allowing it to happen, would allow freedom. But where ideology locks into a false consciousness, a misunderstanding of what is really active and free in society, the Invisible Hand could do the same from below. It forces us to reduce freedom to competition for wealth. It forces us to transform everything accessible to us into “products” that compete on the world market. It therefore introduces blinkers, a framework for pre-determining everything (for example, “land”, “work”, “money”) as monetizable, as an opportunity for profit. This framework can only give constructed, produced, possibilities, never the creative possible. Once these constructed possibilities have become routine, there will only remain the “necessity” of the logics of gain. The freedom assumed by the Invisible Hand is therefore the determining necessity of these logics. If we admit that a great danger to freedom comes from abstract superstructures, which ignorance has made autonomous and erected in the face of humanity, we must nevertheless recognize that morality, law and institutions can open and deploy

3 [MAR 98].

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processes of the possible that are sluggish by necessity. Support for farmers in a country like France helps to maintain this powerful sector. Conversely, the free play of selfish motives can lead to situations over-determined by necessary logic, where everything falls under accounting neutralization. This is the case when large groups share the market. It is therefore necessary to ask if the Invisible Hand expresses an immanence in the face of ideology, the latter being an exteriority, which would endanger the freedom of individuals by imposing rules on them. The former would only leave them to what is pre-determined as the obvious meaning of their freedom. By pre-defining the freedom of the actors, it can only deviate from the creative possible, since freedom can only be born from an ever-changing adaptation to the context. Freedom is precisely the non-determination of consciousness, which can only be free when it is perfectly detached, and takes up the broad spectrum of relevant motives. Limiting a priori the relevant motives only reproduces at the infra level what it rejected at the supra level: an external and imposed determination. As a myth, the Invisible Hand puts forward a self-regulation of the economy. But can it, without going beyond the thought that it represents, determine the mode of freedom of the actors that will bring about this self-regulation? Since its strength comes from observing what actors do much more than what they think they are doing, the scheme does not apply to what they think they are doing but to the “relationship” between this and the overall outcome. If the myth also requires a partial determination of the actors’ freedom, and therefore of what they intend to do, it goes beyond one of its internal limits. 9.2. Teleology and immanence Nevertheless, the main limit of the myth of the Invisible Hand lies in its teleological structure inherited from its providentialist matrix. The idea of Divine Providence arranging everything for the best certainly expresses faith and the Christian hope of salvation. But, historically, it can also appear as the theological mutation of a Stoic heritage [MON 12, p. 211 ff]. In this perspective, it is the necessity and immanence of the process that are highlighted. In both cases, the best is certain to come. Only ignorance can suggest otherwise. But ignorance finds its place and the providentialist system takes on the appearance of a paradox. Providence takes hidden paths4. It is expressed as a ruse: 4 Unless it is the fallen man who fails to see the obvious. Let us think of Pascal’s Deus absconditus. Those who stick to the letter of His promises are led astray, while those who see in them the image of spiritual goods are saved [PAS 63, fragment 242].

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of Nature for Kant5; of Reason for Hegel [HEG 65, p. 106 ff]. Its progress is impenetrable. But it adjusts, concedes and harmonizes the determined actions of individuals in such a way as to bring out much more than the sum of these actions: the redemption of the chosen ones. This hidden march of a Providence that draws from concrete actions much more than their factuality delivers the scheme from “unwanted consequences”6, so precious for the Invisible Hand. But it maintains, as a determined “totalization” (of History), turned towards a single end, a meaning that must come back to immanence, to a positive consideration of the vital affirmation (conatus) of each person, and of the purposes at work in a situation. The Invisible Hand expresses a teleology immanent to a relationship of economic competition between wills. This tends towards a balance. The difficulty is in thinking of this relationship as purely immanent and not staged on two levels. The myth7 translates concrete wills, with their determined ends, into a higher, general end (a balance), not intended by them, but being the best for them. The multitude of maximizing wills would be thought of, together, as a new maximizing will, interested in its end. A push, a drive of will, under the pressure of which the logics take place, is always assumed, never questioned. And there would be two perspectives on this push, the second expressing the general perspective in relation to individual wills. But it is only by withdrawing that a “whole” can emerge, which would otherwise always already be partialized by the goal. The fact that this goal is necessary, in the sense that it is not put at a distance, since it is not even brought to consciousness, can raise a problem. We would find ourselves faced with two levels of will, and therefore of individual and general purposes, which would be superimposed. This superposition would prevent the destruction, the jumps between conditions, would cancel the negative at work and could therefore only provide an abstract balance. Indeed, only goals, always positive, would be taken into account.

5 “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” in [KAN 90]. 6 It is not because we “want” redemption, “aim” for it as the end of our action, that we obtain it. That is the best way to lose it. It comes, by grace, “in addition” to the virtuous action. 7 N. Bouleau reminds us that a more classical reading can be given by an analogy with the principle of least action, essential to mechanics, the major science in Smith’s eyes. But precisely such an approach is not able to demystify a reading of freedom as exclusively linked to “one” (for Maupertuis, the principle of least action is proof of the existence of God) or “several” wills.

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The State, on the other hand, makes the negative manifest, by imposing a legal constraint. It has its own will, desiring its own identity and the power of that identity. But it is ready for this to make the negative on which it is based visible. Faced with it, the economy, which has no sense of the negative, asserts itself as the power of the pure positive. It therefore rejects any constraint that the State would like to impose on it in order to preserve itself as purely positive. But the economy must not forget that even if it is not itself sensitive to the negative, anxiety, stress, frustration, shortages, failure, ruin, etc. are nevertheless linked to it. The Invisible Hand, characterized as insensitive, focuses attention on the positive, the economic goals, while what is really invisible from an economic perspective is the negative. The positive agreement of these individual goals is based on a forgetting of the negative. Under these conditions, does interaction with the legal and political world prevent economic self-regulation? First, we should explore what positive aspects this self-regulation can have and see how we can integrate the negative into this image. The vision of a pure balance of power results from the neutralization of all that a balance of power implies when it is a balance of will. The market in fact supposes freedoms (more than it gives them). But today it is on the side of constraint and of perhaps the most ruinous necessities: constraint to limit oneself to the best short-term performance; standardization of pre-formatted choices; widespread insecurity. Economic power today is anything but “widely dispersed”, as Friedman wanted it to be [FRI 02, p. 44]. It is even becoming less and less so. The power to coerce has now largely passed through the logic of capital. In these circumstances, does economics offer a paradigm of self-regulation that could be applied to politics? The State, the will it deploys, would be specified in its operations by quantified indicators, compliance with which would sanction the efficiency of this will in relation to others. But, the relationship of one public will with others does not need this mediation. Nothing can force it to show itself as a maximizing will in relation to these indicators. Desiring its own identity, it wants to experience it in a direct relationship with other public wills. Fortunately, these relationships can be peaceful. But political will is also happy with the negative it contains, if it considers it to be useful. In this respect, it must always be reminded of its duties by a preserved consciousness. It seems that (b) and (c) also fall outside the limits of the myth of the Invisible Hand. At this stage, we must return in more detail to its decisive statement: the economic field, left to its own devices, will regulate itself. To do this, on the subject of this statement, the myth will have to be confronted with another interpretation provided by the thought of the process. The latter uses

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the resources of a withdrawal in relation to the drive linked to assertiveness (the conatus), which allows it to place itself before the positive and negative specification, as well as before the determination by causality, in particular the final causality. Thus, a position that escapes both immanence as well as transcendence is achieved. The determined superposition of the two levels (individual and general) that the Invisible Hand retains on the side of immanence, without being able to account for their articulation except in terms of necessary purpose, is outdated. Indeed, the final balance achieved by the interplay of individual forces would avoid, in this perspective, by its immanent necessity, a return to consciousness, upstream. Smith thinks from the balancing of heavy bodies (scales, hoists, etc.), as Walras and Jevons explain. This is generalized in the thinking of dynamic systems8. But a thought of the process calls into question the economic conditionalities in the more essential dimension of effective freedom. It makes any finality provisional in linking it to the game of the possible in a perpetual reconfiguration of conditions. To put it in a nutshell: the Invisible Hand, as a general level Will, which would express the agreement of selfish individual wills, is not an element. A Will, with or without capital letters, cannot be confused with an element. Therefore the balancing, the agreement of selfish wills, cannot be “ethical” nor, in any way that is philosophically consistent, “free”. It could only be so from an upstream position, where the positive would be “assumed” in its link with the accompanying negative. 9.3. Five objections to the Invisible Hand 9.3.1. Conatus and freedom At this stage, I need to elucidate and clarify the distinction between two conceptions of “freedom”. The first is the factual capacity of achieving ends that determine our consciousness (which are therefore not rigorously chosen but rather imposed on us, not so much by coercion but more often than not because they are presented by society, habits and fashions, as unquestionable: ends that we must have). The second is a knowledge of the universal which allows us, in context, to take into account all the relevant conditions (a knowledge not only of the meanings at work, but of the weight of their effectiveness for the viability of a process expressing the universal).

8 As N. Bouleau reminds us.

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Freedom in the first sense is the expression of a conatus, an effort oriented in a set of forces9, or a will [CHA 99]. It chooses between possibilities without questioning their lethargy with respect to formal or objective necessities. Its relationship to other wills is the relationship of several forces (it is not only a question of brute force, of course, but also, more often than not, of cunning, relationships, intelligence, the “position” occupied in a situation). For this freedom, law and morality are “productions” of human intelligence, judged at their purely instrumental value in the pursuit of their ends. The antagonism of forces in a field is based on a regulated game whose rules must be known in order to prevail. This game can only reproduce possibilities that reinforce the system as it works, since its exclusive driving force is “interest” (for gain, for identity). The choices close up frameworks that will be imposed on other choices. Freedom consists exclusively of servitude to the various needs at work. The choice of a revolution can only fall back into necessary frameworks, since it does not bring “knowledge” but is constantly moving in a completely “conditioned” consciousness. It only wants to remove inhibitions that have become necessary and can only fall back into the categories that have remained active, renewing necessity in the most harmful way. Freedom as knowledge, on the other hand, is a creator of possibilities. Being located upstream of the conditions, it opens up and decompartmentalizes the necessities that have fallen into habit. It takes up, in the viable processuality of the creative possible, the conditions (active knowledge) and assumes them. It does so by keeping the correct distance from them at all times (both in their cognitive dimension and in their concreteness since they bring together the two aspects, things being things to us only through our cognitive relationship to them, and knowledge being true only due to the concreteness of the things that surround us). Far from always acting out of interest, it questions interests and neutralizes their necessity. It opens up frameworks, puts them back into the processuality of a creative possible, finding its ethical innervation again. It does not see all the other players exclusively as competitors with whom it should enter into power relationships, enter into competition, and against whom it should measure itself. Instead, ethical innervation makes it see that it is interested, in a sense, in their freedom. Conatus, or perseverance of being, unleashing a power, not simply as a preservation of self but as an affirmation of self, has slowly overcome the religious condemnation associated with self-love and the attention given to the harm to others that this could involve. The power of self-assertion is certainly not always sinful, but can we measure what it means to see in it a “freedom”, or even “freedom” itself? Does asserting oneself always mean emancipating oneself? In reality, it is not enough to simply not be subjected to anyone to be free; just as freedom is compatible with the recognition, possibly admiration, of the greater power of others. 9 Conatus was also very important in Leibniz and Spinoza, among others. See [MYE 83].

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A force, in its logic, is always in danger of deviating from the ethical innervation of the possible, and perhaps even more so because it lacks the reference point that other active forces may have, with which contact may cause it to change10. The driving force behind this self-affirmation is always, in one form or another, interest. It may be an interest in gain, in identity, in knowledge or even in general interest. The root is always a “will” that asserts itself, that strengthens itself, in its plan. When this will is simply selfish, we are faced with the pure “negative” (this will be discussed below). But the will, motivated by interest, is always driven by the push, the drive that makes it go further and further. When it achieves its goals, it thinks it only owes it to itself. When it does not reach them, it attributes this to other forces. Driven to move forward, it can only ignore the dimension of effectiveness where its action makes sense and is accomplished. A will can only accomplish great things by opening itself to this effectiveness, to this creative possible at work in the situation, whether it knows it or not. This leads to the idea of an interrelationship between the two freedoms. But let us consider, for our purposes, the narrow position favored by the Invisible Hand11. To understand freedom solely in terms of selfish maximization of its interest in gain is a drastic restriction on freedom-will (which may want other interests), as well as a negation of freedom-knowledge. This negation and restriction are based on an assumed conjunction between the explanatory and the prescriptive12. Individuals rationally pursue their selfish interest: this is supposed to describe things as they happen, as well as how they ought to be, since this selfish pursuit leads to a stabilization in a balance at the general level [DEB 01]. This can only be countered by insufficient rational action by agents or obstacles to their free competition. This is the statement supported by the dogma of the Invisible Hand: left to itself, and therefore to free competition, the market regulates itself (it reaches a point of balance, which can, under certain conditions, be Pareto-optimal). Pareto-optimality means that the improvement of the situation of any actor is no longer possible without deteriorating that of at least one other actor. The balance thus achieved can 10 Robert Gianni objects that I hastily identify “freedom”, “knowledge” and “emancipation”, but I disagree with that. I argue that we can understand objective criteria of what makes a process ethical or not. This does not mean that it would be the only possible knowledge, nor that philosophical freedom would “deny” a volitional freedom, more in line with common sense. 11 Once again, this narrow position is not that of Smith. Smith’s position is inseparably expressed in [SMI 12] and in [SMI 10]. 12 N. Bouleau reminds me that the mainstream economy can be interpreted as entirely prescriptive. The talent of economists would then be to make people believe that this mathematized social science is “also” descriptive, as an “approximation” of what is happening.

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be considered as favorable to all, in the sense that going beyond that would imply favoring one actor or another through redistribution. This combination of descriptive and prescriptive is not obvious. Firstly, it is not certain that the maximizing behavior of selfish interest is “de facto” always freely chosen by the actors13. Their “freedom” can lead them to take into account altruistic motivations, values, rules and rights. This means that it is not only on the side of a self-affirmative thrust or push. Taking the latter as an adequate unequivocal expression of human freedom makes it the driving force, oriented towards the selfish ends that the actor gives themselves, of the process summarized in the Invisible Hand. However, as a driving force, this freedom is only positive, and the process it describes is only concrete. There is no withdrawal upstream of the possible. There is no complementary moment of the negative, which must, together with the positive, be taken up in an open and latent, therefore “not yet” concrete, processuality. This freedom is actually completely determined by the blinkers that limit its motivations and is unable to take the steps that would make it effective. If a freedom only moves in the concrete positive, it masks the negative: frustration, failure, ruin. It therefore always moves downstream, after the specification of the positive, and constitutes the negative as its necessary blind spot. The “freedom” that the Invisible Hand so proudly emphasizes as a driving force, being pre-determined (to maximize) and always exclusively positive, can only explain what does not contain in itself a negative, as it can only prescribe what it explains. 9.3.2. Logics and elements Identifying the descriptive and the prescriptive cannot therefore be done from a pre-defined, purely voluntary concept of freedom. But could this not be done through an elemental definition of will? Is the will an element? In the economic sphere, competition prevails. It defines a contest of wills, where the strongest, the best adapted, the most cunning or, more often, the luckiest succeed [TAL 05]. In their opposition, each will deploys a defined logic through which it seeks efficiency (the achievement of the defined goals it covets). However, Debreu has rigorously demonstrated the existence of a competitive balance14. In these 13 Empirical surveys highlight a much greater complexity in the motivations taken into account by actors in the situation [CLE 08, chap. IX]. 14 He actually demonstrates that there is a pricing system that allows each agent to exchange goods at these prices to optimize its utility function. This is non-contradictory. But he does not demonstrate the uniqueness of this pricing system. In 1952, he did so in cases where there

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conditions, can the will not be considered as an “element” where each movement would find its compensations, where a defined harmony would regulate rigorously balanced comings and goings which would culminate in a predictable fixed point, where everyone would be satisfied in the sense that no one could obtain more without depriving someone else? Wills, as sets of forces that find their limits in other forces, sketch out an active and structured element, ensuring a culmination of the process in an “end” (a balance) where the maximization of each individual will, with its interest, would join as a keystone the maximization of what we would have to call a general interest. The game of the Invisible Hand would thus find content which it would legitimize and ensure as knowledge. In reality, this seems largely premature, if not chimerical. A will is fully expressed in the efficient logic it deploys. It is also prone to presenting it as “necessary”, thus forgetting the possible, which is actually an element. The formal (necessary expression of a logic) only gives non-contradiction. The possibility can only come, as a last resort, from one element. The pure (not pre-determined) possible, the creative possible, is the essential element of this possibility. The latter may certainly come from (forgotten) possibilities imprisoned in the formal sequences, but the elemental possible must be found, as it is at work in the situation. A logic finds its first flourish in an effective relationship with the possible. Only then does it find something to deviate from. The central issue here is the anteriority of the necessary or the possible, with regard to the question of the articulation of the descriptive and the prescriptive, i.e. effective responsibility. Let us take the time to quote Debreu: “Let A be all the actions a priori possible for a social agent. Suppose that its environment is completely specified by an element e of a set E. Its environment restricts its freedom of action, i.e. element e determines the subset of A to which its choice is effectively restricted. A correspondence from E to A is thus introduced”15 [DEB 01, p. 7]. In this respect, necessity is positioned further back in time. It homogenizes data that are extremely diverse and not easily comparable: “environments” and “actions” was uncertainty and contingent assets, with two dates, today and tomorrow. N. Bouleau sees in this second stage the greatest prescriptive violence since, in this case, the markets give a price to an eventual case. 15 This is the theory of contingent markets, which are the basis of current derivatives markets.

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which are reduced to a common denominator that is in reality only the constraint of a formalism. The constraint, the formal necessity, defines the possibilities that will be, downstream, and pre-formatted, available to the actors. The necessary allows the possible. The possible always comes after the necessary, which must make it accessible, which must precisely “make it possible”. The formalism gives not only the non-contradiction of the object, but its very possibility. However, only one element can do this. Is the will, as a necessary logic, an element? On the contrary, it would be necessary to reverse what was said previously and affirm that a will can only exist in an element. This element (I consider here the “possible”) ensures the will in itself, even if it is prone to forgetting it in the fixed forms of habit, routine and the well-known. The creative possible comes first and wills can only unfold as effective logics as long as they do not deviate from the ethical innervation it draws. If we consider the descriptive/prescriptive relationship, this explains both that deviations are possible, so that the gap between the two is always a threat, and that a fulfilment of the prescribed is always accessible if we restore the process to its ethical viability. Responsibility is difficult, but achievable. Let us take a look at Debreu’s book again. Chapter 3 of his book axiomatizes the situation of Producers; Chapter 4 that of Consumers. The two points of view are abstracted, juxtaposed, composed and brought back to an (external) state of balance. But the most curious thing, and what goes unnoticed, is that they are two points of view on the same realities. Producers are also consumers and vice versa. However, what is the relationship of production and consumption in each member of the group considered? This cannot be shown in the demonstration. But precisely, as this “cannot” be set aside in a study concerned with the effectiveness of processes, the two points of view each developed in its own coherence give way to their abstraction. If the producer and consumer classes are the same class, if a producer will also be a consumer at some other time, what does a balance that is achieved in the relationship of this class to itself mean? How can we ignore the fact that each term of the demonstration, taken in an unnoticed interaction, can change its meaning at each stage of the demonstration? Under these conditions, the equilibrium point is returned to its contingency. This is not a maximum that would be pre-determined, already enclosed in a formal necessity, that would only need to take place. It is a determination, certainly not arbitrary, but caught in a contingent, hugely differentiated, disparate, variegated interrelationship of sets of conditions taken from various effective logics. The equilibrium point is abstract. Contingency always returns conditions to fluency. It again sets in motion and brings back the formal conditions, relativizing their necessity. There is no “finality” of the possible. There is either just viability or not, full availability at all times or not.

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In this way, a precedence of the possible over the necessary is established. The latter is never simply the result of conditions considered in their sole formal relationship, in a forgetting of the possible where they make sense. This forgetting can be overcome at any time, and the conditions, brought back to their contingency, “assumed” in ethical innervation (thus the viability of the creative possible). The prescriptive and the descriptive must not be understood as identical under the aspect of a determination (that would be necessary, as elemental), but as suitable in a movement of withdrawal, of release of the possible from a necessity finally returned to its element. The creative possible is an element. The will is not. 9.3.3. Negativity and bias It is difficult to identify the negative, but it can generally be seen as an attachment that limits the spectrum of possibilities, and therefore as a bias (the exclusive folding on a specific identity or interest). It is not only an impulse but also consent to this impulse: the fact of a consciousness allowing itself to be determined. The main strength of the Invisible Hand is precisely the positive appeal to the negative. Consenting to one’s impulse, subordinating others to the commodity, treating them as variables in an interested calculation; it will work out for the best at the general level. The negative would be the instrument of the positive. From alienation, from exploitation, there will emerge a “creation” of wealth which will benefit society as a whole. The dominations of caste, class and clan lead to the release of this wealth. The negative is necessary for the positive. In reality, the negative becomes invisible; it is forgotten in the face of the exclusively positive orientation of the indicators. The calculation only deals with the positive, i.e. the formally necessary (it is not enough to enter a minus sign to touch the negative). This amounts to leaving the field free for the negative, in the need for a set of forces, which is shown under the false appearances of an element. Not only does nothing redeem the negative, but there is no need for such atonement. Logics only manipulate positive things, always downstream. Positive and negative always appear downstream of a specified process. But the upstream is forgotten to such an extent that the positive, the formally necessary, never has to deal with anything but itself and presents itself as perfectly defined. No, nothing redeems the negative that is thus released. It must first be made clear that there is no “creation” but only a “production” of wealth. The freedom of a consciousness that constantly escapes determination ensures access to a possible that can “create” its own viability. It is not a “producing” or “productive” possible caught up in a process that would be perfectly determined and necessary, which itself would only produce entirely pre-formatted possibilities: ready-made boxes offered to the consumer to make them believe that this is really a “choice” offered to them, whereas such a choice, whatever it may be,

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can only further strengthen the general system in its necessity. Such a choice is always offered to the impulsively determined will, which only understands how to go straight ahead, forward, with its blinkers on, in pursuit of the positive which is lost in a meaningless necessity. The withdrawal upstream, in the possible, allows us to think of the necessary simultaneity of the positive and the negative. One cannot be given without the other. Maximizing preferences is inseparable from generalized precariousness. If you want one, you consent to the other. We do not have one without the other, even if it is not to the same degree, in the same place, or for the same people. Economic competition produces a lot of wealth which would not be there without it. At the same time, we must constantly tap into this wealth to repair the damage caused by this unbridled competition. It is obvious that the positive and negative, although linked, do not reach the same place or degree. But the obscuring of the link between them is ensured by the positivity of the indicators, which deal only with the positive, and politicians only have these indicators as objective benchmarks for their action. The formal neutralization operated by mathematical language makes the negative invisible. There can be no “maximization” without the negative. An “optimum” can only be such “in relation to” a hidden distribution of the negative. While we calculate whether such a balance (an optimum) is achievable in the positive, who is asking about the negative side; what distribution of the negative (precariousness, ruin, frustration, etc.) corresponds to this positive? A process is (at least) double-sided: heads and tails, the positive and the negative, develop downstream in a sequence less and less free of conditions, the increasing specification of a possible that can only be restored to its viability by a withdrawal, upstream, of a peaceful consciousness. To speak of a balance, which could be an optimum in the sense of Pareto, and to try to calculate it, is to speak of balances, weights and counterweights without having the slightest idea of gravity and of the curved structure of space–time. This structure is translated into what we identified as a “fall of the drape” in its most rigorous sense: an upstream ascent in the latency of the possible is translated into the position of an original condition, which will lead, in the course of the process, always more towards the downstream, to a redefinition of the field of knowledge (and therefore of things and beings) which will take up the old knowledge, relativizing it, and will fall back, each determination redefining itself in relation to the other relevant conditions, into a saturation and a forgetting of the possible which can only be overcome by a new withdrawal. A fall of the drape diversifies, towards the positive as well as towards the negative. But only a consideration of the latent totality of the possible in which one

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moves in a defined situation can bring the process together and think about it and allow it to be viable. Of course, knowledge of what a process is, and possibly its ethical aspects, does not entail a definite predictability of consequences. It is the broadest possible consideration of the relevant conditions in the situation, removing the blinkers of the well-known. The Invisible Hand, with its exclusive focus on the positive, expels an entire section of the efficient process. It does not suspect that we can question the other side of this process: which distribution of the negative corresponds to a given distribution of the positive? This is interesting to know even if this positive is a balance and an optimum. 9.3.4. Balances and mathematical temporality Mathematical temporality is that of an explication, literally an unfolding, of what was there, involved in the strictly circumscribed starting point (definitions, hypotheses, etc.) The demonstration ensures this link, given in a formal pre-wrapping. This unfolding is spread out in successive stages, but it can reach a fixed point which marks its stop, its suspension. A “balance” is such a suspension. However, the process of the possible cannot stop. Eventually, the logics are engaged in a purely external and mechanical way: there is always an after, and an after after that. There is a temporality of the process. Often, the will wants to go at a pace that is not that of the emergence of the possible. From then on, the logics deviate, detach themselves from the possible at work, close themselves off in circles that are too long or too short. Any decision must be made in the light of the contingency of the situation, which puts it into perspective and puts it into play. Any balance is called into question because at every moment all the relevant conditions are redefined with the evolution of the situation. To stop at a balancing point, the relevant conditions would have to remain the same from one moment to the next. These conditions must therefore be included in a calculation where they are neutralized, homogenized, and their formal meaning is ensured independently of the time of the possible. The latter brings the meanings into play at each moment, while a mathematical temporality unfolds on the presupposition of closed and (not only stable, which is accepted by the time of the possible, but) identical definitions. The hypothesis16, which excludes externalities, presupposes, by its very wording, the presence of these externalities which it invites us to consider irrelevant. Where 16 This is consistent with N. Bouleau’s remark: the “theorem” on the existence of a market balance does not predict anything. It only says that if enough derivatives are put on the

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mathematical temporality allows us to close this hypothesis, and not to question it from one moment to the next, the time of the possible only unfolds in the form of a questioning of the relevance of the conditions at stake at each moment. Therefore, at every moment new conditions come into play, inviting us to redefine the coherence at work. Indeed17, if the predictive calculation is done at time t for a time t+2, at time t+1 there will come into action (and therefore become relevant) conditions that are still considered “externalities” by the calculation. But, in reality, the calculation should be reformulated at t+1 in order to take into account these conditions, which are no longer externalities since they are effective and relevant. If we reformulate the calculation at t+1 to predict t+2, we will have to admit that at t+2 other conditions neglected at t+1 will be effective. Thus, the balance perfectly defined by the theory will in reality always have to be postponed. Defined as the unfolding of a situation specified in t, it expresses a result that no longer relates, in t+2, to the same situation. It is therefore abstract in this sense. The equilibrium point is stated as achievable from a specified situation. However, the situation can only change, more or less significantly, between the time when the prediction is made and the time when it is predicted. So, at the moment that is predicted, the situation is no longer the same. In particular, “externalities” may have become effective and relevant for the calculation. Excluding values, rules and rights in this way, i.e. simply declaring them to be ineffective, was proved to be a theoretical error, not to mention a moral fault. This ought to be sufficiently established by what has been advanced in the first two parts of this book, in particular the consideration of a latent “totality” of the possible in which all the dimensions of the process are expressed. The Invisible Hand proposes a “balance” that moves in the dimension of a mathematical temporality, while the effectiveness of the situation requires taking into account the time of the possible, which is the only creative element. 9.3.5. Univocity and ambiguity The desire to remove any ambiguity produces ambiguities. In particular, neutralization, homogenization of the conditions at work and the “en bloc” rejection of externalities can only be misleading. market, then the market is able to manage economic risks: it functions as an insurance, able to give a price for goods, and for protection against the risks of tomorrow. Bouleau agrees that the problem is that such organized markets take up (“almost”) all the world’s interpretative reading. 17 N. Bouleau thinks that here I reduce Debreu’s idea too much to his mathematical framework. However, the challenge is precisely to question the possible efficiency of the formal structures and their possible link with effectiveness.

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Firstly, this desire is unaware of the diversity of these externalities, which theory sets aside to preserve the purity of the economic field, which could only achieve a spontaneous order by avoiding legal-political interference. Moreover, by imposing a univocal (homogenized) vision of the only conditions it takes into account, this theory can only give the pre-formatted and consumable necessary, not the creative possible. The Invisible Hand wants univocity, therefore the strict separation of the economic field, closed off to its homogeneous meanings. What it promises is a spontaneous order, which is established by the realization of balances that can be Pareto-optimal. This spontaneous order is established at the level of a defined, positive (i.e. downstream) whole, which can be called a “sphere”. But there are a multitude of spheres in which, and at the intersection of which, people live. To dismiss these different spheres in order to preserve purity, the univocity of the economy, is a normative matter. But the normative is itself only one way (in reality several defined ways) in which economics interacts with other spheres: morality, ethics, politics and law in particular. Univocity is intended to be normative; but it can only be so through an ambiguous interrelationship with another sphere. Let us briefly and unambiguously characterize these four spheres before coming to their interaction, a source of normativity. For Walzer, justice requires that a specific distribution principle be respected within each sphere [WAL 83]. Here, normativity is seen as intervening at the point of interaction of several spheres where a logic can be set in motion to overcome the divisions between them and gain a continuity of the possible. Let us express the four main spheres which, in contact with other spheres, imply normativity. It is a question of seeing how the meaning plays out, from a determined, exploratory perspective, not of establishing meanings definitively. “Morality”18 expresses the demands of the dignity of the individual alone before their destiny (and therefore also before their death). “Ethics” expresses a link to one or more living traditions, common interpretations, a connection to a community where freedom is shared. “Politics” is the place where the question of the “legitimacy” of power is raised. It obeys the demands of power, according to which an operation must be beneficial 18 I bring into play here a deviation from the meaning of “morality” in the rest of the book: the application of stated rules or principles.

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to all those who can impose an interest, whether through laws, habits or shared prejudices. A “right” is an ambiguous representation of both morality and politics. Its rules are binding on all citizens, indiscriminately, and contain an objective limitation of interests. Each of these spheres obeys distinct logics which can contradict each other and often do contradict each other in reality. For example, politics imposes the inertia of its operation, its self-interested functioning of forces, which often contradicts morality. Luther imposed his moral point of view on that of the Pope, who was political. From these spheres, only morality makes the great man, at the same time as it alone is addressed to all, being in this way perfectly egalitarian. It is also the most directly opposed to impulsiveness, the emotional contagion that brings in the masses. Each of these spheres is in contact, depending on the circumstances, with one of the others, and/or with that of the economy. The economic sphere gains its univocity by distinguishing itself from these other spheres. But this univocity can only become normative through a judgment that involves a relationship with one of them. It is said that economics should be protected from any contact with ethics because the latter would be subjective (and emotion would disrupt the rationality immanent to the situation). It must not be limited by the legal-political field because this would disturb its spontaneous self-regulation (which means that the legal-political field is “abstract” and comes from outside to limit a situation that should be returned to itself). The spontaneous order that is supposed to emerge when the economic sphere is left to its own devices tends to appropriate the relational normativity brought by these spheres, thus making them superfluous. They become purely “abstract”, applied from the outside to an efficient process. The ambiguity is that they appear to be both ineffective and capable of endangering the realization of spontaneous order. The absence of a relationship to these spheres (moral, ethical, political, legal) can only appear to be normative if this relationship is already there and effective. Otherwise, it would simply be an objective fact. The Invisible Hand contains, as its essential nucleus, the reversal of the selfish actions of individuals into an order at the general level. However, an order can contain such a degree of the negative that even its stability cannot take back into itself the normativity brought about by its relationship with other spheres. Such an order, or balance, intends to assume a normativity, which it expresses as freedom from interference with other spheres. In doing so, it reduces all the formal conditions

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that can be expressed in its framework to univocity. It neutralizes them. But this neutralization implies that the negative contained in this order, or balance, cannot appear. It cannot therefore be considered or weighed in the decision. Nevertheless, neutralization implies setting aside the negative on which it is built. The relationship with other spheres therefore remains essential to the normativity of an economic order, however formally attractive it may be. The negative included in such an order must appear from a relationship with another sphere. It should even be said, conversely, that it can only be concealed under the condition of such a relationship. The relationship between the spheres must be assumed, as if it were a split, through an ethical process, which makes it possible to be viable. A process can express a logic specific to a given sphere and its efficient deployment. But an ethical process often crosses several spheres and brings them into contact. It expresses their relationship by defusing their split, thus taking the process back to a viability that restores the entirety of a latent totality of conditions. 9.4. Towards a global responsibility The Invisible Hand expresses the thesis that free economic competition brings balance, which can be an optimum in the Pareto sense. But it has often been understood in a broader sense, and confusion has grown such that the market has been made the supreme regulator of world affairs [SUP 10, p. 94]. Not only should the market be kept free of legal and political influences, but the tools of economic competition should be applied to public governance. This is to forget that the political sphere is that of the legitimacy of power. This sphere must be kept separate from that of maximization, and even more so if this maximization is blind to the negative. Politics is only viable if it takes into account the call of those who are left out of this maximization. Let us return to the positive relationship between free competition and balance. The will can maximize its performance, and so uses conditionalities efficiently. It adapts people to market needs. But the ethical process creates, and liberates from conditioning, which it responsibly takes up itself. There is, in the will, a theoretical misunderstanding about the status of the theory. The latter would pre-arrange, upstream, the means for a voluntary maximization of results. It would a priori provide the keys to achieving this maximization “in” the continuum of a will, which would be smuggled in as an element. However, the will is, most of the time, a simple determination “suffered” for the consciousness. It is only positive when it is included in an ethical relationship with others and the world, at a good distance from them. It can only be “assumed” in the true element of the “possible”. Knowledge that has been learned in procedures that

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are external to the situation must be brought into play as in the (elemental) possible, upstream, and returned to a latent totality. What process is at work in this alienated relationship between people and the markets? These disappear in the face of their own production. Finding recognition only through this, they see themselves as they are seen by others: as the simple instrument of what is truly respectable – the product. They are therefore attached in a partial way to this product, without which they are nothing. The “criterion” here is therefore the “attachment”, which we have seen associated with the “process by reversing perspectives”. The problem is not that people care about the fruit of their work, but that they are attached to it in a partial or unilateral way, which obscures other dimensions of effectiveness. Non-attachment implies not being closed off to one domain that obscures others. It asks that consciousness not be “determined” by unilateral conditions. If there is no determination, the necessary conditions can be restored to their contingency, and the play of forces seeking balance can be gathered in the element of the possible. This shift in perspective, from necessity to contingency, from the balance of forces to the element of the possible, which finds its way into the “non-attachment” criterion, reboots effective logic in the form of an ethical process. The culmination into a balance established by the Invisible Hand presupposes an attachment (expressed as selfish maximization) which cannot, in this logic, be called into question. Challenging this unilateral attachment leads to a withdrawal upstream or in the latency of the possible, which puts the necessity of the conditions at stake by showing their contingency. The economic logics, which are deployed on the basis of these conditions, can therefore be taken up and assumed in the element of the possible at work in the situation. The process, which was, under the presupposition of attachment, purely opportunistic, each pulling out all the stops to maximize its own position, becomes a structurally ethical process according to the formal objective criterion of non-attachment. This shift in perspective requires a broader understanding of human action, so that it is no longer bound by a selfish “attachment” considered impassable. Action, as it takes place in everyday life, should be thought of in its generality (not restricted to the economic sphere) as “reciprocity”: everyone is ready to take into account the interests of others as long as they think that others will take into account their own interests. Everyone is willing to behave in a straightforward manner with others insofar as they believe that others will do the same in the opposite direction. This reciprocity, which in reality is most often already at work, is involved in a whole series of expectations, preconceptions and prejudices. This prevents it from being “ethical” in the sense that certain people who take part in the

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situation (those who are discriminated against) will be excluded from this recognition. Nor will this reciprocity be “moral”, since the application of rules that apply equally to all those present is not guaranteed. Indeed, prejudices (racist, misogynistic, etc.), which de facto determine certain actors, can prevent positive reciprocity from being established. As long as reciprocity remains linked to the pleasure that people may show in establishing it, it will remain morally questionable. It would therefore be important to add a second level to this concept of action based on reciprocity: one where the validity of rules or principles that apply equally to all is recognized. This level, like the first, should not set exclusive attachments. This can be formally translated into an interaction between the two levels, which would complement one another, one ensuring control over the other, and both presenting a processual viability, under the criterion of non-attachment. Each of the two logics is only as good as the way it influences the other. Holding the two together, in a situation, based on their relationship, will shift the perspective from a process based on attachment to an ethical process. This revival of effective logics in the viability of ethical innervation is a “responsible” assumption. Since the myth of the Invisible Hand, in its efficiency, is already extended to the dimensions of the (globalized) world, the scheme of the ethical process, if it wants to present itself as an “alternative”, must in turn be extended to reveal itself as a world responsibility19. For this to happen, the Invisible 19 It has serious advantages for this purpose. An exchange and a symbiosis can be established, on the one hand with Chinese traditions around the notion of efficiency thought of as a process and as non-action; on the other hand with the Vedānta of Non-Duality (the most influential School in India today), in particular the Shankarian idea of “superimposition” (adhyāsa) and that of a “determination” of consciousness. For Śankara, the Brahman alone really “is” and it is only ignorance (avidyā) which makes us take as real, even to the point of identifying ourselves with them, the “conditions” or “additions” (upādhis) which illusorily limit Him. Caste, sex, status, age and life circumstances are produced by Māyā (as a power of illusion), and present themselves as Brahman’s limitations. To know these limitations are illusory (and therefore not determining) is to realize the identity of our individual soul (jīva) and of Brahman. The latter is the only reality, totally devoid of attribute, non-dual (as nirguna-Brahman). But this non-determination must appear here as processual or, better, as taking up the conditions itself in order to assume them. A reinterpretation of Brahman must therefore be initiated. This is, according to a canonical formula, Sat-Chit-Ananda, “Existence, Consciousness and Bliss” (Taittirīya Upanişad, 2.1; Bŗhadāraņyaka Upanişad, 3, 9, 28). If Bliss is understood here as the “goodness” of the good distance from the situation, Consciousness is placed upstream, at this good distance, never letting itself be determined by the conditions but always seeing their conventionality, and Existence will be the inexhaustible creativity that arises from the absence of determination. On “superimposition”, the classic reference from which it will be necessary to start to make this movement, is the Introduction by Śankara to his Commentary on the Brahma-sūtras [VIR 08].

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Hand must be brought back from its mythical dimension to a conceptual understanding, which makes it one defined possibility among others and which also releases the normativity included in a thought of the process. 9.5. Note on “genealogy” There is a classic way of neutralizing the field of an investigation: proceed with an “analysis” of a given concrete totality according to its articulations, thus releasing its ultimate components, before following their recomposition, which should lead to the reconstruction of the concrete totality. It is then a “reduction” of the process that generates this totality to a logical combinatorial, therefore a reduction of the process to logic, where the “possible” that is at stake remains hidden. The process through which the given totality appears is logical through and through. The logical “construction” is then “abstract”, so that the relationship between the “logic” and the considered “phenomena” must appear to be mediate. If the possible at work in the process is obscured, then the logical conditions are simply placed “in front of” the phenomena and the two are presented as heterogeneous. To explain the necessary mediation between the two as a temporal schematization, as Kant does, is to endorse a one-dimensional concept of time. That this is considered by Kant as a pure form of the sensible – a necessary condition for our finite access to phenomena which can only be given in it, and which, as soon as they are given in it, respond to transcendental categories – obscures the depth of experience. This masks the latency dimension of the process which is then reduced to a “one-plane” articulation of univocally defined conditions. However, these conditions themselves have their possibility upstream, in other conditions, and in the element of the possible in a depth of experience which cannot therefore respond to a univocal grid in space and time. In reality, these can be theorized as being necessarily united, as in general relativity, but also as having multiple dimensions, as in non-Euclidean geometries. But the most important thing is that enclosing space and time in a one-dimensional way amounts to positioning the effectiveness of the process somewhere “outside” of them, it is not clear where, in the unknowable form of a “thing in itself”. The process, reduced to the abstract play of conditions in a single plane, leaves the effectiveness, and therefore the element of the possible active in the situation, out of its reach. An important alternative to the analytical approach is to go back into the possible, in the latency of the process, to the conditions and the element that made the active conditions possible. It would be interesting to compare this alternative to the Nietzschean “genealogical” approach.

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The latter makes the “Will to Power” (der Wille zur Macht) the fundamental character of being [NIE 14]20. His fundamental movement consists not so much of establishing new values as of considering the classical metaphysical categories as values and of diagnosing that what makes them valuable is their ability, each time, to affirm this Will to Power. The “values”, far from consisting of objective determinations of the essence of things, only have value as formations that allow a will to dominate, and therefore the affirmation and perpetuation of this Will. Genealogy consists, in this perspective, of bringing back the “values” that people consider to be their objectives to that which makes them valid, therefore to their meaning and their efficiency in terms of the Will to Power. This also applies to moral principles, which are generally considered altruistic or disinterested. Here too they are only worthwhile if they arm the Will to Power of those who hold this discourse oriented towards moral principles. Will makes the value of values insofar as they allow its efficient affirmation. So, going back up from values to what makes them valuable, Nietzsche arrives, step by step, at the Will to will. However, it is important to note that this Will is something “biased” (or “abstract”) and at the same time something “defined” (like “a” force, the strength of an individual who asserts themselves). So, genealogy does not lead at all to an “element”. Why? Because, giving up on going back, upstream, towards a priori “determinations” which would be moral principles, as was conventionally expected, Nietzsche continues to seek to go back, ultimately, to “determinations”, but this time determinations of the Will by itself. The Will is determined in such a way as to seek Power. It is its way of determining itself. But this determination which it gives itself, it suffers from as well, to such an extent that it is not free to seek Power. It cannot distance itself from this search for Power in order to peacefully enjoy an ethical freedom shared in the element of the possible. No, it must, whatever happens, seek to assert itself ever more as the Will, and as the Will wanting ever more Power for itself, closed on its “determination”. So, for Nietzsche, the Will always wants to go back to a “determination”. It only refuses that this determination be a moral principle that can be seen as altruistic. It goes back to a determination imposed by the Will on itself which necessarily directs it towards the search for Power. The Will to Nothing that characterizes nihilism is certainly not a lack of Will. It is the Will oriented in such a way as to assert itself in the most efficient way. A Will always wants to want, even if it means wanting Nothing. Not only every thing, but everything that is, apart from Nothing itself, is only a structuring of the Will to Power. 20 See also [HEI 91].

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However, a subtler suspicion must be raised here. Can we not go back upstream even from the determination of the Will by itself, un-determine this will, and thus free it from an unreflected flight forward? Can we not go back to the creative element of the possible at work in the situation and let ourselves flow into it until we forget the Will, until we forget to Want? Going back upstream and, settling into the possible, constantly taking up in it the conditions, downstream, which are no longer determinations, which no longer compromise the freedom of consciousness, but are deployed as logics “as long as” they remain integrated into the element of the possible. Let the conditions be taken up in the element of the possible, in a viability achieved by this possible. To no longer go back to a specific determination, whether in the form of a principle or a decision, but to the element of the possible, in which all the conditions, un-determined, are taken up in a viable way: that is non-action. Freedom of consciousness without determination. 9.6. Note on ultra-liberal “freedom” The ultra-liberals highlight an automatic self-regulation of exchanges by the pricing system. This would happen by virtue of completely perfect competition, according to which everyone could take into account all the information available in relation to their economic purposes. This competition is a “pure form”, both theoretically rigorous and historically fragile, which must be pursued and implemented through an active deregulation policy. A society where such a policy is implemented is a free enterprise society sustained by competitive dynamics. It can only be, in the same movement, a society of passive and trivial consumption, a society of mass manipulation and alienation, a society of predation and distraction. Such a society implements a certain concept of “freedom”. It is the freedom of the entrepreneur who succeeds in the market’s balance of power. But their actions, which are efficient, are also suffered. To have the upper hand in a balance of power, to succeed, is the only horizon offered, the only freedom given as an example. There is nothing outside the drive and desire for power. The whole society is based on an aggressive combative approach. If we do get out of here, it is as a failure. But those who succeed and those who suffer are the same. Successfully achieving a goal, they only react to the determination of their consciousness by that goal, which ruins their freedom. Everyone in society, according to a purely economic interpretation grid, is both a producer and a consumer. If someone, according to this logic, succeeds at a particular point, they do so at the expense of someone else who is suffering. The unthinkable aspect of liberal freedom is this systematized, organized and liberated aggressiveness. One person’s freedom necessarily implies another’s non-freedom. It can only assert itself as freedom, as success, if it is not free, if it fails. And, in

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reality, it is the same people who succeed and fail, who are free and not free at the same time and in the same movement. A producer is also a consumer. When they succeed they are determined, in this very success, by socially pre-defined goals. However, actors are most often victims of a narrow concept of freedom, such as the ability to achieve goals that determine their will. The residual pockets that escape these purely economic logics, for example those accessible to teachers, doctors, etc., whose successes do not imply failure as a condition, tend to be increasingly conquered by such logics. The same applies to public management. These areas are contaminated by the logic of economic competition, of maximization, where success supposes failure, where one can only win because the social bond is already lost. Moreover, the balances put forward by economic theory, which are the translation of what the Invisible Hand can represent as legitimization of the free play of markets, are based solely on the consideration of producers and consumers. Referring to fields such as education or health, which would respond to other logics, would already be to relativize the scope of the Invisible Hand. However, the strength of this scheme is its efficient generalization. Society politically organizes the freedom of individuals to adapt themselves, to adapt their reactions to the timely knowledge of relevant information. Everyone knows the rules of the economic game. From there, people give themselves their own ends, which are in reality already pre-formatted by the consumer society, to produce and to distribute. Thus, the real economic subject is not so much the producer or consumer as the entrepreneur, whose rationality consists of pursuing their own interest in a coherent and efficient way [FOU 04, p. 179]. The purposes that people set for themselves are socially pre-determined as much as people’s reactions are predicted, scrutinized, calculated and used for those purposes. The problem is not so much “irrationality”. Indeed, there is a predictive over-rationalization of conditioned, and therefore predictable, behaviors. The problem is rather that this rationality is not assumed. There is a rational saturation of the context, and all this rationality, which is apparently at the service of subjective impulse, in reality subjects this subjective impulse to its logical objectivity, which is always deployed further and further, deviating from the possible. The center is the concept of “freedom”, that of the entrepreneur. It is not a question of saying, in the ordinary way, that the individual, both producer and consumer, is divided. On the other hand, it is necessary to underline the reciprocal implication between success and failure and therefore between freedom and non-freedom. The neoliberal concept of freedom implies non-freedom in its very definition. It cannot be actualized without actualizing non-freedom.

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However, this freedom brings with it a growing generalization of economic rationalities. Since Gary Becker’s pioneering work, many aspects of human behavior have fallen under economic analysis [BEC 76]. Even the law is nowadays subject to comparative analyses to assess its efficiency21. We have already briefly discussed the governance tools of New Public Management. Any activity can therefore fall under this kind of analysis, which is blind to anything that is not “maximization”. Homo œconomicus is defined according to a series of objective determinations which define a perspective on its behavior, a perspective from which it is determined and which closes on the game of these determinations, where freedom is to play these determinations in order to maximize profit. It is a question of using the margin that emerges between the determinations while remaining within their framework, which must be ensured politically. As Foucault noted, this option (allowing interests to play out within a defined framework) is the decisive alternative offered to the contemporary world by liberalism, which is opposed to the classical vision of a disciplinary society. Freedom is therefore a game of efficiency (maximization of interests) which leads to a spontaneous order. It is an external way for people to relate to their ends, which they believe obey their subjective drive, when in reality they are, through it, obeying an objective constraint. That freedom can only be enlarged by destroying freedom (frustration, ruin); this corrupts freedom (success, optimum gain), which is in any case only a suffered determination. The external production of freedom masks the degree and distribution of the “non-freedom” (alienation) produced by that freedom. The alternative that emerges at this stage would be the following: “freedom” is “knowledge” of all conditions as being “conventional” and the “assumption” of all relevant conditions, in a situation, according to the width of the spectrum from morality to selfish motivations. It is not satisfied with an external play of conditions, which brings about an optimum, but strives to release possibilities, and patiently goes through the stages of a fall of the drape where the formal conditions are heavy with the weight of the historical concreteness to which they give access and which becomes, through them, intelligible. In viable effectiveness, the thought–real relationship is objective. It would be futile to try to separate the two abstractly. Freedom is then not an external manipulation of forces, aiming at maximization, but an assumption, according to an ethical process, of the efficiency at work underground, a taking back of the effective logics in the element of the possible that is always there.

21 See Alain Supiot’s warnings [SUP 15a].

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The mechanism of the “Invisible Hand”, as it is most often understood, and which does not exactly cover the mere three uses of the term by Adam Smith, is intuitively attractive. The Invisible Hand would say: each individual pursues his or her selfish interests for gain, and wealth at the level of society as a whole is thereby maximized, even though no one had assigned this goal to his or her action. The wealth of society is greatest when everyone does everything possible to increase their wealth individually. This is therefore a game of efficiency with itself. In this perspective, the goals that agents set for their action are dictated solely by the interest in gain, and the resulting utility at the societal level is also a maximization of gain at the general level. If we put the equation simply: the observable action of the actors, who each pursue their own selfish interests for gain, is what “is”; the wealth of society as a whole is what “ought to be”; and the way to bring together what “is” and what “ought to be” is to remove all moral or legal motivations which, as externalities, compromise the proper functioning of the economic process. Four questions emerge from the above: a) what makes it possible to say that the consequences reached at the end of this process are “advantageous” and therefore “desirable”? Indeed, even if they are defined as unethical, or independent of a concept of good, these consequences are given by economists as desirable because they are linked to a determined concept of “freedom”; b) what is the link between the desirability of these consequences and the uniformity of the selfish and maximizing motivation of agents?

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c) in what way would the introduction of the reference to an ethical motivation, that the agents could, possibly, adopt, harm the desirable aspect of the consequences? d) does the Invisible Hand refer to a “process” in the precise sense that has been developed so far? Economic theory, traditionally, develops a thinking of “balance”. It shows that, the initial conditions having been determined correctly, i.e. as predicted by theory, mathematical evolution will reach, at a later time t, a position of equilibrium. However it is interpreted (as a balanced relationship of power, as a position where there is no longer an inherent tendency for change, or as a scheme towards which a competitive economic process tends), the notion of balance intuitively carries with it a dimension of stability and thus, it seems, that of a viable order that has been achieved [EAT 89, p. 105]. However, it does so by drastically reducing the factors that are taken into account in a situation. Those that do not fall within its scope, and moral motivations are traditionally in this category, are considered as externalities. Thus, the theory covers a “field”, that of economic relationships, to which other dimensions, such as the moral dimension, are considered irrelevant. It excludes and leaves aside all such conditions, allowing its equations to unfold in the pure field of economic competition. But what does it mean to have a balance that would be achieved in only one field and that would ignore the others? In reality, it becomes virtual itself. Closing off its field, and excluding a priori any relevance of moral conditions, it denounces its own abstraction, translated into the setting aside of the other fields of conditions. There is undeniably a significant amount of imagination in the “pure” side of a market in which products would be traded by “pure” competitors (who would only be competitors). These analyses always move in the field of “forecast”, regardless of when they are formulated. They are unaware that economic power relationships can tend towards a balance, but never reach this balance, and certainly not maintain it. It is significant that economists never speak about this equilibrium as currently reached. They only say what we should, in their opinion, do to reach it. Balance is often given as achievable in the medium to long term. But precisely, it can only be achieved if the current situation has really evolved as predicted by theory. However, the evolution of this situation, which is observable, de facto takes into account many externalities. It evolves at every point and the long term cannot be predicted on the basis of a genuinely “initial state”. As the situation evolves, the relevant conditions also change, and the long-term forecast must be redone after each significant transformation. And we even sometimes see actions motivated by

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altruism. This does not mean that the conditions of economic theory are irrelevant, at least not very often, but it implies that they are not the only relevant conditions. It should also be stressed that such a balance, even if it is achieved, cannot be maintained, even if it is always renewed under the relevant conditions, economic or otherwise. Since the situation is constantly evolving, rapidly or not, it is true, and can be brutally so, that isolating a field in order to make forecasts on an order that could be reached if we remain in this circumscribed field is at best an uncertain operation. The relevance of economic and non-economic conditions changes with the situation. In addition, there is the problem of the vagueness of the totality considered in the consequences (society as a whole). Obviously, it is a concrete, not a latent, totality. But then comes the problem of the distribution of the final wealth. It is not enough that it has been maximized in the abstract. It must also be distributed in society in a way that its members can accept. The multiple attempts to establish what a fair distribution would be, starting with maximizing the wealth of those with the least as favored by Rawls, and its multiple repetitions, variations and criticisms, only show the relevance of this problem. Finally, not only can it be argued that selfish interests related to gain are not the only relevant interests in a given concrete situation, but it seems that they are only relevant, that is, they only make sense, in relation to needs, aspirations, demands, evaluations, expectations, or reciprocity. We can only call a logic efficient if the goals we have set for ourselves make sense. However, all these potentially relevant conditions can contribute, depending on the situation in which we find ourselves, to giving meaning to our goals and thus to qualifying a logic as efficient. It may be useful, in order to test what has been said here, to return to Adam Smith’s use of the notion of the “Invisible Hand” [GRA 00]. The expression appears just three times in his work, the first time in his The History of Astronomy, where “the invisible hand of Jupiter” refers to the capricious intervention of the ancient gods. The most commonly cited occurrence, from The Wealth of Nations, occurs in the following context: Smith argues that an individual, thinking about the security of their investment, will tend to prefer the national industry [SMI 94, p. 42-43]. His investment will therefore help to strengthen it, which, he emphasizes, will be good for the nation’s military capabilities and its ability to defend its citizens. It is an “Invisible Hand” that makes the investor, thinking of themself, strengthen the nation. The formula is therefore put forward in a well-defined context. And, in this case, it is right. In the situation described, and if we stick to the conditions that appear relevant (wealth of the investor, risk taken by them, national wealth, security of

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citizens), there is indeed a circumstantial agreement. The important question is therefore: can this maxim be generalized, not only to the economic aspect of any situation but to any situation as a “process”? Has anyone ever denied that economic conditions must often also be considered relevant and that they must sometimes be considered as the only relevant conditions? The actor “must” sometimes favor their own personal interest. But it thus sets down an act of “will” that finds itself to be in agreement or not, depending on the context, with the element of ethical innervation. So, a field can only be part of the game independently of others in very limited circumstances. And the ceteris paribus (or “all things being equal”) is then only part of the game by chance. The “Invisible Hand” cannot therefore become a general principle or a criterion for any process. But is this a process? The difference between an “element” and a “will” must be re-emphasized. The will is not an element1. It is, each time, the expression of a subjectivity determined by the situation. But it can correspond, fortuitously, to the effectiveness of an element such as the possible. This means that, in most cases, it will not correspond to it. The key to economic “balance” is the will. Such a balance is established through the interplay of wills (competition) that accept determination exclusively by interests for gain and call this “freedom”. But this balance no longer even needs to “represent” the balance of power that is expressing the wills. In the work of economists, it is reduced to a logic, which needs to be applied each time in a circumstantial way with a careful consideration of the “initial conditions”. There is no longer anything substantial “hidden” behind such a balance [EAT 89, p. 112]. This balance is therefore a “logic” that implements a certain, carefully defined type of condition. But a process cannot be something purely formal. It also needs to involve the possible, the possibility of conditions that are the knowledge of what is (this is the cost of reconciliation). It cannot therefore be reduced to a predictive scheme based on a narrowly circumscribed field. Indeed, it needs to take into account the widest possible archipelago of conditions, which emerge from a latent, but effective, totality of the possible. Limiting the field, in this case to economic conditions, prohibits access to a totality in the real sense, and thus ruins, with effectiveness, the efficiency itself of the conditions. Indeed, these isolated conditions do not involve, in their generality, a creative possible. The result is a sterile (meaningless) set of conditions, applied in a purely technical way. Economic logics, therefore, presenting themselves as necessary, come to determine political decisions themselves, since we do not take a step back, we do not have the patience of ascent into the possible that could reveal the relativity of economic logics and identify viable, political alternatives for these decisions.

1 It was a mistake by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to assume this.

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The unethical nature of economic logic can be verified on the basis of the four criteria that have been set out here. Economics brings with it very simple psychological assumptions: everyone tries to maximize what meets their own selfish interests for gain. There is no room for sincerity in this. It is appetite, pure and simple, which is to be regulated, and it does not even need to hide in a society like ours anyway. So, there is no hypocrisy, rather cynicism2, and certainly no “sincerity”. The economy separates its field of conditions and confines itself to them, without considering a broader spectrum which could respond to a totality. So, it “separates” its field. Then it uses the finality: economic logics tend towards a stable equilibrium. There is no consideration of “continuity” since it obscures the fact that, whatever point t of the future considered, when it is reached, the process will continue. Finally, economic “freedom” is the freedom to let oneself be determined by one’s own interests for gain. There is therefore not only “attachment”, but this attachment, and therefore its servitude, is given for the ultimate horizon of freedom. Let us return to the questions that opened this conclusion to Part 3. How can we say that the consequences of an economic logic are advantageous? If the interest in profit is favored by the individual, it is undoubtedly because it will open up possibilities for them, thus allowing them to do what they wish. This freedom can thus be understood. But, in fact, these possibilities that are open to them should themselves be thought of on the basis of the distinction between “creative possible”/“mechanical (or alienated) possible”. Are the possibilities opened up to the individual who has temporarily satisfied their appetite for gain those that the capitalist society has set up for them, or true creative and free possibles3? Does freedom not rather consist in the action of maintaining, each time, open ethical innervation, in context (and therefore with access to a creative possible), by taking into account all the relevant conditions? It seems that there is nothing to prevent an informed consensus to prefer a lower, but more equitably distributed, total wealth. (Remember that we are not faced with a free process, but with a mathematical compensation of forces, each will calculating its own selfish interest, in the unconsciousness of any element, so that the determination of consciousness by selfish interests is not even seen as a servitude.) 2 This is not, of course, to say that all capitalist agents are cynical, not always or even most of the time. Nevertheless, neoliberalism, in the narrow vision of freedom it promotes, is likely to encourage a certain cynicism. 3 The hypothesis that “creating” wealth is “creating” value, and therefore something desirable in itself, must be discarded. Money has no value other than that of the possibilities it opens up and has no “meaning” in itself.

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The Invisible Hand can only convince on the basis of its mathematical equations, condemned to never achieve their balance, and the satisfaction of acquiescing to openly selfish impulses, or the satisfaction of cultivating the negative itself. But the negative, however wild it may be, offers no freedom on its own. Between the positive and the negative, there is the processual unfolding of the experience, starting from the transcendental, which opens up the knowledge of the universal. The economy tries to crush this freedom in the grip of its determined freedom, conditioned by impersonal intimations, coming from social prejudice. What is the link between the desirability of these consequences and the uniformity of the selfish motivation of the actors? In reality, this uniformity only serves to characterize the action of individuals in a very simple way, before protecting against the unexpected by excluding externalities. The balance that could be achieved by free competition is not enough to justify such narrow-mindedness on the part of the agents. It does not provide a freedom that would counterbalance the postulated servitude to appetites. Would a moral reference in motivation ruin the efficiency allowed by economic logics? The strict application of these logics does not allow for real efficiency, because the interplay of conditions becomes abstract and loses all meaning. It is therefore this application itself that risks undermining efficiency, not a broader, and therefore freer, motivation on the part of the actors. The Invisible Hand, as we have seen, involves a “process” only in the form of a logical sequence that is blind to ethical innervation. It can be taken as explaining the establishment of a “spontaneous order”, that of an order emerging, against all expectations, from the “self-love” that everyone puts into practice in economic life, a discovery that the 18th Century was to exhibit from a spectacular secularization of the classical image of transcendental Providence [HAY 12, RAY 02]. Individuals do much more than they think they are doing, that is for sure, and an order can emerge from their competition. But there are all kinds of orders, and many are unbearable if they are maintained, or are not maintained, and disappear as spontaneously as they appeared. In any case, nothing in what has been said about the balances of economists corroborates the possibility of establishing, within their framework, true freedom, or even real efficiency, the possibility of achieving meaningful goals. Thus, if economists want to maintain a reference to Leibniz’s Theodicy, whose pre-established harmony was much discussed in Adam Smith time4, it should be added that it does not involve the principle of perfection, which was nevertheless the key to his system.

4 See [MYE 83]. And, of course, [LEI 99].

Conclusion

The deployment of effective logics is now significantly widespread throughout scientific research and technological innovation. They are only effective, active in the course of things, endowed with a transformative capacity, through their relationship, at the beginning, with a dimension of the creative possible at work in the situation. This dimension makes the formal sequence of logics into an objective process. However, a logic can, keeping its efficiency, deviate from the possible, thus losing its effectiveness, its link to a shared freedom. Under these conditions, it can be argued that its efficiency then loses its meaning and begins, as soon as logic has deviated, to turn empty, grappling with ends that have lost all truly human meaning. The problem is that people's attachment to their particular ends makes them totally ignore the question of whether or not they are deviating with the logics they implement in relation to the creative possible (ethical innervation). How, under these conditions, can we exercise responsibility for the efficient development of research and innovation logics? The unpredictability of the consequences of the development of a particular logic is largely insurmountable, especially in the increasingly interrelated and contingent contexts in which it takes place. It would be illusory to claim to control this aspect, even if we can try to improve our predictive capacity. Nevertheless, one can focus on the formal, objective structure of the process at work, and therefore on the development of a given logic. If we can recognize the structure of a process, this means that we can also re-orientate a given process in order to reproduce a defined structure. In this sense, a process is objective in at least one aspect. This recognition can be made on the basis of a “criterion” which gives the key to an objective reading of a process and therefore of a given efficient logic. If this logic has not deviated from the creative possible, and is therefore always supported by ethical innervation and thus “assumed” in the element of the possible, this appears in the formal-objective structure it deploys.

Ethically Structured Processes, First Edition. Virgil Cristian Lenoir. © ISTE Ltd 2019. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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In the second part of this book, four objective criteria for the ethicality of a process were identified, namely that this process takes into account as relevant the broadest spectrum of the actors’ motives. These criteria are “sincerity”, “non-separation”, “continuity” and “non-attachment”. To recognize the structure of a given process as expressed by one of these four criteria is to highlight its ethical dimension. Thus, not only does an efficient process have a formal structure, but the examination of this structure makes it possible to evaluate its ethical aspect and to promote or re-orientate it, thus showing itself to be responsible for the situation in which this logic makes sense. Similarly, four types of fall of the drape were identified, i.e. four characteristic ways in which conditions reconfigure themselves in relation to relevant previous conditions in a process. These are a fall “by dual polarization”, “by accentuating a line”, “by using linguistic resources” and “by reversing perspective”. They constitute four ways of characterizing a process, without being intrinsically ethical or unethical. The examination of the structure of a process must therefore be weighed up in context each time. It cannot be stuck onto a process from the outside, unless a series of interferences are introduced that are difficult to predict. But we can, on the basis of the diversity of the logics at work each time, compensate one with another, influence or favor one or the other. It will therefore be necessary to identify the broadest spectrum of motivations at work (the whole latency of the possible), which, by making the actors act, constitute just as many conditions that are part of effective logics. These motivations will sometimes be interests, selfish or not, relating to gain, identity or knowledge, sometimes values, rules, or rights. Moral behavior, implementing a value, a rule or a right, defined in such a way as to be valid for all, thus avoids the arbitrariness of subjectivity. It is part of the objective compensation of a spectrum where interests (which themselves appear in a differentiated way) do not have the prerogative of rationality. The implementation of each of these conditions is a rational position, translated into the sequence of a determined logic, efficient in achieving a goal and, possibly, carrying a shared freedom. Similarly, the ethical aspect, as a freedom shared by the actors involved, cannot be reduced to a subjective, passionate dimension, condemned either to impotence or to playing the role of a disruptor of rational action. Ethics, as a shared freedom, reflects a defined form that can be expressed by certain logical processes in their deployment and which can be expressed by an objective criterion. Responsibility for a given situation requires that morality and ethics be recognized in their rational dimension and can be understood in what makes them

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objective. This is required because the tranquilizing aspect of turning selfish individual action into an asset for general well-being, summarized in the myth of the Invisible Hand, has shown its limits in the third part of the book. It was demonstrated that the will cannot be taken for an “element” in which the interested individual actions compensate each other in an ethical regulation so as to automatically ensure the freedom of all. On the contrary, the will is most often presented as a one-time determination, suffered by the consciousness, which ruins freedom by the same token. Shared freedom is, on the contrary, not a suffered determination but an effective recovery, an assumption of the broadest spectrum of relevant conditions. To say that the fact (which is taken for granted) that agents only seek in their rational action to maximize their selfish interest for gain is turned, at the general level, into the creation of wealth that benefits everyone, shows a partial and unilateral understanding of a complex process. Implementing this reversal allows the uncomplicated affirmation of the first thesis. If we are sure that it benefits everyone, let us joyfully state that everyone acts in a selfish way, and even that an action can only be rational if it is selfish. In reality, the myth of the Invisible Hand, supported by the formal expression it has received in the general theory of equilibrium, is burdened by bias. It can, especially in its formal expression, only take into account the positive (wealth, goods, preferences, supply and demand), and never the negative (ruin, bankruptcy, frustration, worry, despair). However, whoever wants the first, in our capitalist societies, wants the second, in the same movement. To get a more complete picture, it would therefore be necessary to consider the distribution of the positive in its relationship to that of the negative. And for that to happen, the concept of freedom developed by neoliberalism must be resolutely challenged. Similarly, to put forward the action of the Invisible Hand as the achievement of a balance in the free play of wills, therefore to define free and undistorted competition as necessarily leading to a balance, and even, under certain conditions, a Pareto-optimal balance, is misleading. This conceals, in a confusion of mathematical and processual temporalities, that a moment always has an after. Even if a balance were reached, there would be an after. Moreover, aiming for a perfectly defined balance (a maximum) is achieved in an instant t. However, between prediction and realization there will be a time interval during which the conditions relevant to the situation, from an effective point of view, will change. It is not enough to be satisfied with the formal neutralization introduced by the mathematical language, which strictly defines the relevant conditions unambiguously and simply excludes externalities. From a processual point of view, the relevant conditions cannot be defined once and for all. Their effectiveness changes with the process active in the situation, so that the definitions, decided once and for all by mathematics, are constantly called into question.

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If all this leads to reducing the myth of the Invisible Hand to a more sober and limited conceptual meaning, then what could have been reassuring about its providential reversal is lost. And we can only be reassured that ethics and morals are restored to their rational consistency, as well as their effectiveness. Responsibility for a given situation thus receives instruments that it cannot and must not neglect. At the same time, this responsibility, which demands to be exercised against the falsely reassuring prestige of the Invisible Hand, must count on the influence that the Invisible Hand, already globalized, has acquired on the minds and actions of men. The thinking about the process, facing it, has powerful assets in that it is able to reach from within distant traditions, in particular Chinese and Indian, in their knowledge content. Chinese thinking about the process was discussed in the second part of this book. Responsibility, as it becomes global, requires a radical rethinking of how different worlds (each being itself differentiated, plural, complex) of thought can come into exchange with one another, until they find themselves in a symbiotic relationship. Compartmentalizing teachings, closing off domains on their identity and producing specialists in the history of this or that tradition can only place the result on a very downstream level in relation to the ethical innervation of the possible, where the question of responsibility arises in a globalized context. The attention paid to classical China has made it possible to place ourselves in a context where the clear contrasts between the intelligible and the sensible, the theoretical and the practical are not effective. Where a thinking of the process with its own ethical expectations is deployed, the introduction of the form/content couple has made it possible to identify four ethical forms of the process, as well as four objective criteria for the ethicality of these forms. The definitorial model of the process, for which only the conditions open up possibilities, is based on an originarity of language, which can be expressed in the perspective of at least four transcendental categories: pre-definition of the concrete; logical abstraction; full form; a will able to master its ends. On the contrary, a thinking of the process considers that only the possible, in a conditional “and” elemental form, can open defined conditions. The four categories are a priori transformed to give rise to a distinction between four ethical criteria, each transposing one of the four categories. If there is no pre-definition of the concrete – sincerity; if there is no logical abstraction – non-separation; if there is no full form – viability; if there is no will able to master its ends – non-attachment. In each case, as the respective trait of the definitorial is contingent, the thinking of the process extends it to make it an objective criterion of the ethicality of a process.

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This is the assumption of responsibility. Chinese thinking of the process is ancient and subtle. It carries a wisdom which manifests itself in a defined relationship to the languages in which knowledge is expressed. It brings about an unfixed interrelationship, which can be adapted to an agreement where exact conditions, that are inextricably laid down and encountered, enter into logics, through which only the things that surround us exist for us; and these logics espouse these things in a precise way, permitted by the specific resources of a language, which opens up to a “knowledge” of these things in their working. Today, knowledge is expressed in the formal languages of research and innovation. And interrelationship from end to end will be the defined relationship to these logics that we will have to realize. In this perspective, the process becomes a process of the possible, of the very possible that enters into the various conditions expressed (knowledge), that sets them in motion as logics and that makes them effective. In ancient China, we can spot a perception of “knowledge”, zhi 知, as an ability to “fit”, dang 當1 . But this is true to the exact extent that this ability reflects an ethical achievement, that of the wise man, who never deviates from the “Way”, Dao 道. To know this Way, to embrace the current within it, means to realize a relationship with the language, in which it is seen as a pure, conventional relationship, unable to define, to exhaust, its object [WAG 03]. The relationship to the language is liberated by a relationship to the Dao, whose innervation is considered here as ethical2, if this Dao is no longer “one” “origin” but the creative possible at work each time in context. It is no longer “energies” that are at work, but the element of the possible. Indeed, we start from what is to be assumed today: effective logics, and if we go back upstream from them, we find ourselves moving in the element of the creative possible. Once we have highlighted the universal context of our responsibility, let us return to what is at the heart of a thinking of the process. In its ethical dimension, it requires a patient and perilous upstream ascent, as a dimension of the possible, of latency, where the efficient conditions of the logic at work play a role. This ascent restores all the relevant conditions to their contingency, to the dimension of the possible of which they constitute efficient expressions, and returns to the creative possible, which is an element, active in the very situation in which we find

1 [CHE 97, p. 122], where she refers to Chad Hansen. 2 We have seen that the Dao of the Taoists went hand in hand with the rejection of Confucian “values” (sense of humanity, justice, etc.) and an emphasis on what was depreciated by society (structured around these values): femininity, passivity, emptiness, etc. But Confucianism and Taoism are two opposing reactions around the same knowledge of the language as purely conventional. And I suggested that this rejection of values was based on a falsely non-problematic assumption of the “sincerity” of the agents.

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ourselves. Such an ascent marks its fulfilment by setting a new condition from which, in an increasingly biased, increasingly stereotypical determination, in a reciprocal configuration of conditions that take position with respect to one another (as in a drape), a reappraisal of all the previous knowledge acquired will take place. The process will thus fall from its perfect viability to a freezing of effective logics, blind to the creative possible, which will deviate from it. These deviations will mark a bias of the logics, which will escape the ethical effectiveness of the possible. It will be time for a new upstream ascent to take place. These ascents, each of which will be the work of a marginal individual, will operate randomly, in the contingent context of the interrelationship of knowledge, against the tendency towards determination attached to the form of our knowledge. All this will create a contingent structure where it will be necessary to fight step by step for effectiveness, each in their own place. It will be the fragmented, polynodal, polycentric structure of History, once it has lost its purpose, and a narrow, unilateral, teleological concept of causality. It will be the structure, in search of effectiveness, that will make the pursuit of efficiency, which is that of research and innovation, universal. Responsibility requires, in our specific situation, attention to the whole spectrum of active conditions upstream of the situation, in order to restore them, without bias, to the contingency of the creative possible. As soon as a logic is reduced to the necessity of its formal expression, it must be patiently returned to its contingency, to its conventionality. As long as this reconsideration takes place in ethical innervation, which allows for a shared freedom of actors, effective logics, deployed through research and innovation, will translate into the very structure of their process a responsibility towards it.

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Index

A, C ambiguity, 1, 25, 36, 38, 127, 151, 152, 158, 180, 182 archipelago, 46, 61, 65, 73, 80, 96, 97, 147, 155, 156, 194 assume, 8, 19–21, 28, 30, 33, 55, 59, 65, 70, 72, 74, 75, 84, 86, 96, 106, 109, 123, 132, 146, 149, 182, 185, 194 concept of the necessary, 13 of the possible, 8, 27

D, E definitorial position, 34, 39 determined consciousness, 55, 132 effective logics, 57, 58, 70, 84, 113, 176, 185, 190, 197, 198, 201, 202 element of the possible, 12–15, 17–20, 23, 25, 26, 30–32, 34, 35, 37, 39–41, 45, 50, 51, 56, 59, 69, 71, 83, 86, 100, 102, 103, 128, 129, 133, 134, 156, 157, 184, 186–188, 190, 197, 201

ethical process, 70, 72, 102, 103, 110, 116, 128, 132, 134, 146, 157, 161, 183–185, 190

F, G, I fall of the drape, 14, 31, 47, 49, 56, 58, 67, 69, 70, 82, 96–98, 106, 107, 109, 111, 116, 117, 119, 122–124, 127, 129, 130, 134–137, 139, 142, 143, 155, 156, 157, 161, 178, 190, 198, 202 freedom effective, 67, 99, 119, 150, 171 of neoliberals, 166 global responsibility, 183 Invisible Hand, 81, 118, 146, 156, 161, 165–171, 173–175, 177, 179–185, 189, 191–194, 196, 199, 200

L, N latent totalities, 101, 102, 111, 157 logical necessity, 31 negative, 55, 58, 59, 107, 125, 132, 157, 166, 169–171, 173, 174, 177–179, 182, 183, 196, 199

Ethically Structured Processes, First Edition. Virgil Cristian Lenoir. © ISTE Ltd 2019. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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P, V, W possible worlds, 19, 20, 27–31, 36, 39, 40, 45 processual effectiveness, 32, 33, 51, 63

propensities, 46, 58, 107 viability of the possible, 48, 69, 72, 97, 100, 113, 114, 119, 124, 166 Will to Power, 187

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