Déjà Vu and the End of History

by Paolo Virno, David Broder (Translator)

Déjà vu, which doubles and confuses our experience of time, is a psychological phenomenon with peculiar relevance to our contemporary historical circumstances. From this starting point, the acclaimed Italian philosopher Paolo Virno examines the construct of memory, the passage of time, and the “end of history.” Through thinkers such as Bergson, Kojève and Nietzsche, Virno shows how our perception of history can become suspended or paralysed, making the distinction between “before” and “after,” cause and effect, seem derisory. In examining the way the experience of time becomes historical, Virno forms a radical new theory of historical temporality.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory

210 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Paolo Virno (1952–2025) was an Italian philosopher, semiologist and a figurehead for the Italian Marxist movement. Implicated in belonging to illegal social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, Virno was arrested and jailed in 1979, accused of belonging to the Red Brigades. He spent several years in prison before finally being acquitted, after which he organized the publication Luogo Comune (Italian for "commonplace") in order to vocalize the political ideas he developed during his imprisonment. At the time of his death, Virno was teaching philosophy at the University of Rome.

Reviews

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

The concept of ‘potentiality’ has among the most ancient of philosophical pedigrees. Stretching back at least as far as Aristotle - and the Megarians before him - it’s one that’s been as much used as abused, and, in many cases, simply outright confused. It helps then, that Paolo Virno stands today as amongst the most preeminent philosophers of potentiality. And here, in this svelte little book of just under 200 pages, does he make clear, in ways that must be read to be admired, just how deep the stakes go in our need to come to grips with this much contested idea. And not just any abstract reflection on potentiality either, but quite specifically, the temporality of potentiality. For, as it turns out, it’s only from the point of view of time - that other, most intangible and arcane of philosophical concepts - does the full relief of potentiality come into proper view. 

Far from being an exposition obscurum per obscurius however, it’s Virno’s achievement to have shed light not only on potentiality, but precisely, on time itself. Departing from the seemingly prosaic experience of deja vu - the feeling of having lived the present moment once before - Virno’s book traces wider and wider circles around this concept before concluding with nothing less than an understanding of the overbearing time of our own contemporaneity: the time of capitalism. This is a Marxist text after all. But before we get there, we can retrace some steps. For what does the chronopathology of deja vu really tell us about time? To live a present as if in the mode of the past; to affix, on the content of the present, the form of the past, a form itself empty of any content, but appropriating to itself the present, lived as if a memory already played out once before. 

And this shows what? Precisely that ‘the past’ can, and in fact should, be understood not only as content - as an archive of already-achieved historical accomplishments or acts - but also as a form: a ‘pure past’, one that accompanies every moment in time like a lingering, unassailable shadow. A double past then, for every present: a chronological past, a past of acts in time, and a pure past, one that never falls 'in' time, but that coexists with every present as nothing other - and here we come back to our theme - than that present's potential. Distinguishing this Other past from the past of chronology is its status as a potential that never passes into act: a perpetual and ceaseless 'never-now' that nonetheless conditions the possibility of every now 'in' time. At every moment then is there a birth of time, in time, a chronogenesis contemporary with the unfolding of time itself.

Undoubtedly, this would all come across as academic - if not outright scholastic - if not for Virno's efforts to think about what this constellation of concepts can tell us about our own time and place. For as it turns out, what is distinctive about the temporal regime under capitalism is the way in which this potentiality is literally put to work. For Virno, labour-power, which corresponds to a particular capacity - read: potentiality - on the part of the human, is commodified and turned into nothing other than an object in time. And this, in turn, is exactly the structure of deja vu: the appearance of the past (qua potential) in the frame of the present. Similarly, just as deja vu leaves us as spectators to our own lives (as the repetition of history, deja vu is the experience of history no longer 'happening'), so too does the generalized regime of labour-power as commodity attest to historical repetition - the end of history - at the level of political economy.

Such, at any rate, are the broad strokes of the argument presented in this book. If it wasn't obvious already, it's a thesis both complex and dizzying, and nothing said here can even begin to substitute for the rich weave of writing that is Deja Vu and the End of History. Virno himself is an author of enormous patience, building his concepts piece by piece, and in many cases in conversation with the cardinal lights of philosophical history - Augustine, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Kant all feature throughout. Moreover, anyone with an antenna for the work of Henri Bergson should have had bells ring at the mention of the coexistence of the past and present, and indeed, much of the first part of the book is a deep explication of just that idea (much loved by Deleuze, who, apart from a veiled dig, gets no mention here) - although given an Aristotelian and Marxist twist. A little book, then, brimming with ideas and potentials that overflow the small space of its careful execution. 

[Oliver Brackenbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, critical theory. Brace yourself for "hic et nunc" instead of "here and now", "lacunae" instead of "gap", "sui generis" instead of "unique" etc etc. This isn't to say that sometimes a ten dollar word or non-English word in this English language translation of an Italian work never serves a purpose - "diachrony" is more concise than "change extending through time" - or that we should always limit ourselves to the one thousand most common words...but language exists to convey information and the choice of language in this translation frequently makes it unnecessarily hard work to follow what are already pretty abstract concepts.

Lots of overlapping concepts which are X but not X but also Y and interacting with other concepts which are Y but not Y but also X etc. Frankly, there are parts in the middle third of this book which really needed more, and better, diagrams than just the one you get on page 123. Give idiot-brain here some doodles, plz.

The other Critical Theory Classic also happens here - the one where you find yourself wildly swinging between feeling like you're discovering secrets of the universe and feeling like you're listening to 420 philosophy. Ah well!

So now I sound like an anti-intellectual moron, let me say that the reason what I've mentioned so far was so frustrating for me was precisely because I felt like there was some real gold to be found. In the end, after much highlighting and underlining, I did feel like I was pushed to examine some very interesting angles on seemingly simple concepts like "time" and "history", "action" and "potential", etc.

Overall, I'd say this is a decent book for those who come in already having an interest in the subject matter.

[Oliver Brackenbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah, critical theory. Brace yourself for "hic et nunc" instead of "here and now", "lacunae" instead of "gap", "sui generis" instead of "unique" etc etc. This isn't to say that sometimes a ten dollar word or non-English word in this English language translation of an Italian work never serves a purpose - "diachrony" is more concise than "change extending through time" - or that we should always limit ourselves to the one thousand most common words...but language exists to convey information and the choice of language in this translation frequently makes it unnecessarily hard work to follow what are already pretty abstract concepts.

Lots of overlapping concepts which are X but not X but also Y and interacting with other concepts which are Y but not Y but also X etc. Frankly, there are parts in the middle third of this book which really needed more, and better, diagrams than just the one you get on page 123. Give idiot-brain here some doodles, plz.

The other Critical Theory Classic also happens here - the one where you find yourself wildly swinging between feeling like you're discovering secrets of the universe and feeling like your listening to 420 philosophy. Ah well! So now I sound like an anti-intellectual moron, let me say that the reason what I've mentioned so far was so frustrating for me was precisely because I felt like there was some real gold to be found. In the end, after much highlighting and underlining, I did feel like I was pushed to examine some very interesting angles on seemingly simple concepts like "time" and "history", "action" and "potential", etc.

Overall, I'd say this is a decent book for those who come in already having an interest in the subject matter.

[cheer · Rating 2 out of 5]

This guy has some good ideas, but you have to wade through SO much nonsensical Philosophy Bro rambling to get to it. He repeats himself, phrases things in convoluted ways, and uses far too many Latin phrases for me to take most of this as seriously as he wants it to be taken. 80% of this book is comprised of what stoner rambling would sound like if the effect of weed was that it made you talk like a grad student.

[Tacodisc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why did I read this?

A friend of mine recently emailed some thoughts on déja vu, introducing an interesting concept of reincarnation that seemed similar (on the suggestion of another friend) to the notion of time’s non-linear passage in the film "Arrival." I won’t reiterate his thoughts here, but I will say that while I myself do not believe in reincarnation, my friend's email did encourage me to think more deeply about an otherwise ordinary, un-interesting (in the way an eye-twitch or little itch on the knee is un-interesting) rarity of experience. I was also aware of Paulo Virno’s philosophical study on the topic, so I went ahead and jumped in, hoping that I could bring more to the table in the discussion my friend raised.

I didn’t realize the depths of the water here…

Review

Before reading this short but difficult study, it’s helpful to remember that it originally appeared in Italian in the late 90s. Verso released the English translation about 15 years later, somewhat removed from its original historical and philosophical context, a period in which Francis Fukayama’s “end of history” thesis became an ideological foundation (read: neoconservative dog whistle) for imperialism’s “victory,” led by the United States, over the Soviet Union. So the illusion goes: bourgeois democracy had at last triumphed over communism, bringing to realization the “best,” and final manifestation, of all historical actualities.

"Not only is America winning, Fukuyama claimed, but the flourishing of democracy around the world is the fulfillment of a grand historical scheme. The end of the cold war and the disarray of the Soviet Union reflected a larger process -the realization of the Idea. History, Hegel believed (or Fukuyama says he believed), 'culminated in an absolute moment – a moment in which a final, rational form of society and state became victorious.' And that moment, it just so happens, is now." (New York Times, 1989)

While I’m convinced of the ideological purpose of Fukuyama’s argument (he was, after all, a State Department official during the Cold War), Virno’s is a much more charitable response, diagnosing a philosophical disease of which “end of history” thinking is a symptom.

In the quote above, Hegel is cited as a launching point for Fukuyama’s thesis, and while Virno wouldn’t disagree, Déja Vu details the picture more accurately, tracing this problematic (or diseased, as I’ve described it) history of philosophy backwards to Kojève, Hegel and, what may be the most challenging but rewarding section of the book, Aristotle. That is, the ideological outcome of the long-dominant and unchallenged Aristotelian relationship between potentiality and actuality may, it turns out, be a collective – and collectively mistaken – acceptance that history could ever reach a teleological end:

"Virno’s analysis would appear to imply there no [sic] final telos or structural totality can be permitted if the world is one of endless potentialities – for historical time could not really exist if this were the case. Virno’s offensive offers us then to enter a philosophical battle over time whilst the political consequences of such a battle appear unclear, and for all we know, the price of endless possibilities may turn out to be no future at all." (Marx and Philosophy, 2016)

Rory Jeff’s conclusion above (“no future at all”) is one spin on Virno’s polemics against the “end of history,” though Virno himself would, I believe, take issue with it as the pessimistic interpretation. A more hopeful reading would be the one that replaces telos – a finality of human potentiality – and replaces it with something closer to Marx: Historical Man – the subject of a truly human history that does not depend on the unfolding of events as if guided by the hand of a diving power (or “culmination of the Absolute”), but that guides history in her own direction, fully conscious of her unlimited potential and unhindered by “antagonistic forms” of bourgeois society that appears “natural” (and “final,” as Fukuyama might have it):

"The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production — antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individual; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation brings, therefore, the prehistory of human society to a close". (quoted in Fromm, 1961)

If there’s any doubt that Virno is onto something here, just open a newspaper. That so-called “triumph” of the West has proven false, with the promise of democracy leading to the resurrection of all varieties of reaction: nationalism, fascism, neocolonialism and the hollowing out of basic social / public services across the map. In other words, our well-known global and domestic instabilities defy the political premises on which someone could (disingenuously) declare a “flourishing of democracy.”

In that sense, it may seem a little odd that Verso would reintroduce the work to a larger audience now, when anyone with a basic grip on geopolitical realities could hardly accept the stalling of history. It would be a mistake, however, to limit Virno’s critique to what any and all refutations of the “end of history” have in common: namely, that on a basic empirical level, history is still moving. There are political, social, cultural (i.e., historical) battles yet to be won or lost. Instead, Virno goes beyond this ideological point, investigating the very structure of our understanding of time (see Chapter 2: “The Memory of the Present”) to reveal how “end of history” thinking could arise in the first place.

In other words, the relevance of Virno’s arguments does not have to be limited to refutation of State Department ideologues or Trumpian appeals to the “former greatness” of America. It can, I think, be applied to apocalyptic visions of our future (a la Wahhabism) or crude materialist “Marxist” predictions of the culmination of history in socialism, even something as simple as the Social Media Addict and every-attached-to-his-phone millennial. Virno, in other words, is revealing this structure of experience as a means of protecting us from its philosophical harms in the future. Using Henri Bergson as an intellectual foundation, this is what he calls déja vu:

“‘We feel that we choose and will, but that we are choosing what is imposed on us and willing the inevitable.’ The state of mind correlated to deja vu is that typical of those set on watching themselves live.” (Virno, 2015)

You may have noticed that I’ve left out egregiously huge details on how these arguments work:

-What is the Aristotelian connection between potentiality and actuality? And how does that form the basis of our notion of history?
-What does it mean for déja vu to be a collective, public experience and not, as we commonly hold it to be, a very personal one?
-Perhaps most egregious in its absence: is there not a way to reclaim deja vu as a liberating capacity, one that fixes us not in our past, but shows us the future?

As I said from the start, I didn’t know what depths I was jumping into here. What I set out to do was show the general outline and purpose of Virno’s work, in order to make it a little more understandable if the reader decides to jump in herself. That said, the questions above could be your life raft. Hold on tight.

This leaves one last question for the review: should she jump in? Was it worth the time? For those interested in Critical Theory (and not uncomfortable with the stubbornly academic language of such work), Aristotle’s Metaphysics or the Philosophy of History broadly speaking, then yes – give it a go. Otherwise, I wouldn’t say the book is the most memorable philosophical text I’ve read, despite memory being its central subject.

[Zoonanism · Rating 3 out of 5]

synopsis:If Bergson is right on Deja Vu, then perhaps he is wrong and therefore a condition X is caused otherwise by what Virno sees as an error.
Some very confusing passages about where and how to locate "potential" on a timeline which ought to prove Heidegger right, but does not. Finitude is not the ultimate determinant of a historical sense or a subject's understanding of its potential. Given all these errors condition X cannot be explained and if we see that, then we can overcome it and history will not End. Pleasant in a strange way

[Botvid · Rating 2 out of 5]

Det första kapitlet i den här boken går igenom den vetenskapliga förståelsen för hur deja vu uppstår. Det är inte en glitch i Matrix, utan beror påett kopplingsfel som av olika anledningar uppstår i våra hjärnor. Vad som sker är att det vi erinrat som skulle ha gått till arbetsminnet, som hanterar det vi upplever nu, istället hamnar i det episodiska minnet, som hanterar det vi var upplevt. Arbetsminnet har förmågan att hämta saker ur det episodiska minnet, vilket gör att vi kan återuppleva tidigare händelser. Deja vu-upplevelsen är alltså en falsk återupplevelse av det vi faktiskt upplever för stunden. Det är ju en intressant grej att berätta vid middagsbordet.

Genom resten av boken menar författaren att vår kultur befinner sig i en liknande felkopplingssituation. Men vi får fortfarande ingen Matrix-referens. Han ger exempel på vardagliga ritualer som ständigt upprepas, nästan för sin upprepnings skull. Där både form och innehåll är utformat på ett sätt och nästan skyddas för att upplevas som något som är som det är och ALLTID varit som det är. Vår politiska situation befinner sig också i ett läge där vi inte vet vad som är en faktisk upplevelse av situationen med ett tydligt före-nu-efter, och vad som är en falsk återupplevelse av något som kanske varit, eller som kanske pågår just nu. Ja ni hör ju hur snurrigt det blir. Mängden filosofisk jargong och idéhistoriskt bagage gör det också svårt för mig att ta till mig några större poänger. Men ja, att för full hals skråla "Du gamla, du fria" är ju för personer med rätt läggning laddat med känslan om att "Det här har Svenskar gjort i alla tider", men sången har inte ens officiellt status som nationalsång och har bara funnits sen mitten av 1800-talet. Vi fortsätter att göra saker, för att vi "alltid" har gjort så, och i den historielösheten så glömmer vi varför saker blivit såhär. Och bland alla nya idéer som kastas ut, så kan vi aldrig veta vilka som är tillräckligt kletiga för att fastna i framtidens historia.

Efter att jag läst boken sa jag till min vän Cesar att jag inte riktigt förstod vad det var jag hade läst. Han svarade att han höll med och sa: "I guess we're not there yet".

[Gerardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

E' un saggio sulla percezione del tempo nell'epoca postmoderna. La struttura che meglio spiega questa percezione è quella del déjà vu, cioè quell'impressione di aver già vissuto un qualcosa che si sta vivendo. Il postmoderno, infatti, propone una visione della vita in cui tutto è già stato fatto.

Virno riconosce due elementi: la facoltà di compiere qualcosa e l'azione stessa. La prima è una potenza, la seconda un fatto. Per questioni logiche, la prima precede la seconda. Eppure, l'atto appartiene al tempo, all'adesso, mentre la potenza al "non-ora". Inoltre, il compiersi dell'azione prevista dalla facoltà non realizza la facoltà, la quale resta invariata: la potenza e l'atto sono, quindi, nei fatti contemporanei.

Così facendo, mette in crisi il sistema storico novecentesco, soprattutto di stampo heideggeriano, in cui il tempo dipendeva dalla morte, cioè dall'estremo futuro. Secondo Virno, invece, l'agire e quindi la storicità dipende da questo elemento che logicamente precede ogni azione: la facoltà stessa di agire. E' nella facoltà che si prevede l'azione futura. Infatti, secondo Virno, l'immortalità non cancellerebbe la possibilità della storia, proprio perché questa si fonda sulla potenza e non sulla morte.

Secondo Virno, la grandezza del materialismo storico sta nell'aver individuato questa potenza, chiamandola "forza-lavoro": infatti, la forza-lavoro non è nient'altro che la capacità di agire dell'uomo. Il capitalismo, anziché monetizzare l'atto, ha monetizzato la potenza, acquisendo così il controllo sulla struttura storica: il capitalismo, quindi, diviene metastorica proprio perché capace di influenzare il presupposto stesso della storia, cioè la potenza.

Testo dal linguaggio rigoroso e lucido, che richiede più attenzione che conoscenze. Importante il fatto che il saggio esponga prima le sue teorie in maniera rapida e accessibile a tutti, per poi ampliare alcuni passaggi in una seconda parte più rigorosa e dettagliata. L'ultima parte, la più corta e interessante, rilegge il materialismo storico e il capitalismo alla luce di quanto detto, proponendo una visione interessante e originale sui nostri tempi.

Un testo che consiglio per lucidità, ma anche per via della sua capacità di essere preciso senza perdersi in chiacchiere.

[Maria Grandinetti]

listened to his lessons