Fold (Pli)

Merleau-Ponty's figure for the ontological structure by which the multiple comes from the one without external cutting — the continuum of form and content that dissolves the dualism/monism dilemma. V&I Ch. 4 Section "Folds" (pp. ~139–141) develops the fold as the "locus where the negative truly is": "The only 'locus' where the negative truly is is the fold, the mutual application of the inside and the outside, the point of reversal" (V&I 263/311). The fold is thus simultaneously an ontological figure (dualism resolved without monism), a phenomenological figure (the chiasm of perception as a fold of flesh upon itself), and a polemical figure (Chouraqui 2014's Transition chapter marshals the fold against Deleuze's pairing of MP with Heidegger and Deleuze's charge of "idolatry of being" and "the fold of Being"). The fold and the chiasm are "different aspects of the same property of Being" (Chouraqui, Ch. 6).

Key Points

  • The cardinal formulation: "The only 'locus' where the negative truly is is the fold, the mutual application of the inside and the outside, the point of reversal" (V&I 263/311). Negativity is localized by the fold — not as a region of non-being but as the point at which inside and outside mutually apply, meeting without coinciding.
  • Multiple from one without cutting: the fold is MP's alternative to the "cut-out" model (where objects are cut from a background of nothingness by external intervention). The fold generates multiplicity from within a continuum — "a continuity of three 'moments'... two 'flaps' (feuilles) separated and linked by the very 'point of reversal' (V&I 263/311) that I shall call the folding" (Chouraqui, Ch. 6).
  • Fold and chiasm are ontology and phenomenology of one structure: "the ontological concept of the fold and the phenomenological concept of the chiasma are different aspects of the same property of Being" (Chouraqui, Ch. 6). The fold is the fold of Being; the chiasm is how the fold shows up in perception.
  • Polemical register (against Deleuze): Deleuze's Foucault (1986) pairs MP with Heidegger and charges both with "idolatry of being" and "the fold of Being." Chouraqui's Transition chapter rebuts: the "point before Being folds" is precisely MP's closeness to Nietzsche, not his dependence on Heidegger. "This concern to recover this particular 'point before Being folds' — a point I discuss under the heading 'folding' — is crucial to Merleau-Ponty precisely against Heidegger and it constitutes one of the connections between Merleau-Ponty and Nietzsche" (Chouraqui, Transition).
  • The fold grounds flesh's reflexivity: "the structure of the flesh is primarily reflexive" (Chouraqui Ch. 6) — and the fold names the structural form of this reflexivity. The touched-touching, seer-seen, visible-invisible chiasmic pairs are all "foldings" of the flesh upon itself.

Details

The cardinal passage (V&I 263/311)

The single most-cited fold formulation in Chouraqui's reading, drawn from a V&I working note, is unusually compressed:

"The only 'locus' where the negative truly is is the fold, the mutual application of the inside and the outside, the point of reversal." (V&I 263/311)

Three implications Chouraqui draws out:

  1. Negativity is localized. MP does not eliminate negativity (as Barbaras sometimes charges) but relocates it. Negativity "is" in the fold — not as a region of non-being, not as Sartre's nothingness, not as the gap between two positive terms, but as the point of reversal where inside and outside meet without coinciding.
  2. Inside and outside "mutually apply". The fold is not the meeting of two pre-existing surfaces but the movement by which a single continuum is constituted as "having" an inside and outside. The two sides are retroactively abstracted from the folding, not given before it.
  3. The point of reversal is the fold. The reversibility of the chiasm — touching and touched, seer and seen — passes through the point of reversal, which is the fold. This is why fold and chiasm cannot be separated in MP's late ontology: the chiasm's operation is the fold's localization of negativity.

The "Folds" section of V&I Ch. 6 (Chouraqui's reading)

Chouraqui's Ch. 6 "Folds" section (lines 2040–2066 in the raw, corresponding to Chouraqui's pp. ~190–200) is the most sustained exposition of the fold's triple role:

"The 'fold' ('pli') is a key theme in Merleau-Ponty's ontology. It allows him to account for the very possibility of deriving the multiple from the one." (Chouraqui, Ch. 6)

The fold enables MP to reject the dualism/monism alternative:

  • Dualism (two substances) produces the problem of interaction — how do the two substances communicate?
  • Monism (one substance) produces the problem of multiplicity — how does a single substance appear as many?
  • The fold produces both multiplicity and continuity: the two "flaps" (feuilles) are genuinely distinct (each bears its own content, its own direction) and genuinely inseparable (they are two aspects of one continuous sheet). The "point of reversal" is the fold itself — the point at which distinction and continuity are the same structure.

This is why the fold figures the structure Chouraqui calls self-differentiation: Being differentiates itself from itself not by cutting but by folding. The difference is internal; the unity is not added to the difference; the two are one structure.

Chouraqui's reading adds: "A relation to being is needed that would form itself within being" (V&I 215/264, Chouraqui 2054). The fold is the answer to what this "relation within being" could look like. It is a relation whose terms do not precede it.

The Deleuze-Polemic Framing (Transition 1300–1308)

The Transition chapter of Ambiguity and the Absolute rebuts Deleuze's reading of MP. The key passage:

"Idolatry of being [...] the fold of Being." (Deleuze, Foucault, charge against MP)

"The last point before Being folds." (Deleuze, same text, charge against MP)

Deleuze pairs MP with Heidegger on the charge that both worship Being and locate their philosophical work in "the fold of Being." Chouraqui's rebuttal:

"Merleau-Ponty's concern to recover this particular 'point before Being folds' — a point I discuss under the heading 'folding' — is crucial to Merleau-Ponty precisely against Heidegger and it constitutes one of the connections between Merleau-Ponty and Nietzsche." (Chouraqui, Transition)

The correction: the "point before Being folds" is not MP's Heideggerian commitment but his anti-Heideggerian move. The point before Being folds is the pre-predicative, pre-ontic zone Chouraqui calls the zone of subjectivity. Heidegger's direct ontology (Seinsfrage) stands already within Being as if from outside; MP's fold refuses this conceit and thinks ontology from within the folding.

The polemical consequence: Deleuze's pairing of MP with Heidegger against Nietzsche-plus-Foucault misrecognizes MP. On Chouraqui's reading, MP is closer to Nietzsche than to Heidegger, and the fold is where this proximity is most visible. The fold is MP's weapon against Heidegger, not his inheritance from him.

Fold and Chiasm as Ontology and Phenomenology of One Structure

Chouraqui's sharpest formulation of the fold-chiasm identity:

"The ontological concept of the fold and the phenomenological concept of the chiasma are different aspects of the same property of Being." (Chouraqui, Ch. 6)

This identity clarifies both concepts. The fold is the chiasm viewed ontologically (as the structure of Being's self-folding). The chiasm is the fold viewed phenomenologically (as the structure of perception's touched-touching and seer-seen reversibility). Neither is prior; both articulate one structure of Being that is at once metaphysical-ontological (the fold names it from Being's side) and lived-phenomenological (the chiasm names it from the embodied perceiver's side).

MP's late formulations develop the identity:

"Every relation with being is simultaneously a taking and a being taken." (V&I 271/319)

"The jointing and the hinge [membrure] of being [...] is being realised through man." (S 181/295)

The fold enacts the hinge structure (see chiasm for the complementary treatment). Without the fold, the chiasm's reversibility would have no ontological locus; without the chiasm, the fold would have no phenomenal manifestation.

Fold, Human as Fold, and Self-Differentiation

Chouraqui's Conclusion completes the fold's argumentative role:

"The human, as a fold of Being, is the locus of Being's reflexivity and of its self-differentiation." (Chouraqui, Conclusion)

The human is not above or outside Being but is Being's fold upon itself — the point at which Being becomes reflexive (experiences itself, perceives, thinks, is aware of being) through the folding. This is how self-differentiation as the master motif of the book becomes flesh-and-blood: the two-layers-of-skin / zone-of-subjectivity structure is anchored in the human as the fold through which Being looks at itself.

Connections

  • is the ontological form of chiasm — the two are different aspects of one structure of Being (Chouraqui, Ch. 6)
  • is the locus of negativity (Chouraqui's reading of V&I 263/311) — negativity is not a region but a point of reversal within the fold
  • is the mechanism of self-differentiation — Being differentiates itself from itself by folding, not cutting
  • articulates flesh's reflexivity — "the structure of the flesh is primarily reflexive," and the fold names this reflexivity
  • grounds reversibility — the chiasm's reversibility passes through the point of reversal, which is the fold
  • is deployed against Deleuze's reading of MP — the "point before Being folds" marks MP's closeness to Nietzsche against Heidegger, not his pairing with Heidegger (Chouraqui, Transition)
  • contrasts with Sartre's cut-out model — nothingness does not cut objects from a void; the fold produces multiplicity from within a continuum
  • contrasts with Heidegger's direct ontology — the fold's "point before Being folds" is already within the folding, not a stance outside Being
  • is expressed through the *écart* — the point of reversal is an écart that is constitutive rather than privative
  • parallels Ineinander — the Ineinander names the structure of mutual inherence that the fold enacts
  • resembles Deleuze's own concept of the fold (from Le Pli, on Leibniz) — but Chouraqui's MP-side fold is deployed against Deleuze's reading of MP, so the Deleuze-fold and MP-fold are rivals rather than cognates

Open Questions

  • The identity of fold and chiasm (ontology / phenomenology of one structure) requires that both be available in any given text. But some MP texts deploy chiasm without fold (Signs' "chiasma of the visible") and some working notes deploy fold without chiasm. Does the identity hold strictly, or only at a certain level of abstraction?
  • Deleuze's own concept of the fold (from Le Pli on Leibniz) and Chouraqui's MP-side fold are arguably rival rather than cognate concepts. How exactly do they diverge? Chouraqui does not engage Deleuze's positive fold-concept systematically, only the polemical deployment against MP in Foucault.
  • Does the fold survive if one reads MP through Lefort's editorial choices? The Folds section is constructed by Lefort from working notes of different provenance; some commentators argue the "section" is an editorial artifact.
  • How does the fold relate to invagination as a topological figure? The literature on MP's late ontology often uses "invagination" for the same structure, but the two terms have different provenances (fold from architecture and Leibniz; invagination from embryology) that Chouraqui does not separate.

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-1968-visible-and-invisible — the primary source. The Folds working notes are collected by Lefort in the Appendix of V&I. Key pages: V&I 263/311 (the cardinal "point of reversal is negativity" formulation); 215/264 ("A relation to being is needed that would form itself within being"); 271/319 ("Every relation with being is simultaneously a taking and a being taken"). Ch. 4's "Folds" section develops the positive ontology.
  • chouraqui-2014-ambiguity-and-absolute — Ch. 6 "Folds" (Chouraqui pp. ~190–200, raw lines 2040–2066): the most sustained exposition. The fold-chiasm identity formulation ("different aspects of the same property of Being") is the motif-level finding. Transition (1300–1308, Chouraqui pp. ~122–125): the polemical rebuttal of Deleuze's charge of "idolatry of being" — the motif-level finding that the "point before Being folds" is MP's closeness to Nietzsche against Heidegger, not MP's dependence on Heidegger. Conclusion (2292): the human as "a fold of Being" that is the locus of Being's reflexivity and self-differentiation.
  • Primary sources not on wiki: Gilles Deleuze, Foucault (1986) — the text containing the "idolatry of being" and "fold of Being" charges against MP, to which Chouraqui's Transition chapter replies; Gilles Deleuze, Le Pli: Leibniz et le baroque (1988) — Deleuze's own positive fold-concept, which Chouraqui does not engage.