Possibility and Negativity
Possibility and Negativity

Summary/Abstract: In a recently published conversation between Dimitar Vatsov and Boyan Manchev, Vatsov summarized one of the shared points in their respective philosophical projects in the following way: “That is why it is not through negativity that we should think about ontological matters. Your notion of dunamis as well as my notion of “energy” in this perspective are […] immanent. They are not pure negativity.” (Vatsov, Manchev, (2012), 268) Both Manchev and Vatsov defy “the idea that the ontological regime is always guaranteed by some negativity” (Vatsov, Manchev (2012), 262; this is Manchev’s statement) and both of them propose an affirmative alternative, developed in the case of Manchev in the direction of “radicalization of the ontologies of potentiality” (ibid., 264) in the vein of Agamben, Negri, etc.; and, in the case of Vatsov, in a certain radicalization of the ontologies of actuality, of the effective actualization of the act, wherein actuality is to be understood as “something altogether different from presence” and denotes “a non-predetermined act” (ibid., 260–261). This paper was strongly influenced by Manchev and Vatsov (as well as by some other thinkers, such as Deyan Deyanov) and proposes an implicit discussion with their positions. Convinced as I am in the rightness of the direction of their arguments, I will try to take a step further by reconsidering the relationship between possibility/potentiality and negativity in a way that takes into account their critique of the already existent negative ontologies and ontologies of potentiality.

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