The roaring of the sea, the white wall, and the lightning bolt: Introduction to Deleuze's ethics of the univocity of being

This chapter lays out a kind of ethics based on the doctrine of the univocity of being presented by Deleuze in his theoretical works at the end of the 1960s (Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, Difference and Repetition, and Logic of Sense). The doctrine of the univocity of being is explained by means of three images found in Deleuze's writings: the roaring of the sea, the white wall, and the lightning bolt. As the images show, the doctrine of the univocity of being consists of two inseparable parts. First, all the beings (all things that exist) are said in one and the same sense of being. And second, everything that exists are variations or modes of this one sense of being. Each of us is a variant of power. Each of us is different even as we repeat the one sense of being. What is the one sense of being? Power. This answer implies that the ethics of the univocity of being is an ethics of power. However, as the chapter shows, the ethics of power is based on the experience of powerlessness. It is this experience of powerlessness that must be affirmed. If I am able to affirm my powerlessness, then I feel beatific. The ethics of the univocity of being aims to lead us to the feeling of beatitude.