Any attempt to think about things necessarily and repeatedly returns to a fundamental principle: between every entity and its possibility of existing, a necessary relation obtains. Whether we articulate this relation in the language of cause and effect or in the language of determination and possibility, we always understand it as if no entity could present itself in being without conditions and without reason—though in a non-teleological sense. Even in the simplest judgments, when we say that something exists, we have already presupposed that certain conditions for its existence must have been present for it to exist now; and these conditions, themselves, are things—at the level of matter or idea—whose existence is likewise conditioned and subject to further determinations. To deny this continuity is to deny the very totality of thought; for if a single entity could be accepted as uncaused, then nothing prevents us from accepting the uncausedness of everything, and the very notion of explanation collapses entirely.

From this premise, it follows directly that every actual situation is dependent on a prior situation that has rendered it necessary. This dependency operates not only in material and sensory realms, but in every possible domain, including thought and consciousness. Whoever claims that any part of being is exempt from this rule must demonstrate how something can possess existence without being dependent upon conditions or affected by them. Such a claim, even before substantive examination, is logically self-contradictory; for “existence” means presence within the continuum of being, and this continuum is precisely the network of determinations in which no causal void can be conceived. Acceptance of causal continuity means that every present state is a link in an unbroken chain that has no point outside itself—neither at its beginning nor at its end. This chain neither originates from the outside nor terminates outside; therefore, any attempt to locate an “external” standpoint from which one might influence the whole chain is doomed to failure. From this perspective, even our awareness of this chain is itself another link within that chain, with causes that determine its emergence and its content. There is no level of thought that could operate independently of these determinations, for thought itself, in both its possibility and content, is conditioned by the factors that have made it possible.

If we now return to the concept of the “self” or the “I,” we see that what appears, in lived experience, as a stable and self-founded identity is in fact nothing but the temporary intersection of countless determinations. Because this intersection appears complete and seamless in the present moment, consciousness is misled into imagining it as the cause of itself. Yet this “I” is neither the initiator of the chain nor a rupture within it; it is rather a form emerging at a particular moment from the interaction of innumerable factors. Any alteration in these factors transforms or dissolves the entire form, without allowing us to locate even a moment in which this “I” could have arisen from itself. What is commonly known as free will is, from this vantage point, merely the reflection of ignorance regarding the real causes. Our awareness touches only a subset of causes—typically those situated directly within the horizon of our immediate experience. But this horizon is itself the product of prior conditions that have shaped it: language, concepts, values, and the overall order of relations that predate us and encompass us. When this horizon becomes detached from the real causes, the absence of knowledge of latent causes is experienced subjectively as a sense of power and agency. Because this experience helps maintain the stability of the overall order, it not only persists but is, in many cases, reinforced.

Thus, if we wish to retain the claim to the existence of free will, we must either accept a real rupture in causal continuity or posit an independent, transcendent source of will that governs all being without itself being conditioned. The first option eliminates the entire principle of explanation; for if a real rupture is admitted, no rule for explaining events remains. The second option encounters another problem: if this independent source is situated within being, it becomes subject to the same principle of causality and thereby loses its independence; and if it is placed outside being, it cannot affect being at all, since affecting requires causal continuity. In other words, immanence is incompatible with the principle of free will. Consequently, both paths are closed, and the result is the necessary negation of free will. Recognizing this necessity entails abandoning the notion of freedom whose precondition is the possibility of escaping causes or imagining the ability to create a void—to erase the history of the world in the moment of willing. This radical abolition clarifies our situation: we are not initiators of action, but points through which forces and relations pass—forces and relations themselves bound to others, ultimately forming a totality in which every element is simultaneously the product and condition of the others. No element, even the most conscious, can detach itself from this totality, observe it from without, and declare “let this be,” and then have it be so.

Within this horizon, the “death of the subject” is not an event in time but a name for the dismantling of the illusion of the “I” as central and autonomous. What dies is not an actual entity but a conception that imagines itself the sovereign of its actions. What remains is the uninterrupted flow of all-encompassing determinism, for which no exterior is conceivable. This flow, containing all forms and states within itself, requires no initiator and allows no termination: necessity is the necessity of necessity; being is being insofar as it necessarily determines being; existence renders existence existent. Recognizing this situation is the final logical step: if we accept that existence means determination and dependence on causes, and if we accept that no uncaused cause can lie within being, then we must also accept that everything—including consciousness and will—belongs to the chain of necessity. From here, any notion of freedom must either be reinterpreted in terms compatible with this necessity or abandoned altogether. What remains of freedom, in the ordinary sense, is merely an illusion arising from ignorance of the determining conditions of the present moment—an illusion explainable only as a psychological phenomenon, not as an ontological issue. Therefore, the end of knowledge and the precondition of action is not demonstrating the possibility of freedom or free will, but understanding determinism; and the end of action is not to flee this determinism, but to grasp one’s place within it and to adjust one’s movement accordingly. Such understanding is neither passivity nor blind submission; it is the recognition that every action is itself a link within the very chain we attempt to understand. This recognition clarifies the only possible meaning of “freedom”: awareness of necessity and movement within it, without any claim to escape or dominate it.

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Nevertheless, every structure, no matter how solid and complete it may appear at a given moment, contains within its foundation an incompleteness—what might be called a lack of final stitching. This incompleteness is the condition of possibility of the structure itself; if the fixation of meaning were ever achieved totally and forever, we would effectively reach the end of history, and what we have thus far called immanence would shatter, falling into the void. Every central signifier that functions as the point of coherence of the network, because of its very position as the reference of order, is simultaneously—and necessarily—a site of potential instability. Thus, although structures are experienced in everyday life as closed totalities, they in fact carry within themselves the possibility of transformation—an internal possibility that arises not outside determinism but within it. What matters here is the use of these possibilities. Such use—situated entirely within the framework previously discussed—modestly alters the course of history, “but not in the manner it itself desires.”

From this principle arises the first path of intervention conceivable in the deterministic world just described: identifying and seizing contingent moments. These moments are junctures in which several chains of meaning intersect without complete fixation. Contingency or eventfulness, in this sense, is not an uncaused event but a situation in which the process of semantic fixation is temporarily suspended and multiple possible trajectories for the future become conceivable. Such moments, though subject to causal necessity, are not yet bound to a particular direction of fixation; it is as if, for brief instants, a rebellious spirit incarnates, positions of subjectivity hollow out, and—if we listen—faint but passionate resonances emanate from the multitudes. Yet action at such a point does not break determinism; it intervenes by selecting one of necessity’s possible pathways, shaping the future chain and the network of signification in a more desirable configuration—a desirability attached to the present moment, not a transhistorical one. Still, contingency remains only potential and is rapidly absorbed into dominant discourses unless an intervention stabilizes it in a particular direction. Here a second path becomes active: the displacement of signifiers within the semantic network. Every discourse requires, for its coherence, signifiers occupying central positions around which other signifiers and meanings are organized. The greatest possibility for producing rupture in the whole may arise from a small semantic displacement. For altering or relocating one of these signifiers is not a minor change but a re-composition of the entire network, for each signifier’s meaning is defined in relation to others, and shifting one link alters the relations among all nodes, generating new flows of force within a reconfigured—or reconfiguring—structure. These flows, with new intersections, yield new results. And, of course, we must recall that even the central signifier—the master signifier—may be overturned. All that is required is understanding the mechanisms of structure and a humble acceptance of determinism, coupled with vigilance toward moments of rupture. Though the act of producing rupture may itself be an event.

Here a particular type of actor emerges: one whose sensitivity to the hidden cracks in the discourse’s coherence, and whose ability to identify pressure points or instabilities in semantic linkages, allows a small but purposeful displacement to destabilize the established semantic structure and reconfigure the symbolic order. This intervention occurs not through direct negation or external critique of the discourse, but through a small, calculated adjustment that disrupts the configuration of signifying linkages. Since the meaning of each element depends on its position in the network, a hypothetical displacement of one element leads to a reordering of the network’s entire meaning and the emergence of new necessities—necessities arising not from outside but from within the structure, though nevertheless reproducing it in a different form. If this displacement succeeds—if this internal critique exposes the structure’s contradictions or implants new contradictions into its signifying bonds such that the structure becomes estranged from itself—it can function as a new event, generating another moment of suspension in semantic fixation. In this cycle, the first and second paths intertwine: contingency enables intervention, and intervention produces new contingency. Yet even these two powerful paths sometimes face limits stemming from the sedimented history of meanings—bonds so hardened they cannot be broken even with a hammer, and must instead be consigned to a dark and forgotten underground. These sediments, accumulated within collective memory, not only nourish chains of meaning but also determine the field of conceivable possibilities. Without intervening in this memory, any semantic change may sooner or later be absorbed within preexisting patterns and rendered harmless; for a single hardened bond can reorder the signifying chain in its own favor.

At this point, a third path becomes conceivable: producing a rupture in collective memory—forgetting. In this conception, collective memory can be understood as an archive that stabilizes dominant narratives and, through them, shapes patterns of action and perception—one could easily call it ideology, which would not be incorrect, though such naming introduces consequences and misreading best addressed elsewhere. This memory is not a neutral archive; it is itself the product of selections, omissions, and accentuations emerging from relations of power and dominant structures. Therefore, enduring transformation in established signifying networks requires intervention at the level of this archive: rearranging events, redistributing the significance of occurrences, highlighting marginalized moments, and dimming or erasing what has been enshrined as the pillars of official history. Such intervention is effective only when new narratives function not as merely rhetorical substitutes at the level of content, but as organizing frameworks of memory—as patterns. Indeed, radical transformation of the historical-narrative pattern, alongside attention to content, is crucial. Once these frameworks sediment into memory, they not only reorganize the past but also, by altering preexisting patterns, make new futures necessary. This is the point at which historical determinism is not broken but reconfigured: where old patterns lose their authority and new patterns arise as new necessities.

Although the three paths differ in their levels and fields of intervention, they share a common logic: utilizing determinism’s internal fissures to reconfigure determinism. In contingency, the fissure arises from the intrinsic suspension in the fixation of meaning; in the displacement of signifiers, it arises from destabilizing semantic bonds; and in intervention into collective memory, it arises from discrediting the sedimented patterns. To repeat: in all three cases, intervention is grounded not in an idea of freedom as escape from determinism, but in understanding the internal mechanisms of determinism. This logic is immune to conventional critiques that attribute change either to free will or dismiss it as meaningless due to necessity. Here, change is neither negation of necessity nor surrender to it, but its redistribution and rearrangement. Every movement, every reconfiguration, is itself a necessity emerging from within the structure, yet capable of shaping the trajectories of future fixations. Such changes, even when beginning at a small scale, can, through sedimentation in memory and recomposition of semantic networks, lead to large-scale transformations in the configuration of necessity. From this perspective, effective praxis is the operation that mobilizes all three paths simultaneously and in an intertwined manner. Contingencies, as momentary opportunities, must be immediately connected to interventions at the level of central signifiers to produce alternative fixations. These alternative fixations will remain unstable unless they enter collective memory; and if collective memory is not ruptured, prior patterns will reabsorb everything. Only through linking all three levels can we achieve our aims within determinism: to create new necessities.