Matter and Geometry

Abstract

The primary definition of contingency is that which takes place outside the framework and the context, that which escapes the count. In a given situation, we expect the production of a predicted result — for example, we expect that a body will fall vertically when we let it go. Contingency is, then, the arrival of an unaccounted-for or uncatalogued circumstance; for example, a violent gust of wind that carries the dropped body far from the vertical. Contingency is by definition singular: that which could have been different, not within an identified population, but for the reason that it could, above all, have not happened. It is, first, against itself, and not against a background of possibilities, that contingency is singular.