全球化，以《帝國》（Empire）作者哈特、內格里（Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri）的說法一言以蔽之，即一個沒有域外 （outside）的情境；任何革命（或他們所稱的「生命政治」）必 須從域內思維出發，且以身體生產的形式出現。哈特、內格理本 體式的政治讀法，擴張「政治性」（the political）的範疇，不只 將政治侷限於身份政治那種「以部份（特定屬性特質）替代全體 （本體活動）」的策略性思考，值得肯定。不過，由於兩人堅持 「生產」意象，他們的生命政治是否到頭來仍將與身份政治結 盟，乃至於那些拒絕（生產）身份認同者，便無法納歸生命政治 之列？此外，帝國時代的本體政治考量，是否一定要放棄域外想 像？∗ 由哈、內堅持的域內本體政治觀出發，本文將推敲傅柯 （Michel Foucault）倫理觀在全球化時代的可用性，參考其「自 我技術」（techniques of the self）的原始命題，並援引德勒茲 （ Gilles Deleuze ） 在解讀傅柯時所發展的「摺疊」概念（fold/foldings），進而將「自我技術」對主體道德行為的鍛鍊延 展為一種對他者的態度──倫理之必然，來自「我」在本體、知 識層次的極限。而「摺疊」過的傅柯倫理觀將提供全球化情境下 的歷史主體自處與處世之道：在一統化的帝國，域外看似消失， 但透過摺疊，個體能夠不斷質變，帝國域內的域外思維仍舊有效。 至於「我」的本體、知識極限，則經常來自「我」在其他獨 一個體身上照見的他者性（alterity）、域外性。文末將閱讀朱天 文的《荒人手記》，提示在所謂資本全球化邏輯下，有另一個本 體底蘊的共同體亦不容忽視── 一個關於諸眾獨一性 （singularity）極限的共同情境──而那裡才是倫理的起點。假使 哈特、內格里總將生命政治描述為永不止息的創意生產，則傅 柯、德勒茲、朱天文等人則顯示了生命政治中「我思」（I think） 可能到達不了的地方：倫理，如他們所展現，是任何域內思維中 無法被思考卻必須被思考的部位，是在開放了某種域外想像後， 不可能性之成為可能（the possibility of the impossible）。

In their writings on “Empire,” Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri propose an ontological way of addressing “the political” in the current global system. Globalization, according to them, refers to an all-encompassing historical condition without an outside; any resistance to globalization (what they term “biopolitics”) will have to take place from within, in the form of production. If productivity substantiates contemporary life politics, how are we then to go about minority politics? Are those who reject identity politics—those who refuse to produce identity—eventually to be denied access to the collective biopolitical body? Moreover, even if conventional dialectics is rendered invalid and irrelevant in the global system, do we have to discard “outside thinking” outright, as Hardt and Negri have insisted? Is there any inside/outside imaging that is effective for our ethical configuration of globalization without necessarily serving the teleology of the dialectical logic? This paper will examine Foucauldian ethics and expand his notion of “techniques of the self,” a notion centered on the formation of the subject’s moral conduct, into an ethical attitude towards the other(s). I argue that ethics is imperative because of the ontological finitude and epistemological limitations of the “I”, and that contemporary ontological politics cannot bypass this aspect of the biopolitical multitude. This paper then turns to Tien-wen Chu’s 1994 novel, Notes of a Desolate Man, to advance the thesis developed from my reading of Foucauldian ethics. Chu’s novel, I argue, instantiates the ontological finitude that grounds ethics: the exposure of the “I” to the finitude of others renders “my” being exigent as “my” alterity is exposed, too. Ethics is “that which cannot be thought and yet must be thought” (Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari), the always-already-ness of the outside in any “inside (global, universal) thinking.”