James Williams is good. Daniel Smith is even better. Check out his compendium of essays (called, I think, simply Essays on Deleuze).
hi d63. long time no hear-or see. I do not think you need to fear any consequential negative feedback from anyone who knows you even slightly. As far as fascism implicit in a disconnected venue is concerned, the checks are mostly built in as artifacts, mostly in the form of been there done that. it takes specially circumscribed personalities to become prone to these types of concerns, I remember Nixon on his way out publicly admitted of fears of a fascist emergence. periods of weakness tend to give rise to the signifier shift toward a more certain center, and for opportunists, this translates into advantages to be had. At any event to be sure, we must examine the order of our own house to see to it that we do not fall into such traps. There are ongoing forums going on on Deluze, have You taken a look at them ?
I’ll check it out, Onto. Thanks.
Yes, moments of turmoil do tend to compel people to seek order -even if it is a really bad one. It would be hard to deny the role that post WWI economic insecurity and hyper-inflation played in the emergence of NAZI Germany. Interestingly enough, in the midst of our recent economic uncertainty, I have actually found myself confronted with a few people (otherwise decent people) who are actually turning to the Jews as the source of our problems. It’s as if people are trying to deny the very real failures and injustices of Capitalism as America embraces it by diverting the issue to a matter of a specific type (or race) of rich people.
You’ll have to send me a link to those forums.
But then doesn’t simply pointing to “rich people” in general suggest a potential fascism? As Marx pointed out: even the Capitalists are subject to the forces at work in a free market approach to the economy. Or as Jonathon Wolfe, the writer of Why Read Marx Today, pointed out in an interview on Philosophy Talk: you simply cannot submit yourself to such forces without expecting results that are beyond your control.
“In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari make the following provocative claim: “Plato said that Ideas must be contemplated, but first of all he had to create the concept of Idea” (WP 6). The assertion that Plato’s philosophy is fundamentally creative appears radically at odds with Socrates’ frequent claims, most notably in the Meno and Phaedo, that knowledge is attained through the reminiscence of our perception of real things prior to the soul inhabiting the body.” - (2012-09-27). The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy) (p. 3). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
And here we have it: the dichotomy that has haunted philosophy since its very beginnings: the pragmatic/Rortian distinction between understanding as making and finding. And it is that which has culminated in the occasional animosity between continental and analytic approaches.
But then it’s not like there haven’t been overlaps. Rorty (w/ his continental sensibility spoken in his native tongue: the analytic (points to both Quine and Wittgenstein as heroes. And while I can tell you little about Quine, I get it as far as Wittgenstein in that he started with Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (that which focused on philosophy as finding (which followed his adage:
“And whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent.”
:then evolved into his recognition of the import of language games: our tendency to engage in discourse purely for the sake of bringing the words we use to describe reality closer to reality itself: that which focused on philosophy as making.
And we can see a similar overlap in Russell when he describes philosophy as that which lays in that no man’s land between Science (the art of finding (and theology: the art of making. But if we (being in more secular times (replace the term Theology with literature, and replace “no man’s land” with spectrum, we find a domain (a multiplicity to match our multiplicity as molecular individuals (by which we can analyze our own place in the scheme of things as the intellectually and creatively curious.
And this is rooted in a problem the ancient philosophers were dealing with: how to establish stable truths in a universe that was constantly changing. Of course, Plato’s solution was to come up w/ (make as Deleuze points out (a metaphysical realm of ideal forms that all earthly efforts (nature, art, language ( are trying to immolate. And this could only lead to the ethical assertions of Plato’s Republic based on an analogical hierarchy based on mind, emotion, and body. In this lies the heart of the classicist disposition.
But after several generations of authoritarian social systems based on Plato’s model, we made the romantic break by reversing the early civilization notion of civilization good/ nature bad. This went on to the bridge provided by Nietzsche from romanticism to existentialism (with the neo-classicism of the analytic serving a reactionary role (on to modernism and then (via structuralism and post-structuralism: that which recognizes the futility of language in the face of the reality it is trying to reflect (on to postmodernism.
Against this background, we can see the import of philosopher’s like Deleuze and Rorty (and even Zizek despite his assertion that “the truth is out there” (in that they represent the diametrical opposite of Plato’s assertion that philosophy is a matter of gravitating towards the realm of ideal forms. They, rather, embrace the creative potential of language in the face of a reality that can never be ideal. They establish themselves as an endgame in the ancient dichotomy between making (the side they’re on (and finding.
Okay! Time to get back to business:
“Such is the reason why Platonism seeks to nip this anarchy and rebellion in the bud, by hunting down, as Plato says, simulacra and rogue images of all kinds.” -(2012-09-27). The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy) (p. 57). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
And here we get at my issue with neo-classicism and (in a perhaps loose manner (alliance with Deleuze’s clearly stated anti-Platonism. For me it is the issue of ideal forms that lie at the heart of the classicist sensibility. This is because such ideal forms, by their inherent nature, must form hierarchies. And Plato’s ideal society should have clued us in given its downward vertical structure that ran, analogically, from mind to emotion to body. We can, furthermore, see as much in the difference between progressives (who seek to work with things and people as they are (and conservatives who retrogressively seek to make people what they should be: that based on the ideal forms of days past.
Now this may not seem to fit the reality (especially in America (given the Wild West nature (the so-called rugged individualism (of the conservative sensibility. But what we have to understand here is the ultimate failure of the romantic break from classicism in that it ultimately proved to appeal to the ideal form (the so called “real thing” as compared to the simulacra (that, in turn, only led to another hierarchy that followed the same Platonic scheme that was vertical in nature and based on the ideal form of the mythological hero. And this, of course, has bled into the higher status we tend to give to the superstars of Capitalism: the ones who “made it”. The edges may be a little rougher than those of Plato’s ideal forms. But the same dynamic is at work.
And this is why I can apply the issue to the ultimately authoritarian nature of a thinker like Rand who, once again, was primarily working in terms of ideal forms. And I would note here her preference for the heroic and mythological (as was demonstrated in her fiction (as compared to her disdain for stories of the underdog beaten down by forces beyond their control. And we can see as much in the neo-Nietzscheian gospel of the fearlessly fanciful: what Putman described as Macho ethics and Raymond Tallis as Darwinitus. Such people claim to embrace a less than ideal situation. But the ultimate goal of it is to achieve the ideal human: the Overman to put it in Nietzsche’s terms –an ideal form which they, of course, assume their selves to be approaching.
The problem with this lies in a distinction made by the poet Coleridge: that between fancy and imagination. Fancy, of course, is that which taps into the domain of so-called ideal forms. Imagination does the footwork of revising those ideal forms in the face of the world as is. And in this sense, it is the non-classicists (the postmodernists who embrace conceptual play over futile strivings for the truth (those who reject any loyalty to the ideal form (who are the true realists –despite the neo-classicist claim to the contrary.
And I find a common issue and agenda with Deleuze as is pointed out later in the above book concerning Deleuze’s postmodern reaction to the classicist sensibility:
“Rather, it is a matter of distinguishing between copies and simulacra, but with a view to affirming the rights of the latter, and subverting the distinction constitutive of representation: “Crowned anarchies are substituted for the hierarchies of representation; nomadic distributions for the sedentary distributions of representation” (DR 278).” - (2012-09-27). The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy) (p. 74). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
In this sense, working from a univocal sense of Being, Deleuze (w/ and w/out Guattarri (champions the idea of production simply for the sake of production as compared to production for the sake of some end: that which lies in the transcendent realm of ideal forms.
“The problem with this lies in a distinction made by the poet Coleridge: that between fancy and imagination. Fancy, of course, is that which taps into the domain of so-called ideal forms [the Platonic and classicist]. Imagination does the footwork of revising those ideal forms in the face of the world as is. And in this sense, it is the non-classicists (the postmodernists who embrace conceptual play over futile strivings for the truth (those who reject any loyalty to the ideal form (who are the true realists –despite the neo-classicist claim to the contrary.”
“Their difference is ultimately temporal: whereas the Platonic and Aristotelian distinctions aim to grasp the permanent and stable behind the fleeting and becoming, the Stoics understand the incorporeal as the eventful , which opens up a different modality of time.” - (2012-09-27). The Cambridge Companion to Deleuze (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy) (p. 68). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
First of all, at this point, I am doing a as Deleuze advises us in Difference and Repetition and writing at the edge of what I know. Therefore, I have to take each step with heavy consideration while treading lightly through the sublime and complex.
And I suppose the best place to start is my issue with the neo-Nietzschean gospel of the fearlessly fanciful. Now, on one hand, their approach would seem to fit the bill of the latter quote. They would seem to be the more stoic in their acceptance of things in a constant state of becoming. This is why a social democrat such as myself (through a half-assed interpretation of Nietzsche (would seem to them as weak since I am allegedly entertaining the bad faith of looking towards the ideal form of a perfect state: a kind of watered down socialism. But there are several problems with this:
First of all (and at the most superficial (is the notion that those (social democrats like myself (who want to make things better for people are necessarily trying to create an ideal state. There is a big difference between trying to improve things for people and seeking the ideal form of the perfect state.
Secondly, stoicism is not just a matter of accepting things as they are; it is equally a matter (as is implied all over Deleuze’s notion of desiring production (as well as the evolutionary relationship between the brain and its environment (of acting on it with the added courage involved in recognizing that one will always continue to have to act up upon it. And therein lays the true stoicism of the reformer.
Furthermore, the false stoicism of the Neo-Nietzschean lies in their claim to accept things as they are (the fashionable cynicism (while seeing an ideal form in those who are willing to suck it up in the fanciful hope that the Overman (or a half-assed understanding of them (will emerge. In other words, for all their raw edges and less than ideal forms, their appeal remains with a neo-classicist appeal to ideal forms.
Even less stoic is their appeal to fashionable cynicism which argues that things are what they are, therefore the best strategy is do as the Roman’s do and seek power through things like submitting their intellectual process to what is basically an in-crowd or player mentality -once again: expressions of yet another Platonic realm of ideal forms as we can see in many TV ads. Their fashionable cynicism claims to be dealing with reality as it is. But all it is really doing is succumbing to the fancy that marketers (and the Platonic realm of media (feeds into them everyday via the fantasies they are entertaining about themselves: the pro-Capitalist media version of the Will to Power. Think, for instance, of the ideal and mythological form of Rambo: the rugged individual who, regardless of what is thrown at them, can deal with it.
And we can apply the nonsense (the fancy and false stoicism (at work here to the nonsense and fancy at work in the fashionable cynicism of Republicans and Randheads.
The real stoicism lays in the ability to see things as they are, recognizing that what is is all there is, and seeing the suffering of it (due to exploitation: an expression of power (as a cause to act to make things a little better without entertaining the illusion of a final solution that will bring the struggle to an end. And I fail to see how simply arguing that the world is shit and the only solution is to look out for my interests fits the Deleuzian concept of stoicism and its related anti-classicism.
One of the cool things about philosophy is that you will be going along and dealing with certain terms and concepts, and understanding them in an empathetic way. Then all it takes is some beer (American pisswater is my preference (and Jager (or maybe a tap off some adequate to really intense pot (and you suddenly find yourself sympathizing: what Joyce referred to as an epiphany.
It happened tonight with the Deleuzian term: traverse. To traverse is to dance lightly (like a stone skipping across water (across the field of experience (the plane of immanence (or even the BwO (that allows you to…. that opens you up to the possibility of saying something profound: of producing something that can never completely represent the experience: the experimentation.
To the psychologist that means: unquestioningly following ones disposition, instincts.
For what are things beyond our perception of them?
Perception is an encounter, interpretation is a response.
To let the natural response come out, is this the Stoa?
I find the Stoics of fame to be people of great tiredness. Marcus Aurelius the central figure; a point in the inflation of the empire where the inflator stopped blowing, and tied a knot into it. Aurelius made a point of accepting the way things were/are, but that is a friction encounter of the being with itself at a limit of its growth; it is essentially as fire turning to stone. A volcano only accepts the way things are when it ceases to do what makes it a volcano.
Let’s follow this with the full quote:
"Secondly, stoicism is not just a matter of accepting things as they are; it is equally a matter (as is implied all over Deleuze’s notion of desiring production (as well as the evolutionary relationship between the brain and its environment (of acting on it with the added courage involved in recognizing that one will always continue to have to act up upon it. And therein lays the true stoicism of the reformer.”
It’s not just a matter of following one’s instincts. This assumes that one has some kind of fixed disposition. Or I should say, rather, that instincts have nothing to do with some fixed disposition. Our instincts are the expression of the physiological brain adapting to a constantly changing environment –which means that the physiological brain is changing as well.
Aurelius, as I remember my reading of his meditations, was fixated on the transcendent notion of virtue.
And as nice as your analogy sounds, you’re comparison doesn’t work since a volcano, as far as I know, doesn’t choose to do anything. Stone and dirt is passive in nature. It is shaped by changes external to it. At the same time, the analogy serves my purposes since a volcano remains a volcano by standing its ground while being flexible in the face of its transformation due to forces outside of it: it’s becoming.
Likewise, Stoicism (in Deleuzian terms: is a willingness to keep acting with no fixed criteria by which one must act. It defies the Sartrean Bad Faith of thinking it can find some all purpose system that will make everything work like some fine-tuned machine and embraces the novelty of its day to day existence.
Rhizome 12/12/2014
I had, in a previous rhizome:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=181968&start=175
:noted (in a kind of epiphany (a connection between Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism (closely connected to the plane of immanence (and his admiration for the stoic sensibility: what I can only summarize as the courage to face brute reality while not succumbing to the security of denying the reality of the less tangible expressions of our subjective reality: I’m thinking extreme forms of materialism and Randian appeals to brute facts while making assertions that are anything but.
And my take on it got some juice from my recent reading of Sean Bowden’s The Priority of Events: Deleuze’s Logic of Sense:
“He distinguishes three such images – the Platonic, the pre -Socratic and the Hellenic…” -Bowden, Sean (2011-08-16). The Priority of Events: Deleuze’s Logic of Sense (Plateaus – New Directions in Deleuze Studies) (p. 15). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.
Bowden starts with a distinction reminiscent of the rationalist/empiricist dichotomy in first pointing out the intellectual hierarchy described by Plato:
“In Plato, following Deleuze, the ‘philosopher’s work is always determined as an ascent and a conversion , that is, as the movement of turning toward the high principle (principe d’en haut) from which the movement proceeds, and also of being determined, fulfilled, and known in the guise of such a motion’ (LS, 127).” –Ibid.
He then compares these “heights” to the pre-Socratics who found their depths in the natural world:
“Here, Deleuze is no doubt referring to the pre-Socratic ‘physicists’ or ‘natural philosophers’, among whom we can count Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Anaxagoras. For these philosophers, the fundamental principles of all things must be sought in physical nature itself: Empedocles’ four elements and the forces of ‘Love and Strife’, for example. 4 Fundamental physical principles such as these were posited to provide an ‘immanent measure . . . capable of fixing the order and the progression of a mixture in the depths of Nature (Physis)’ (LS, 131).” –Ibid.
He then points to a kind of synthesis that Deleuze saw in the stoics who:
“….bring about ‘a reorientation of all thought and of what it means to think: there is no longer any depth or height’ (LS, 130).”
Philosophers that had the courage to see that it:
“is always a matter of unseating the Ideas, of showing that the incorporeal is not high above (en hauteur), but is rather at the surface, that it is not the highest cause but the superficial effect par excellence, and that it is not Essence but event. On the other front, it will be argued that depth is a digestive illusion which complements the ideal optical illusion (LS, 130).”
In this sense, we approach the same univocity of being that Rorty was getting at in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature when he worked to undermine claims concerning ontological status. A thing either is or is not: it doesn’t matter if it’s something you feel or the rock that stubs your toe (which is, BTW, something you feel.
To give a more practical/pragmatic sense of what I’m at getting here, I received from this post/rhizome:
“Capitalism is control. We believe it is a choice. Yet everything we do is controlled by it. We soften the blow of this very truth by assuming that it is some kind of natural force in our lives. But it is not. It is the product of a human agreement. But then it’s kind of hard to not feel like it is a natural force on the internet.”
:a couple of what I assume to be sarcastic remarks:
“ I like bold empirical claims.”
“Wait, what?”
Now I would note here the use of the popular buzzword (which both Deleuze and Rorty are opposed to: empirical. What does that mean? Does it, for instance, mean that the thing we are perceiving has, somehow, more ontological status than the act of perceiving it or how we react to it? And since these 2 goons seems to think in terms of brute facts (or claim to (how does 1 + 1=2 or the fact that water boils 212 degrees at atmospheric pressure tell us anything about how we experience Capitalism? I quite sure they think they can. But most arguments from their likes end up being as non sequitor as:
1+1=2, Capitalism is the only legitimate economic system on the face of the earth.
Deleuze and Rorty, on the other hand, ask us to look beyond the appeal to the in-crowd (the socially programmed responses to socially programmed cues (of the above hecklers and recognize the import of what we’re experiencing as well as that of what we are experiencing.
Appeals to the Heights or the Depths (the tunnel vision (is for pussies. The courage of the stoic takes it all (the plane of immanence (into consideration. It does not flinch at the possibility of being wrong.
Rhizome 1/22/15:
When one has a routine (an Einstein’s wardrobe (every day is a repetition. You can almost feel the loop: felt it today as I walked into the Tobacco Hut to buy my 40 ounce and shooter. But such repetitions, by their very nature (the fact (and may the wrath of Professor Strunk rest in its grave (that they are always carried out at a different point in time (produces difference. And creative curiosity can only amplify it.
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Reading James Williams’ critical introduction and guide to Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, I’m starting to feel like I’m also getting a technical manual to the Rhizome’s. And in my defense, I actually started the rhizomes before I got the book and was mainly working with my instincts (supplemented with my readings of Deleuze (concerning the rhizome which was the first concept (attributed to his work with Guattarri (that drew me to him. And I would attribute this to 2 things. First of all, I believe that there exists a kind of osmosis between reader and writer in that sometimes, even when the reader does not consciously understand what they are reading, there is still information slipping through, instinctive reactions to it that are later confirmed by either later readings of the text or interpretations offered by the secondary text.
Secondly, I would point to something I read about Lacan: that in order to understand him, you had to go into it already understanding him without having articulated him to the extent that he had. In other words, you would have to go into it with a common sensibility. And it is that common sensibility that draws us in to a certain philosopher or artist or writer or scientist or famous person for that matter. What is always being sold is a sensibility. What an individual produces are mainly sales pitches for that sensibility.
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Anyway, Williams points to 4 things concerning how to read Logic of Sense: Order and Series, Series within Series, Humor, and Multidimensional Sentences (all of which I hope to get to in the context of the rhizomes (but then if I don’t, there is always the next one: the next rhizome (now let me check my notes:
Order and Series:
“At this stage, all that needs to be stressed is that the readers can bring their own elements to Deleuze’s series in order to move among them.” –James Williams, Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense: a critical introduction and guide, pg. 15
I would first point out that the main point of this section is that Logic of Sense (consisting of series as compared to chapters (invites us to read them out of order. It’s pretty much like (books… way too many books…. here it is! (Brian Mussumi points out in the intro to a Thousand Plateaus: it should be jumped around on until one finds certain riffs that sticks with them then work from there. However, the main difference (as well as the connection (between Deleuze’s series and my rhizomes is that I give you no choice. Outside of ILP (viewtopic.php?f=25&t=187249 (my primary launch pad, I tend to randomly post my rhizomes on whatever board I feel them most appropriate for. Beyond that, it is the mission of the reader (should they choose to take it (to trace the serial aspect back to its sources and (via the above quote: bring their own elements into it.
The main thing I want to point to here is that Deleuze’s use of a series (that which foreshadowed his turn to (w/ Guattarri (the rhizome is almost interchangeable with my use of the rhizome. I would offer as evidence:
Series within Series:
“Every portion matter can be thought of as a garden full of plants, or as a pond full of fish. But every branch of the plant, every part of the animal, and every drop of its vital fluids, is another such garden, or another such pond” –Leibniz
Now going back to Williams’ book:
“In his Difference and Repetition and later texts such as The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, Deleuze describes his internal connection as the folding of ideas and things within one another.”
Or as I like to put it:
The enfolded (enfolding within) enfolded.
(It’s right: the logic: I thought about it hard.)
Humor:
I refuse to be taken seriously!
Multidimensional Sentences:
Now this I always feel like I (and the rhizomes (must be falling short on since, given the spontaneous nature of it, I never have that much time to put that much work into a sentence. I can only hope that it happens through the seemingly mystical power of spontaneity or the process of repeating certain phrases and making them different until I happen to stumble upon such a thing.
But the point is not that I am somehow Deleuze’s equal. I simply don’t have the time and resources he had. It’s to show that, through the rhizomes, with the limited time and resources I have (and through a common sensibility (I have the blessing of being able to approach what he had. It’s why the rhizomes won’t let me go. And I think he would have appreciated that.
Rhizome 1/28/15:
“Deleuze’s assault on common and good sense should not be confused with an assault on the everyday; rather, his thought frees the everyday from the grip of layer upon layer of common and good sense. My refusal to lose ‘experience’ is part of a political position, in terms of a commitment to bring philosophy to bear on life as accessibly as possible and with as much flexibility and care as possible. There is no doubt that this could fail badly and that it excludes equally, or perhaps more, valid approaches to the explanation of Deleuze. Nonetheless, I would not want his see his work become the claimed property of intellectual or social elites, or a self-selecting margin, or a revolutionary cadre. These should not themselves be excluded, but Deleuze’s sensitive and open philosophy should accompany and shape many of “us”, through our thoughts, and our political actions, rather than remain in the possession of a few protectors.” –James Williams, Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense: a Critical Introduction and Guide, pg. 39
Whenever I approach a philosopher like Deleuze, it’s never about knowing him or her concept by concept. I have no designs on being the ultimate authority on any great mind, or anything for that matter. It is, as much as anything, about feeling them (much as I would a poet (a shared sensibility (about finding what I can use to further my own process. As I have said repeatedly, I would far rather think of myself as a writer writing about his experiences with philosophy than a philosopher which requires that certain steps be taken, certain books be read and understood in depth. I simply haven’t the time for that. The best I can hope for is to respectably participate in the same discourse great minds have –much as great minds like Deleuze and Rorty encourage me to do.
And this is why it makes no sense to me to turn the boards into a pissing contest, to treat it as if it is some kind of competition in which we are comparing the size of our dicks: our intellectual and creative (mainly through wit –the clever response (prowess, that is when all we should really be concerned with is participating in the discourse: the jam.
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The main reason I didn’t include Zizek (the third in the triad of philosophers I’m mainly influenced by (is that, as much as I admire him, you get the feeling from him that he wants to establish some kind of authority over most people by establishing the true message of popular culture. As he likes to quote from The X Files: the truth is out there. At the same time, he shows his humility by actually referring to popular culture and bringing the common man into the discourse.
This, as I see it, results from an imperative inherent in his clear distaste for Capitalism –something I’m not totally unsympathetic with. As someone who champions the communist solution, as compared to my more incremental social democrat one, he has to believe in some kind of ultimate truth. And his arguments for left-wing complicity (his recognition, for instance, that Starbucks is a way of consuming social conscience (are not altogether unconvincing.
Plus that, I think he uses the same “repeat myself until I get beyond myself” approach that I do.
Rhizome 1/29/15:
Song added to mix: Yoshinonori Sunahara’s New World Break (Exo Mix)
Author: James Williams
Book: Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense
Section (starting at page 29: Unfolding the Circle of the Proposition: Denotation, Manifestation, Signification, and Sense
In today’s study at the “library”, I found myself getting a little closer to the Deleuzian sense of “sense”. (And did I just engage in a Deleuzian pun there or what?) But I should start with the growing recognition that with any term you encounter with Deleuze, you will ultimately have to approach it from different angles in order to truly understand it. But then that’s what philosophy is really about, isn’t it? Getting at those understandings that work outside of the capacity of language? The Lacanian Real? That which always transcends the language we use to describe it?
Still, one of the reasons that we have science is because we have to work our way from isolated systems to the whole. It’s all our minds can handle. And we may be able to get at Deleuze’s sense of sense by taking the post and not-post structuralist approach of looking at language and how we extract meaning from it and start with the breakdown of the science of linguistics: Denotation, Manifestation, and Signification. These, however, fail to satisfy Deleuze as an explanation. In order for them to work, they would have to form a circle: a non-linear feedback system (perhaps a disjunctive synthesis (in which the three are interdependent and play off of each other. As Williams puts it:
“Put simply, this means that neither the reference of language (denotation), nor its situation in relation to a speaker or point of writing (manifestation), nor its meaning as decipherable through the position of words in relation to one another (signification) are sufficient bases for understanding how language works.”
In other words, we can’t settle for the dialectical breakdown that the scientific approach offers us without considering the interdependence of the three. And it is the transcendent effect of the three that gets us at Deleuze’s sense of sense. For instance: if I say, as I often do on these boards:
“Love ya, man!”
How would you extract meaning from that? You could take the denotative route of taking me at my word, in which case you would have to depend on signification. But that would put you reading more into it than it really means. The only real way to go about it is turn to manifestation and say:
“D’s clearly drunk again and having a good time.”
Or as William’s writes:
“In other words, there can be no full reference without a manifestation because the set of beliefs and desires associated with the denotation require a manifestation….”
Now the thing that struck me here is that me saying “Love ya, man!” is not that different than any proposition that an analytic could make. Those who cling to the scientific approach may think they’re above their beliefs and desires; but manifestation is always a factor. You still have to look at the sense of sense: for instance, the obvious desire for order involved in the analytic sensibility. This is because no matter how hard we try to get above subconscious factors, we are always beholden to them: the very subconscious factors that hard core materialists insist control us.
But what goes deeper to the heart of the analytic approach is the way the logical fallacy of the ad hominem approach is given license. It is not enough to look what an individual is saying. We have to look at why they are saying it.
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Final thought: it’s always a matter of going somewhere.
Some of my superficial scratches on the seemingly impenetrable surface of James Williams’ Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense: a critical introduction and guide:
One way to approach the Event, as Deleuze defines it, is to look at an issue that the analytics have dealt with: whether we can actually talk about Events in the same way we can facts. Think, for instance, of a battle. We can think of who shot at whom and who died as individual facts. But the event of the battle itself seems almost to be a kind of aura or effect (an emergent property that has no material existence (saturating and hovering above it all: a composite effect of the individual facts. The event, itself, seems to be more of a construction: the pragmatic act of making as compared to finding.
At the same time, the emergent property of the event is also at work within the individual facts. It may well be that such and such died within that battle. But this fails to account for the subtleties (the events( the individual experienced in the process of doing so. Hence Deleuze’s definition of Event: that which creates change or Becoming as he would later tag it.
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The three terms to look at are series, events, and individuation. Series are the connectedness of singularities: like the grains of sand on the beach. They, in themselves, do nothing. It is the events (the interactions that creates change (that put the series in motion. However, these changes are fractal in nature in that cause and effect is all over the place moving in all directions: the ripples in the sand caused by wind and water. Individuation, as a starting point, can be thought of as the chains of cause and effect that we tend to extract from the given series and events. But I qualify it as a starting point because I get the feeling that Deleuze doesn’t see individuation (no more than he does sense (as a strictly subjective phenomenon.
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Sense we might be able to get at by seeing it as playing a part in while never being committed to the three aspects of language: denotation: what is (manifestation: who is saying what to who under what circumstances (and signification: the sign referring to something. As I understand it, we cannot attribute sense to anyone of them without referring to the others. And because of this (and reasons I hope to explore (this is why Deleuze insists that (non(sense still has a sense. Hence his references to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland throughout the book.
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We should also note here the reason Williams translated the title as Logic of Sense as compared to The Logic of Sense. He notes here Massumi’s choice in his translation of A Thousand Plateaus as compared to The Thousand Plateaus. In both cases, the idea was to make what was being described in the primary text seem infinite as compared to finite.
Consequently, this may be why Deleuze chose a more literary and opaque style for Logic of Sense in that he wanted us to read it like poetry and extract our own sense (our own individuation (of the series and events presented in the text.
Stakeout 6:
“The answer lies in the disavowal the ironic figures of the individual in favor of an individuation. This is defined as a closed structure of singularities, where this relation is determined by a problematic structure and by an actual expression according to a dual and two-fold static genesis, and a counter dynamic genesis, that give genetic priority to singularities over individuals.” –James William’s critical introduction and guide to Logic of Sense, pg. 86……
As always with this particular suspect (if not all suspects (I find myself working in the overlaps. On one hand, I’m thinking in terms of series, events, and the individuation of those events. At the same time, I can’t help but relate this to his work with Guattarri in the Anti-Oedipus and its machinic view of the individual’s (especially the individual philosopher’s (interaction with the world:
“It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the Id. Everywhere it is machines –real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other ones, with all the necessary couplings and connections. An organ-machine is plugged into an energy-source-machine: the one produces a flow that the other interrupts. The breast is a machine that produces milk, and the mouth a machine coupled to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to whether it is an eating machine, a talking machine, or a breathing machine (asthma attacks). Hence we are all handymen: each with his little machines. For every organ-machine, an energy machine: all the time, flows and interruptions.”
But I would first get at the distinction that the suspect SEEMS to be making between the individual and individuation. The individual is the subject or, rather, what results from the anthropocentric arrogance of centering on the human subject. Individuation, on the other hand, focuses on how we, as bodies with a pound or two of meat called a brain, individuate a universe full of series and events for our individual purposes as bodies occupying space. This is not to say, as Williams points out in another part of the book, that Deleuzes denies the possibility of Free Will. (In fact, his manifesto concerning our participation in the complex interaction of systems would suggest otherwise.) It is simply to recognize that what we are engaging in is a participation in reality as compared to Platonic insistence on control of reality. Focusing in on:
“This is defined as a closed structure of singularities, where this relation is determined by a problematic structure and by an actual expression according to a dual and two-fold static genesis, and a counter dynamic genesis, that give genetic priority to singularities over individuals.”
:we see ourselves as isolated system working between the dynamic genesis of the subconscious (sensibility, imagination, memory, and thought (and the static genesis of recognition. identity, and representation. In this sense, we (what we think of as ourselves (are an unstable entity that, having no solid foundation, engage with the world in acts of individuation. We participate while having no choice but to let it participate in us. This is why the suspect, in Difference and Repetition, argues (contrary to Kant (for the import of the dynamic synthesis: to put all import on the static genesis (as Kant did (is to submit to the Platonic hierarchy of mind having privilege over our bodily existence and its emotional/creative responses. The suspect, clearly, was just not down with that. He preferred the stoic emphasis on surfaces.
Remember:
“Identity and representation is for pussies.”
“The philosophy of Deleuze/Guattari is highly neurological, based on the structures of the brain, among others, a widely accepted point of view, nowadays, in neuroscience. Deleuze is philosophical, scientific and psychological, also in respect to ethical and other “applications” or effects of a much bigger impact than the usual modern neuroscience based philosophers [Dennett, Searle, and, to some extent, Dawkins [who are engaging in a popular philosophy that is heavily influencing pedagogical theory as applied to the university classroom.” Harald Helmut Wenk: facebook.com/groups/2232336 … up_comment
First of all, Harald , I took some risky stretches in this particular translation (that is based on what I thought you were getting at, especially at the end concerning your point on the relationship between popular philosophy and pedagogical policy –which I want you to feel free to correct if I happen to be flying too far off the rails you have laid out here.
That said, this all makes perfect sense in the context of the universities increasing dependence on corporate financing and philosophy’s, as well other liberal and fine arts, long standing struggle against the tyranny of the functional –the inferiority complex they have always felt aware of in being pursuits that most people have no interest in. So why wouldn’t today’s philosophy departments turn to teaching students an approach to philosophy that (like the work of Dennett, Searle, Dawkins, and Pinker (stand a chance of selling. It comes out of the increasing pressure on philosophy, the arts (poetry, visual art, as well as fiction (and the sciences to compete with more marketable media such as pop music, TV, and Cinema.
And I’m not so caught up in the Heideggerian esoteric elitism of wanting the payoff of status through my effort that I would consider all it bad. It has produced some good things like the graphic guides I broke my teeth on and the philosophy and popular culture series. And pardon me if I shamelessly gloat on the fact that (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave (these efforts are generally dominated by more continental approaches to philosophy. For me, this seems heroic in the Promethean sense of bringing the fire of the gods to the people: pretty much what Rorty seems to be doing in every word he writes.
(One time, the introducing graphic guides series (introducingbooks.com/ (had a kind of contest in which they asked everyone to suggest a topic for one of their books. I suggested one on analytic philosophy so I could get a quick shot understanding of it. I didn’t win. But what did come out shortly after was a book on Continental philosophy. I still wonder if my suggestion had anything to do with that.)
The move towards marketability would also explain why philosophy, if you listen to a lot of the podcasts, seems to be moving towards an issue based approach as compared to the abstraction of philosophers like Deleuze or Derrida, etc…Take, for instance, Pete Seeger’s animal rights or Sam Harris’ war against organized religion.
Now getting back to your former point: it is as if Deleuze is always aware of (perhaps even drawn to (the meat of the brain. As a book my son gave me, Ronald Bogue’s Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts, crystallized for me, Deleuze is clearly more drawn to the biological (the earthy even (than he is the “music of the spheres”. In hindsight, it seemed kind of hard not to see: the rhizomes which were based on the structures of the brain, the amorphous imagery of Dali-like folds of skin with spikes of hair poking out of them, the BwO (Body without Organs (the ground zero of all intensities to the nth power, and the fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave (that the one book he wrote about an artist was on Francis Bacon.
Granted, Deleuze did utilize calculus which has the purity of “the music of the spheres”. But secondary text advices me not to take that too seriously since…. well, Deleuze never did. I’m guessing his relationship to mathematics was a little like mine: you got to love the feel of it: e=mc². Couldn’t tell you what it means. It just looks pretty.
“Here we can see two of the three characteristics of ‘repetition’ that Deleuze outlined in the introduction taking shape: repetition is unconscious; it unfolds in a latent subject; and repetition is before the law, essentially transgressive: it is not a rule-governed synthesis. As Heidegger puts it, synthesis ‘underlies’ the categories.” -Joe Hughes, Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, pg. 97
What I mainly want to focus on here is the second proposition and how it relates to a point made in Difference and Repetition concerning Kant’s Categorical Imperative. As Kant sees it, Repetition is the desired order and therefore given privilege over Difference. And we can see in this the classicist leaning that Deleuze might have found distasteful in Kant: the desire to create an ethical system that can be perfectly repeated. Consequently, we can see the profound nature of the way that Deleuze follows by working to show how it is actually Difference that must be given privilege and how Repetition could not possibly serve Kant’s de-ontic appeal to duty (that is based on a revision of Kant’s model of the three syntheses by which we come to know an object : that which gives the needs of the community privilege over the needs of the individual. I would point again to Deleuze’s analytic metaphysic as I understand it:
A Repetition, at its purest, can only be different instances of the same thing at different points in time.
This, of course, hints at Deleuze’s understanding of time and the present that can never truly be present, only a vague transitional point that is always in the past while being equally in the future.
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I suppose this particular rhizome may be greatly influenced by an interview I was listening to on public radio in which a gay man was talking about his past as an advocate for family values and the importance of a father in a child’s life. Kind of hard to disagree with. But stranger still, for me, was how compelling I found his argument that when two people get married, they’re not just making a pact with each other, they’re making a pact with their community. Fair enough. It does appeal to my own point concerning the competitive model of the relationship between the base of the brain and its higher cognitive function and the cooperative one.
(And this may well point to an internal conflict and contradiction as concerns my agenda as concerns the competitive/cooperative model –something I will have to get to before someone uses it as a gotcha moment.)
But from that point on, it was a backslide into my own natural aversion to convention and dogma. My Marxist instincts kicked in first. This individual kept emphasizing statistics that pointed to the negative effects of not having two parents on children. But what he completely neglected was the statistics that clearly show the effect that poverty has on them as well. Nor did he seem to give any consideration to the negative effects of our present economy on marriage. The last I heard, statistics show that the biggest reason for conflict in a marriage is finances.
But the deeper implication and indictment comes from my session at the “library” which resulted in the above point on Deleuze and the recognition of the interviewee’s de-ontic appeal to duty which puts the interests of the “community” above the interests of the individual, perhaps even if it comes at the expense of the individual’s misery. And how could we possibly expect an individual to forbear misery for the sake of the higher principle of community?
Here the Deleuze/Kant conflict becomes personal.
This is my first post - apologies in advance for plunging straight in rather than finding the relevant n00b sub-forum and intro-ing myself there. Constraints of time and a fondness for avoiding anything even remotely reminiscent of formalities are my chief excuses here.
I’ve tried to read and understand the previous 8 pages, but have to admit that I’ve not absorbed as much of the content and discussion as I would’ve liked. Over the decades I’ve studied bits and bobs of Deleuze but never felt like I’ve got very far. But in recent times - i.e. the last year or so - one notion that’s piqued my interest is that of the enigmatically named ‘dark precursor.’ But also, and perhaps more pertinently, I believe that no two things can ever be identical - whether they’re snowflakes, atoms or imperceptibly tiny electrical charges, etc. Always there will be some variation. This “truth” feels instinctively correct to me - but in their various ways a lot of philosophies haven’t really gone to town on that. At least not the western stuff - I have no idea of non-western thought, but have had the odd whiff here and there that suggest they may have tried to engage with this issue more than the west has.
I digress - difference. Deleuze seems more keen than most to deal with this, that Cratylus thing about the stream, where he out Heraclitus’s Heraclitus. Deleuze whips off his kecks and wades out into that stream of difference - oh man, so cold. Poor Gilles’s nads shrink to the size of raisins. But still he wades - now up stream, against a lively current. He’s not put off though - even when every breath is a quivering shivery effort cos the streams up over his waist now. That water - pure difference. Every damn molecule slightly heavier or lighter than the last. Every atom within every molecule ditto. Every neutron within every atom ditto ditto. Why is they very stuff of the world so tricky??
If I get him, he basically believes that something in our very brain/mind/soul has to disavow this difference, if we’re to get by and not go nuts So we come up with categories - kantian stuff. Before, after. Cause, effect. I dunno. Even words themselves - language. Which seems to presuppose the possibility of sameness. But, necessary as the disavowing might be, it’s still that - a disavowing. An ignoring of how stuff actually is. More than an ignoring, in fact - a contradiction. We’ve come to fall in love with the opposite of difference. We’ve married identity. Sameness.
Here I stress this is my dilettante’s pitifully crude grasp of it all. But pressing on regardless (and getting gradually more confused)…
Taking a step back - Deleuze differs from Kant in billions of ways, but it seems me that one important way is that the former says we can actually know what reality is like (it’s full of this stuff that’s never the same). So don’t say ooh no we can’t possibly know what reality is actually like in itself because our minds have to project certain categories onto it first, so that we can make sense of it. Deleuze is loads bolder than this and says difference is so ubiquitous that even our minds and the categories it comes up with are somehow always different too - and in that sense are just as different as everything else.
Or does he? This is where I get stuck with it. If I’m derailing the thread - and I’m pretty sure I am, because I haven’t picked up any previous points as such - disregard this. However I have tried to outline what appeals to me about Deleuze - and I’ve also attempted to not get jargonistic. Hth, as they say.
Lot’s of pretty talk, Bobby. Not being sarcastic; just lots of pretty talk: a future experiment even. Thanks for chiming in. I look forward to jamming together.