Delueze Study:

Today’s meditative reading of Difference and Repetition (And I call it meditative because, at that point, I’m just reading the text from the beginning to end of a given section without worrying whether I’m getting it or not. I’m basically letting it flow through me just to see what happens. Compare this, for instance, to the study point I return to later and take my time to take notes: that which results in pretty much almost every post I make here.) brought back to me the moral element involved in repetition. One of the main oppositions (as I understand it (and that is among modern and postmodern thinkers (against representation is the overcoding of reality that it represents, often in the form of assuming something that can be perfectly repeated. We see this, for instance, in Kant’s Categorical Imperative. This, consequently, is the main motivation behind the post(modern gravitation towards the eternal elusiveness of difference: that which art specializes in as compared to science. And in that sense of it, we can see Difference and Repetition as Deleuze’s attempt to rescue Repetition (that is given its import to the creative process (from those who would turn it into a moral imperative.

That said (and I apologize for the clumsy segway (?: does anyone know how that word is actually spelled; I keep getting the finger wag from Word (allow me to connect this with the quote I offered yesterday:

“Finally, in this book it seemed to me that the powers of difference and repetition could be reached only by putting into question the traditional image of thought. By this I mean not only that we think according to a given method, but also that there is a more or less implicit, tacit or presupposed image of thought which determines our goals when we try to think. For example, we suppose that thought possesses a good nature, and the thinker a good will (naturally to ‘want’ the true); we take as model the process of recognition –in other words, a common sense or employment of all the faculties on a supposed same object; we designate error, nothing but error, as the enemy to be fought; and we suppose that the true concerns solutions –in other words, propositions capable as serving as answers. This is the classic image of thought, and as long as the critique has not been carried to the heart of that image it is difficult to conceive of thought as encompassing those problems which point beyond the propositional mode; or as involving encounters which escape all recognition; or as confronting its true enemies, which are quite different from thought; or as attaining that which tears thought from its natural torpor and notorious bad will, and forces us to think. A new image of thought -or rather, a liberation of thought from those images which imprison it: this is what I had already sought to discover in Proust. “–from Deleuze’s preface to the English version of Difference and Repetition

Only this time I want to focus on the first part:

“Finally, in this book it seemed to me that the powers of difference and repetition could be reached only by putting into question the traditional image of thought. By this I mean not only that we think according to a given method, but also that there is a more or less implicit, tacit or presupposed image of thought which determines our goals when we try to think. For example, we suppose that thought possesses a good nature, and the thinker a good will (naturally to ‘want’ the true); we take as model the process of recognition –in other words, a common sense or employment of all the faculties on a supposed same object; we designate error, nothing but error, as the enemy to be fought; and we suppose that the true concerns solutions –in other words, propositions capable as serving as answers.”

Now here, we (by which I mean “I” but tend to work and write better with the philosophical convention of “we” –excuse the arrogance or, rather, cockiness of it (can see the reference to overcoding that evolved into Deleuze’s (as well as Guatarri’s (sense of overcoding involved in the Anti-Oedipus, mainly as concerns the Oedipal Complex as described by Freud and possibly elaborated on by Lacan. And this resistance and rejection of overcoding seems to be an important theme throughout the process of Deleuze as well as post(modern thought: think, for instance, of Roland Barthes’ Mythologies. Deleuze didn’t work in a vacuum.

This was the import of the Image of Thought as well as Common sense which, as Deleuze describes it, involves a stimulation of all the faculties (sensibility, imagination, memory, and thought) in such a way that the subject is deluded into believing they have achieved some kind of final epiphany. And this is what comes from taking “the model of recognition”, the process described in the doctrine of the faculties, as the model of thought: as that by which we come to true knowledge.

And, once again, we return to the oblique and poetic approach Deleuze chooses (over straight denotation (as a kind of strange attractor towards that which even he can’t fully describe and invites us (like two people on Acid (to describe with him. Joe Hughes, in his reader guide to Difference and Repetition, describes Deleuze’s free indirect discourse as a kind of exchange with whatever great writer he has participated in an “engagement” with. But I, with all humility, would argue that he is also (if not equally (interested in his “engagement” with his reader.

He, like Rorty, is more interested in stimulating discourse in ways that most people are not interested or willing to do –that is as compared to controlling it: of overcoding- and sees that as the only way out of the mess we have created for ourselves.

“Like a painter, I start with the broad swashes: 3 points that have become central to how I understand Difference and Repetition at this point thus far:

1. Joe Hughes’ point in his reader’s guide to the book: that it is primarily a critique of representation. It is here that I see a pragmatic overlap with Rorty, no matter what differences the two may have shared.

2. (And this is where I risk going off the grid: the analytic/metaphysical understanding and core I have extracted from the book and secondary text:
   a: even a pure repetition can only consist of different instances of the same thing

therefore b: the only thing that is ever repeated is difference.

And, finally, 3. The creative act is never that far from Deleuze’s mind.”

And in hindsight, I now realize there is yet a 4th point: that in terms of the analytic/metaphysical dyad of the two, Deleuze seeks to take the privilege given to repetition throughout our cultural history and give it to difference: a clearly postmodern move. And as I see it at this point, much of the book is a survey of the various strategies he has found to do exactly that.

But for today, I would like to focus on one he pursues in Chapter Three, “The Image of Thought”. In it, he seeks to undermine the notion of recognition (that which we do with the objects that occupy our space (as the basic model of thought. And it is a seductive image in that it seems to lie at the very foundation (especially in evolutionary terms (of the various things we can do with mind and brain. We assume, by studying this basic act, we can somehow find clues to the more complex activities of our minds such as philosophy. But if we really look at it, the act of recognition seems too automatic to account for the kinds of things that philosophy (along with the arts and sciences (try to do. Deleuze writes:

“On one hand, it is apparent that acts of recognition exist and occupy a large part of our daily life: this is a table, this is an apple, this the piece of wax, Good morning Theaetetus. But who can believe that the destiny of thought is at stake in these acts, and that when we recognize, we are thinking?”

And later:

“However, the criticism that must be addressed to this image of of thought is precisely that it has based its principle upon extrapolation from certain facts, particularly insignificant facts such as Recognition, everyday banality in person; as though thought should not seek its models among stranger and more compromising adventures.”

This is why he makes the distinction between the passive synthesis of sensibility, memory, imagination, and thought and (with the overlap of thought)that of the active synthesis: where we creatively create concepts and engage in philosophy.

And we see the folly of this misguided image of thought even today in scientism and Rand’s objectivism which talks a lot about facts (as if they were simple acts of recognition (then steps into conjecture while acting as if they were simple facts. Once again, it’s like saying:

“1+1=2; therefore Capitalism is only valid economic system on the face of the earth.”

Or:

“We can demonstrate and correlate mental activities with brain activity; therefore, all mental activity is little more than brain activity.”

It’s as if we are to be so impressed with the incontestable premise that we should automatically accept the conjecture of the conclusion. In other words, the image of thought that conflates thought with recognition leads to a common doxa (socially programmed responses to socially programmed cues (that those engaged in power discourses can use to shut down the discourses of others. We need only look at what facts can actually tell us in order to understand how erroneous the above jumps and conclusions actually are:

1+1=2

If I hold up a pencil and let it go, it will fall to the ground

And even a relativistic hippy knows better than to step in front of moving bus

Enough said. So how do we, as Deleuze asks, get from recognition (and simple facts like water, at atmospheric pressure, boils at 212 degrees (to the kind of things that philosophy concerns itself with? How else do we approach what philosophy is actually interested in (that which distinguishes it from science: that which can only be sensed as compared to known (but through literary and metaphorical methods?

I would first show the post of my German jam-mate, Harald, in its original form, then offer my translation of it. I do this because I fear when doing so, I’m prone to writing myself into it. So it seems only fair to post the original so that others can “write their selves” into it and offer a translation that may be better than mine.

“Perhaps Spinoza’s derivation of “abstraction” in its genius form,“universals” and “transcendentals” are “produced” by a capacity surpassing flood of images or sound is helpful. “The old thought more in images” -where poetry and narratives steem from. But in Spinpza, ther “more geometrco” method solves the very very very severe “being true”, aqdequate ideas problem !!”

“Perhaps Spinoza’s notion of “abstraction”, in a provocative and intriguing way , suggests that “universals” and “transcendent properties” are “produced” by a flood of images or sound [experience [is helpful. For instance, our primitive ancestors [not having the technology of language [thought primarily in images, which is where our propensity towards poetry and narratives stem from. But according to Spinoza, the “more geometrical” method serves the more necessarily methodical systematic process of seeking out what can be adequately demonstrated.”

Now what I am mainly working from here is the connection I see with Keats point concerning poetry: that it is the spontaneous overflow of emotions that comes from experience. And I would also note that Keats also said that poetry is the pick axe with which we penetrate the frozen sea of knowledge. And this, to me at least, now seems Deleuzian in spirit in that it recognizes that any act we can engage in order to get beyond ourselves (art, science, and philosophy (is a matter of accumulating experience to the point of that spontaneous overflow: what we experience as revelation. This is why Deleuze, in his A to Z interview, talks about the import of engagement: that which we experience in concentrated forms of experience such as a poem, a movie, or a book on science, philosophy, fiction, social commentary, etc., etc., etc… And we can see the pragmatic overlap (yet again (between Deleuze and Rorty in that both seek to facilitate this process by accelerating discourse for the sake of the kind of momentum and inertia required to get beyond the discourse at any given point. We get beyond ourselves (difference (by repeating ourselves (repetition.

That said, I want to tie this into a couple of points made by Deleuze in the preface to the English edition of Difference and Repetition:

“Every philosophy must achieve its own manner of speaking about the arts and sciences, as though it established alliances with them.”

I bitch a lot about scientism. But this pretty much describes where I stand as concerns the role of philosophy in relation to science and literature: that which lies in that no-man’s land between it. What I am mainly reacting to is scientism’s smug dismissal of all other approaches to understanding not just out of some selfish desire to justify my own role in it, but out a desire to see us advance as a species and perhaps even save ourselves. This is because I believe such smug dismissals (as I have been encouraged to believe by both Deleuze and Rorty (only act as blockages to the flows of energy required to create the momentum needed to get beyond ourselves, to reach that “spontaneous overflow” –such smug dismissals being more about one’s role in some petty power struggle encouraged by producer/consumer Capitalism. And we can see this blockage described in Deleuze’s further point:

"Finally, in this book it seemed to me that the powers of difference and repetition could be reached only by putting into question the traditional image of thought. By this I mean not only that we think according to a given method, but also that there is a more or less implicit, tacit or presupposed image of thought which determines our goals when we try to think. For example, we suppose that thought possesses a good nature, and the thinker a good will (naturally to ‘want’ the true); we take as a model the process of recognition -in other words, a common sense or employment of all the faculties on a supposed same object; we designate error, nothing but error, as the enemy to be fought; and we suppose that the true concerns solutions -in other words, propositions capable of serving as answers. "

And given the limited window I have here, I would like to focus on one part of this and get back to the rest tomorrow:

“….we designate error, nothing but error, as the enemy to be fought; and we suppose that the true concerns solutions -in other words, propositions capable of serving as answers.”

First of all, what we are looking at is the tyranny of functional. And, hopefully, I’ve committed myself to going deeper into this tomorrow.

But what is immediate to me here is a point made by Picasso: that taste is the enemy of art. Of course, he being an artist mainly concerned with images, he wasn’t one to define his terms. What he meant (as anyone who has engaged in the creative act knows (is that the creative act must always involve a sense of play. And play is hardly play under the scrutiny of a critic. And I think this is what Deleuze was getting at: that error (or the fear of it (is the enemy of thought.

I suppose one of the main appeals of Deleuze to me is that, when writing about him, I’m always writing at the edge of what I know: it’s always a dice throw that can take me places I’ve never been before. In this sense it’s always an act of experimentation or Play.
*
I would first add an inquiry made by xhightension appropriately titled Rhizome Meditation:

“Hey, I’ve been reading through your posts about Delueze. I have the book “Anti-Oedipus.”

How do you apply the the artistic flow, that you learn from Delueze or Derrida, and make it practical for daily life?

From what I remember from your posts, you said something along these lines: we believe in things like afterlives, higher powers and higher principles. The point from A to B is a given, so we should Play with our minds. Given that the results are an import of individual experiencing them, why would it matter who happened to be having the superior experience?

I don’t remember exactly where you said it or I would have quoted directly. “Finding the flow,” as you say, "because anything else is a block to the flow of energy.

?: isn’t that our main issues with analytics

Is there a mantra for Play, like some kind of meditation that joints one into the now? Or is it feeling or instinct that one coils into?”

I bring this into this rhizome because it shows a deep understanding of what I’m approaching with Deleuze as well as to illustrate its connection with today’s rhizome and as a segue to tomorrow’s more detailed and focused response to their points. As Deleuze encourages us: connect and forget. Anyway:

“He wants to show how real learning and teaching involve a search for signs and a creative experimentation with them that triggers learning as radical change in another or in oneself, as opposed to the concepts of learning by rote or acquiring knowledge of facts and procedures associated with correct moves on those facts. This explains the relation between critique and the search for conditions, followed by an experimental and creative work with signs. He criticizes learning through the repetition of the same, in order to clear the way for learning as the triggering of intensities. The only way we move towards a complete learning is by expressing the intensities locked up in a situation in a new way (How can I make the industrial revolution live for them?).” -Williams, James (2013-01-15). Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (p. 21). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

Now I have spent a lot of time here working at the more superficial social/political level of Deleuze’s agenda. And I’m hoping, given William’s reasonably clear explanation of it early in the book, to drive deeper into the metaphysical/phenomenological aspects of it. (And I’m hoping my response to xhightension’s inquiry tomorrow will facilitate that.) But William’s quote allows me to tie up some loose ends before I do.

What we see in Deleuze’s point concerning learning is his general manifesto for how to live a life. We see in it a mandate to treat our intellectual and creative processes as experimentations that (via the dice roll (that can land us somewhere exciting at the risk of landing us somewhere less so. And I’m guessing that he would agree that the risk of landing us nowhere is minimal to the point of being irrelevant. Still, we have to consider William’s following point:

“An interesting paradox is worth pointing out at this point. It may be that forcing someone to repeat and learn by rote is the best way of setting down signs for a more intense learning.”

What Williams is pointing to here is the important role that repetitions can play in the intellectual and creative process: how we can embrace order for the sake of embracing chaos without succumbing to it. Think, for instance, of Einstein’s wardrobe. Deleuze, himself, describes 3 types of repetition: habit, memory, and creation. So isn’t it possible that the habits of Kant was more about how he managed the creative acts he did as compared to expressions of character limits to Kant’s philosophy that Deleuze and Nietzsche described them as?

I mean I, myself, am all over and excited by Deleuze’s manifesto. But that could prove less an endorsement and more of a vulnerability in that Deleuze’s critics could easily point to me and argue that Deleuze’s philosophy seems perfectly accommodated to my psychedelic/70’s addled mind as well as my middle aged propensity towards AADD.

Still (at least to me (it has value. At the same time, we have to recognize the value of repetition even if it is illusory. We have to recognize the value of the momentary stay against confusion (the aborescent as compared to the rhizomatic, if for nothing else, as a resting place. Once again: Deleuze’s agenda has the ability to excite, especially the creatively and intellectually curious. At the same time, you have to look at how unappealing it might be to people, today, who are feeling the pressures of constant change (becoming (under producer/consumer Capitalism. We have to ask how appealing Deleuze’s agenda could be to people who are already experiencing speed smear.

“Where Fichte had lectured: ‘Act like nobody!’, Stirner replicated: ‘Do what you can do alone on the world: Enjoy yourself!’” - My translation of: “Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit” by Peter Sloterdijk, 2014, S. 461.

“»The rhizome is an anti-genealogy. The rhizome passes through conversion, expansion, conquest, catch and stitch … The rhizome is about … ‘becoming of all kinds’.« (Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, Rhizome, p. 35.) The invisible underground mesh (network) against the visibly sprouting, striving upward tree …” My translation of: “Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit” by Peter Sloterdijk, 2014, S. 472.

Against any past and future - the anti-genealogy - that is one of the main aspects of the modernity, when fashion replaces customs (morals).

In Habermas vs. Adorno/Lyotard, which presentation of rhizomes offer a more acceptable scenario?

Is modernity, in it’s self indicative of such
interpretation? On what ground?

It might be a ground of intertransferenced ethical-moral, aesthetic and political consideration. The

three dimensional bubbles also resemble Bucky

Fullers’ geodesic domes.

The semantic unity at the price of more literality of meaning. Fuller’s domes were meant to house the increasing world populations’ underclass, by constructing affordable, and using cheaply manufactured materials.

Most of the buildings Richard Buckminster Fuller constructed were built because of his and other’s interests. So the increasing of the dense of the cities was merely his excuse.

In the third part of Peter Slotredijk’s “Spheres” (especially in chapter I) Fuller is often mentioned, yes, but his buildings are primarily representation buildings.

For the modern human there is only consumption, no past, no future, no children, no parents, thus no familiy, no genealogy but only consumption, enjoy-yourself-ism. So there is also no sacred thing for the modern human, because for the modern human there is only consumption, no custom (moral) but fashion that has replaced all customs (morals), no sacred things, unless they are consumable. The modern religion (ideology, consumistic manifesto) is consumption, enjoy-yourself-here-and-now-ism, anti-genealogy, the devil-may-care-attitude.

The main mistake of the modernity is to put the “social question” in the in the foreground and to forget to ask the genealogical question.

Thanks for the rhizomes, Arminus.

My pleasure, D 63.

Arminius-

The fact is, that Fuller grew up in abject poverty as a young man, and his primary starting point was exactly, the elimination of poverty, homelessness, in ref.to the construction of geodesic domes. Academic circles may have overlooked here.

If you have solved it, why not share it with us? Boy, d63 has solved all the mysteries of the universe, but his mind is no match for Deluze.

Seems like a bunch of meaning making anyway. Difference and repetition…can easily be explained with the aphorism of a splatter painting. A splatter painting is repetitive chaos, the mona lisa is ordered intelligent chaos. If deluze’s book doesn’t explain consciousness, it just seems like a social commentary, something a girl would write. I don’t see what the purpose of it is, id rather see a movie, they are closer to the truth than words.

Delueze’s claims about order and chaos, seems rather “deluezional” to me.

Clarification of the above:

It was not that Fuller grew up in an impoverished household, in fact his family was prosperous, affording him a Harvard education, but that the Great Depression caused him to suffer intolerable poverty. Further, it was not the geodific structures, which were to solve the problem of poverty related homelessness, but his concept of the Dymaxion, 4D type structures, which were applied in a limited way.

The geodesic dome was invented by a guy by the name of Victor Norquist, and built by Walter Bauersfeld. The concept originated with Zeiss Optical.

There are levels of congruency here, regardless of specific shapes. So You are right, to a large extent, but motive is clearly present. The domes were thought up when USA was already a booming, prosperous economy.

The fact that Fuller grew up in poverty is not so important when it comes to the other fact: Fuller’s buildings have nothing to do with poverty.

Ultimate,

This is why the Frankfurt School directly opposes this chaos. But such opposition is retroactive , categorically, bringing back the focus on the post Kantian dilemma, whether all of modern philosophy since then, may be suspect as unfounded. The genealogy of modern philosophy is missing in this sense,the implication goes.

Not all of them, the 4D buildings are a precursor, and
They show motive. The character of the man shows an inclusiveness, outside of which perimeters can not be constructed as linearly, as that implies, motives aside.

How is modern philosophy unfounded? It had a founder, therefore it is founded.

Now you are saying that Fuller’s “family was prosperous, affording him a Harvard education” - that contradicts what you formerly said: “Fuller grew up in an abject poverty”.

Fuller was born 1895 - so he was already an adult during the Great Depression you mentioned.

Metaphors overrides Sloterdijk’s bubbles, so the references to poverty, and growing up, need not to do so linearly. The Great Depression shocked him, and in a timeless sense, the poverty permitted him even more so, if he was not raised in poverty. People used to poverty can cope with it, those unexpectedly thrown into it, feel it much more dramatically. He was still very young at the time, trying to raise a young family. The metaphors encompasses both men in both dimensions.