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.
posting.php?mode=reply&f=25&t=187249#preview
Humble yourself or the world will do it for you -it was either Russell or Whitehead. I can't remember which.
When I was young, I use to think the world was a messed up place so i was pissed off a lot. But now that I'm older, I know it is. So I just don't worry about it. -John Lydon (AKA Johnny Rotten).
Anarchy through Capitalism -on a flyer thrown out during a Kottonmouth Kings concert.
First we read, then we write. -Emerson.
All poets are damned. But they are not blind. They see with the eyes of angels. -William Carlos Williams: in the introduction to Ginsberg's Howl.
You gotta love that moment when the work is done and all that is left to do is drink your beer and sip your jager and enjoy what you've done. It's why I do and love it.
I refuse to be taken seriously.
Once again: take care of your process and others will take care of theirs. No one needs a guru. Just someone to jam with.
:me