Deleuze Studies:

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d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

One of the first things I’m noting about Spinoza (that is as I scratch the surface of The Ethics (is how he seems to be using arguments similar to Anselm’s ontological proof of God, but towards clearly different ends. I mean even on a first run through (on the audio book even (you get a sense of what it was that got him in so much trouble. The most notable is his argument that God, as substance, by careful reasoning, cannot possess free will which must have seemed quite offensive to those who held a more conventional view of God.

And I can tell already, given how my filters are working, that this particular immersion will be primarily focused on the relationship between Deleuze and Spinoza and may well lead to a following immersion in Deleuze’s book on Spinoza –that is: just to see what happens. For instance:

“Proof.— If several distinct substances be granted, they must be distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of their attributes, or by the difference of their modifications (Prop. iv.). If only by the difference of their attributes, it will be granted that there cannot be more than one with an identical attribute. If by the difference of their modifications— as substance is naturally prior to its modifications (Prop. i.),— it follows that setting the modifications aside, and considering substance in itself, that is truly, (Deff. iii. and vi.), there cannot be conceived one substance different from another,— that is (by Prop. iv.), there cannot be granted several substances, but one substance only. Q.E.D.” -Baruch Spinoza (2013-09-01). Ethics (Kindle Locations 44-49). Heraklion Press. Kindle Edition.

(Now first of all, I’m hoping someone here (perhaps my German jam-mate, Harald​ (can help me on what “Q.E.D.” means as it is sprinkled throughout the book.)

That said, I can’t help but read the BwO into this. If I am getting Spinoza right, it is as if Substance is like a plane upon which various intensities (attributes and modes (can break into their various and individual nomadic flights (expansion (while still being attached to the BwO of Substance: contraction.

And I’m starting to see the connection between the BwO as described above and Deleuze and Guatarri’s sense of desiring production or the rhizomatic network of it –at least within Spinoza’s emphasis on the infinite as compared to the finite. And I would also note the possible foundation of Deleuze’s materialism in:

“That thing is called free, which exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone. On the other hand, that thing is necessary, or rather constrained, which is determined by something external to itself to a fixed and definite method of existence or action.” -Ibid

And I, once again, have to approach this with the same provisional materialism I approach Deleuze with(as well as Rorty (for the sake of a workable model –that is in a pragmatic spirit. And I do so with full acknowledgement that this is the very same argument that hardcore materialists have been throwing at me over the years.

This, of course, has been wide swipes and the fumbling around of someone out their comfort zone. But as Deleuze tells us: we write at the edge of what we know. And we do that to hopefully zero in on the particulars. May I not waste my time and yours.
Dalek Prime
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by Dalek Prime »

QED; quod erat demomstrandum; "that which was to be proven." It signals the end of a proof, once it's been reached.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

Thanks Delek.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

“I do not doubt, that many will scout this idea as absurd, and will refuse to give their minds up to contemplating it, simply because they are accustomed to assign to God a freedom very different from that which we (Def. vii.) have deduced. They assign to him, in short, absolute free will.” -Baruch Spinoza (2013-09-01). Ethics (Kindle Locations 440-442). Heraklion Press. Kindle Edition.

In a sense, it is as if Spinoza is exploring the same territory of as Deleuze and Rorty in reaction to the folly that results from Cartesian dualism. The difference is that Deleuze and Rorty do so in terms of human behavior and our cultural history while Spinoza works in an analytic style focused on the contradiction at work in the notion of a perfect God and that god having Free Will. And his argument is interesting and compelling in that context.

“But, it is said, supposing that God had made a different universe, or had ordained other decrees from all eternity concerning nature and her order, we could not therefore conclude any imperfection in God.” –ibid (different page

Now to the best of my ability to explain it, the idea is that if God had free will, it would open Him up to the possibility of making other choices than what he has. In other words, this opens Him up to the possibility of making better choices than what he already has. And this is a direct contradiction to the notion of a perfect god. In other words, a perfect god could not possibly make any choices other than those it makes in order to be perfect. This can, according to Spinoza, only mean that God (that is as substance (can only act according to a fixed and determined nature.

(Once again: it’s no wonder he got his ass in the sling he did.)

And we can see this as a variation of Leibniz’s best of all possible worlds. The thing that is interesting to me is how Spinoza (given his description of God as substance (still refers to it as Him as compared to It. My guess would be that it is the result of a lag in the multiplicity of our cultural evolution. And we can see this in the masculine/feminine scheme implied in:

“But, it is said, supposing that God had made a different universe, or had ordained other decrees from all eternity concerning nature and her order, we could not therefore conclude any imperfection in God.”

What we see here is the patriarchal vision of nature as feminine while God hovers above it all decreeing the laws by which nature must work. And why couldn’t those laws be feminine? But then I am prone to the kind of “loose thinking” that Spinoza condemns when he says:

“No doubt it will be difficult for those who think about things loosely…. “ -Ibid (different page

Guilty as charged. But there is a method to the madness in that I think loosely to work my way to clearer thought: my hermeneutic. But that is an issue for a future rhizome.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

“PROP. VII. The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.” -Baruch Spinoza (2013-09-01). Ethics (Kindle Locations 664-665). Heraklion Press. Kindle Edition.

This, of course, reads like representation. So it seems kind of strange that Deleuze would have taken to Spinoza like he did. But this is easily attributable to same thing any student of philosophy (or intellectual inquiry in general (has to do when approaching a more established practitioner: steal what they can use.

That said, I think I might have found a couple of quotes that point towards the univocity of Being that Claire Colebrook connects between Deleuze and Spinoza in her Routledge Guide to Deleuze. But I’m finding it in a weird roundabout way:

“This truth seems to have been dimly recognized by those Jews who maintained that God, God’s intellect, and the things understood by God are identical. For instance, a circle existing in nature, and the idea of a circle existing, which is also in God, are one and the same thing displayed through different attributes.” –Ibid (different page

Given that, in terms of substance, mind and body are just two sides of the same thing, what we find ourselves approaching here is something similar to Berkley’s Idealism in which he argues that given that everything exists in the perception of it, the only thing that could be keeping our individual perceptions of the world consistent with other individual perceptions is our sharing in the mind of God. Spinoza then goes on to say:

“PROP. VIII. The ideas of particular things, or of modes, that do not exist, must be comprehended in the infinite idea of God, in the same way as the formal essences of particular things or modes are contained in the attributes of God.”

What I’m getting at here is the univocity of Being comes out of the fact that reality for us can only come out of how it registers in the mind. Therefore, its very existence is not so much conditional on existing in the mind as its participation in a vast exchange of energy between minds and their objects. And the univocity of Being makes perfect sense since, logically, a thing either is or isn’t. Because of this, it makes little sense to talk about (as Rorty points out (ontological status since, once again, a thing either exists or it doesn’t. Being, unlike everything else in reality, is a is or is not situation.

Think, for instance, of a unicorn. Now while all evidence points to the probability that unicorns don’t exist, we still have to admit that the concept of one does and that the concept has as much being as a real one standing before our very eyes. The idea, in conclusion, is to recognize that our perceptions of and interactions with the world , our emotional responses, our passions (in short: our subjective experiences, have the same ontological status (Being (as the rock that stubs your toe: the so-called objective.

And we might consider here the implications this would have for Deleuze and Guatarri’s model of desiring production as well as Deleuze’s Transcendental Empiricism.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

As it stands, the latter part of Spinoza’s The Ethics strikes me as common sense explained in elaborate logical language that, at times, seems to obscure the issues involved. It seems almost too mundane to add to the philosophical process of anyone who might read it –including Deleuze. At the same time, I thought the same thing about Rawls’ Laws of the Peoples while now finding myself recognizing some value in it. So I defer judgment.

On the other hand, as I find myself going back (in my study points (to Part 1 on the nature of God as Substance, I’m starting to see that one of Deleuze’s main attraction to him may have lain in the mind-bending logic of it, that which Deleuze revised by translating substance to a more secular understanding. For instance:

“PROP. V. There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances having the same nature or attribute. Proof.— If several distinct substances be granted, they must be distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of their attributes, or by the difference of their modifications (Prop. iv.).

“If only by the difference of their attributes, it will be granted that there cannot be more than one with an identical attribute. If by the difference of their modifications— as substance is naturally prior to its modifications (Prop. i.),— it follows that setting the modifications aside, and considering substance in itself, that is truly, (Deff. iii. and vi.), there cannot be conceived one substance different from another,— that is (by Prop. iv.), there cannot be granted several substances, but one substance only. Q.E.D.” -Baruch Spinoza (2013-09-01). Ethics (Kindle Locations 43-49). Heraklion Press. Kindle Edition.

I would start my fumblings by pointing out that Substance (being an uncaused cause (would precede all attributions (that which knows the essence: that which without it could not be what it is: of a thing (and modifications. This creates a kind of paradox in that we have to ask how substance can precede the attribute and still be defined by an attribute. What we’re basically looking at here is a set of all sets type situation.

At the same time, I can’t help but agree with Spinoza’s conclusion that there can only be one substance in that (perhaps because of it being an uncaused cause (since attributions and modifications are somehow separate from substance, there could not be any attributions and moderations to separate one substance from the other. At least to me that seems to be the more blue collar to approach Spinoza’s point.

We could also see this as how Substance, Attributes, and Modifications are intimately intertwined (while Substance is given privilege (and the source of Deleuze’s notorious obscurity and the headache I’m experiencing while writing this, a headache that the beer and Jager is doing little to appease. And I can’t help but throw this out there in the hope it will make a solid connection:

I can’t help but feel this mish-mash is the source of Deleuze’s explorations in Difference and Repetition. All one would have to do is translate Spinoza’s god into Being and you stand a chance of getting it if the headache doesn’t kill you.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

“Spinoza’s achievement was to show man and his world as an inextricable unity, and man himself as simultaneously master and servant of the fate which creates him.” -Scruton, Roger (2002-05-30). Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Kindle Locations 589-591). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

I would first point out that my transition from Spinoza’s Ethics to Scruton’s very short intro to Spinoza has been a bit of a revelation in that it has confirmed a lot of the suspicions I expressed in my immersion in the original text. For instance, we can easily see in the above how Spinoza evolved into Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism which evolved into Deleuze and Guatarri’s rhizomatic model of desiring production. But before I start patting myself on the back, it also offers the possibility of moving me beyond my present understanding: could fulfill (in terms of my process (my constant demand for more understanding.

“In Part One of the Ethics they derive their sense largely from an elaborate version of the ontological argument for the existence of God.” –Ibid (different page

I hate to say I told you so, but:

“One of the first things I’m noting about Spinoza (that is as I scratch the surface of The Ethics (is how he seems to be using arguments similar to Anselm’s ontological proof of God, but towards clearly different ends.”

Furthermore, I am seeing a resolution to the issue (that which gave me a headache yesterday:

“I would start my fumblings by pointing out that Substance (being an uncaused cause (would precede all attributions (that which knows the essence: that which without it could not be what it is: of a thing (and modifications. This creates a kind of paradox in that we have to ask how substance can precede the attribute and still be defined by an attribute. What we’re basically looking at here is a set of all sets type situation.”

:in:

“This odd use of the word ‘in’ can be explained by an example. Suppose a group of people join to form a club, which then does things, owns things, organizes things. When we say that the club bought a house, we really mean that the members did various things with a specific legal result. But none of the members bought a house. Hence it looks as though the club is an independent entity, doing things on its own account. In fact, however, it is dependent for its existence and nature on the activities of its members.” –ibid (different page

As Scruton describes better than I could, the attributes are folded “in” to and define substance while leaving substance to be prior to its attributes.

What impresses me most is that Scruton wrote one of the books on philosophy that I read a long time ago and very early in my process that I found (instinctively that is (a little too classicist in nature. Still, he impresses me here, especially in terms of the criticisms he is offering as concerns Spinoza’s assumptions.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

My Take on the Rhizomatic Method via the Analogy of a Fireworks Show:

Alright!!! Imagine watching a fireworks show. You see several projectiles rip upward into the nighttime sky and, suddenly, break out (in all directions (into other projectiles that, in turn, break out in all directions into other projectiles that explode into globes of light and fire that also consists of singularities that act in ways similar to the model I started this model with. We can see a similar dynamic at work (in a more slow motion manner (in the way a rosebush or the brain (via brain plasticity (break from themselves. But let’s stick with fireworks in order to get at the intensity that Deleuze and Guatarri were getting at.

(And it is important to note here that by the time D & G got to A Thousand Plateaus, they had decided (due to the real world results of The Anti-Oedipus (drug addicts and such: the consequences of constant acceleration (to tone it down.)

Of course, I have mislead you here in that the model I have presented comes off as arborescent in that it all starts with those initial projectiles, much as trees, rosebushes, and brains (via brain plasticity (do. But sometimes the only way out is through. So let us now imagine that same fireworks show just suddenly appearing in the nighttime sky without the initial projections: all these explosions just suddenly expanding from all points with no real center.

Now we’re getting closer. But not close enough. Now we have to consider the fractal nature of all the internal events at work in the explosions going on before us. But, for poops and giggles, let’s now imagine those explosions (those blossomings (going on all around us –much as reality does. And, once again, the only way out is through: sometimes you have to imagine the graspable in order to grasp (or imagine (what is beyond the grasp of our mental resources.

So I would now ask you to imagine all those fractal interactions (even the fireworks if it helps (contained in an aquarium: all this motion pushing against motion always enfolding motion while always being enfolded.

Now imagine the glass walls of that aquarium expanding into infinity.
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Harbal
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by Harbal »

d63 wrote: Now imagine the glass walls of that aquarium expanding into infinity.
I'm far too irritated by the way you use brackets to think about expanding aquariums.
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by Arising_uk »

I'm more irritated by this whole cut-paste of others thoughts without attribution - plagiarism on a grand scale but I guess these rhizomaticists are textual post-modernists, post structuralists or denconstructualists? In that others thoughts are mine.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

There could be nothing I love more than pissing off trolls, guys. Engaging with them is useless. But not engaging with them while doing what I want to, and doing it as if I could give a shit about what they have to say, is a double pleasure.

See ya the next time (me being one that likes to post my daily rhizomes where appropriate (I have something to say exclusively focused on Deleuze. Outside of that, you guys can pretty much fuck off and wallow in it.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

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“Deleuze gives us new concepts to account for what exists and for reality, in particular, in his definition of reality as both the virtual and the actual. For example, a coconut is both an actual coconut and the intensities or pure becomings it expresses in the encounter with the sensations of individuals (to become hard, to become grainy, to become hairy, to quench, to nourish).” -Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (pp. 7-8). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

What Williams seems to be referencing here is the Doctrine of the Faculties as described by Joe Hughes in his secondary text on Difference and Repetition. And I can’t help but see an overlap (or hangover (with my recent immersion in Stanley Fish. I can’t help but see that the temporal changes everything and is what distinguishes contemporary thought from the modern.

As Fish pointed out to me, the static notion of text acts as if the text is just there waiting to be understood in a static kind of way –as if the meaning is just there waiting to be discovered. But as Fish’s opposition to the intentional fallacy suggests, the writer’s intention tends to change with the text they are writing. I have experienced this myself. Therefore, because of the temporal shared by all parties involved (writer, reader, text (the causal chains tend to spread into kind of plane of immanence as Deleuze described it. Deleuze basically describes this same dynamic through the doctrine of the faculties in which the object becomes the text continually becoming through the mind’s temporal process of recognizing.

And in both cases, it is like imagining this simple linear causal chain occurring between subject and object and, in terms of temporality, smearing it across the canvas until it all blends into an abstract whole that is beyond simple interpretation.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

Today was a kind of Sartre day. To quote an entry from Nausea:

Today: nothing: existed

I mean it: I got nothing from today’s study point at the library. Fortunately, my process allows for a few fallbacks. I can (and will), for instance, go back through some of my previous notes on this particular book (James William’s guide to Difference and Repetition). There is always, everyday that space to fill. And it is not coincidental that I bring Sartre into the mix. So let’s roll the dice:

“At this point, the extent of the ambitions and revolutionary aims of Difference and Repetition come into view. It is not only a book on ‘how a life is lived best’, rather, it is a book that claims that pure differences are the other face of all actual things – there is no such thing as a well-defined actual life.” -Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (p. 13). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

What I want to explore here is the influence of Sartre on Deleuze in that what Deleuze is confronting and opposing here is a kind of Sartrean Bad Faith: that which seeks to fix the precarious nature of reality. The main difference lies in Deleuze’s prescription of “connect and forget” whereas Sartre was attempting to be descriptive in the ontological model of the relationship between being-for-itself and being-in-itself. Whereas Sartre was mainly submitting to a kind of existential forward flight (as it had been described by his critics), Deleuze was basically egging it on.

And the reason (as I see it (that Deleuze did so has to do with his inclusion of Leibniz’s description of an seascape in which the individual enjoys a composite effect that could be broke down to an infinite series of individual events –that is if one had the resources. The problem for him was the subject always working in a finite space attempting to broach the infinite. So his solution was a kind of intellectual attention deficit disorder in which the subject bounced around the rhizomatic matrixes (he had yet to develop (in order to broach (or “traverse” as he liked to say (a sense of the whole. Hence the manifesto of “connect and forget” that puts the individual at any given point in the matrix while anchoring them (in a very loose sense (through the residual effects of previous points in the matrix the individual is wandering. And to Deleuze, clinging to those previous points can only weigh the flight down.

Now the important thing to note here is how this escalated (w/Guatarri (into the too-accelerated process encouraged by The Anti-Oedipus. As D & G saw: too many people with a taste for chaos were using it as a justification for self destruction. This is why they had to back down in A Thousand Plateaus.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

“Contrary to appearances, his work has little to do with empirical methods of contemporary cultural criticism or empirical sociology or psychology.” -Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (p. 28). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

Now as I have said repeatedly: the main flaw with and weakness in the continental approach lies not with and in its practitioners, but rather its detractors in that it is not meant to be taken literally. Living in the Midwest and working among more “down to earth and day to day” type of guys as I do, I often (in the stream of consciousness that flows through my brain (come up against the question of how I would answer the question that might come from any of them: why philosophy? What does it do?

And the answer I imagine giving them is that it is a form of poetic speculation or a poetic way of engaging with reality. Of course, we have to be careful here in that such a description gives license (especially among younger practitioners (to new age romanticism: becoming one with the universe and all that. As William’s says after:

“Are we not on the verge of the worst kind of mysticism when we begin to speak of real but not actual differences?” -ibid

And we are broaching mysticism with Deleuze. Take, for instance, the notion of all subject/object relationships being a process that goes from the initial sensible encounter to understanding and recognition. We deduce this from the temporal, much as all mystical assertions are basically deduced. But how do we know that those encounters aren’t more immediate? We assume the temporal due to our temporal position in space. Still, we can’t totally dismiss it given its deductive power. And that is the power (the resonance and seduction (of Deleuze.

And excuse the “dear diary” moment, but it is the poetry of Deleuze (as well as philosophy (that makes it hard for me to go back to poetry as it is commonly defined –that is even though I know good and well that I should in order to get back to the day to day matters of the human condition.
d63
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Re: Deleuze Studies:

Post by d63 »

“Deleuze gives us new concepts to account for what exists and for reality, in particular, in his definition of reality as both the virtual and the actual. For example, a coconut is both an actual coconut and the intensities or pure becomings it expresses in the encounter with the sensations of individuals (to become hard, to become grainy, to become hairy, to quench, to nourish).” -Williams, James. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide (pp. 7-8). Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition.

Been considering doing this for some time now, but have been holding back out of intimidation. But sometimes it’s like skydiving: you step through the threshold and gravity does the rest. I want to attempt a rough (and necessarily incomplete (sketch of what Williams describes as lying at the core of Difference and Repetition.

It starts with Deleuze’s slant on Kant’s model of how we come to know reality via the sensible, imagination, and apprehension. Deleuze’s model or Doctrine of the Faculties (according to Hughes’ secondary text (runs from the sensible to imagination onto memory and, finally, into thought. In terms of the first three points, we are looking at passive syntheses. It is not until we reach thought in Deleuze’s model (or Apprehension in Kant’s (that we start to move into active synthesis.

Now, returning to Williams, what this results in (and here we have to think of the individual as a space in which thoughts take place (is the subject’s engagement with reality or an object (or even an experience (as not an “all at once thing” thing, but rather a process of becoming. Whatever we are looking at or analyzing, we are always doing so in a shifting context: the virtual as compared to the actual. And the rest of the book is pretty much an analysis of the relationship between the virtual and the actual and its implications –that is if I am understanding it right.

And here again, we return to the import of the temporal in post-structuralist/modern thought that leads to the kind of postmodern smear that is so attractive (that which seduces and resonates with (to so many of its practitioners. Here we see the genealogical root of why it was Deleuze & Guatarri had to “tone it down” for A Thousand Plateaus after seeing how self destructive people (for instance: drug addicts (adapted many of the ideas and concepts of The Anti-Oedipus to their own ends: how they embraced the speed smear of the constant acceleration that Deleuze saw our full potential in.
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