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On Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's What Is Philosophy? (1991).
This is a short preview of our full-length, vintage episode, which you can purchase by itself, or get our whole catalog free, beamed to your mobile device, by becoming a PEL supporter: see partiallyexaminedlife.com/support.
How is philosophy different from science and art? What's the relationship between different philosophies? Is better pursued solo, or in a group? Deleuze described philosophy as the creation of new concepts, whereas science is about functions that map observed regularities and art is about creating percepts and affects. Just reading or writing about past philosophers is not enough; you have to actually create concepts, and to create or understand a concept requires a "plane of immanence," which is something like a set of background intuitions that is not private to a particular mind. Such a plane constitutes an image of what thought is and determines what questions will be considered legitimate, so trying to evaluate a past philosophy without grappling with the plane means you'll inevitably misunderstand the philosopher and your critiques will just talk past him or her. Likewise, if you yank a philosophical concept out of its plane and try to turn it into a proposition that you can evaluate, it's inevitably going to seem weak, like "just an opinion," because propositions are not what philosophy creates. As for a pragmatist, "truth" for Deleuze is something defined within a plane, not some transcendental standard used to judge planes or concepts.
Mark, Seth, and Dylan are joined by "sophist" (PhD in rhetoric) Daniel Coffeen to try to figure this out. Read more about the topic and get the book.
End song: "Tolerated" by New People, the new album Might Get It Right. Read about it.
Took me half way through the episode to realize that fourth voice was familiar because it was the same from the free Berkely lectures on Rhetoric on iTunes.
Glad to see you could get Coffeen on the podcast!
I’m curious then (and I think this question was touched on even if it wasn’t addressed explicitly), how would a Deleuzian philosophy of philosophy inform a reading of “What is Philosophy?”
This is a serious question.
I tried to raise some of the tensions at hand in the earlier Deleuze thread, the academic approach is to try and work out what he was saying and than think about how it applies( or not), but Deleuze was in some significant ways working against this tradition/domestication and so there is no obvious answer that I can see which may be part of the point.
The same problem seems to exist in any kind of paradign shifting text–what’s the most effective, or one of the more intersting/useful ways for interpreting something that is itself urging a fundamentally different set of terms and conditions of interpretation?
Wittgenstein’s work falls into this a lot.
yes, see my link below
Just listened to most of the podcast. I find Deleuze maddening (- if philosophy isn’t about the truth, but about creating and developing concepts that are interesting and beautiful and important, then the avowed task of other philosophers – to get at the truth – is undermined. This stuff is like a virus that kills our capacity to think critically in choosing one concept over another because it’s better or more cogent or more humane or more closely corresponds to the world. And Daniel Coffeen’s statement of what “our job is as readers” (http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2013/05/17/on-daniel-coffeen-rhetoric-deleuze-and-such/) is also maddening. If I had a teacher who taught philosophical texts (Plato, JL Austen) in a Deleuzian way – as illustrations of a philosophical concept found elsewhere (in Deleuze) rather than a set of claims and arguments that ought to be examined on their own terms and against other ideas – I’d reject the teacher as disingenuous. Teaching Plato-as-Deleuze or Austen-as-Deleuze is just as bad as a Christian ideologue teaching, say, Tolstoy as an illustration of the truth that Christ is Lord – without explaining that this is his/her presupposition! It’s imposing his philosophical framework on us. It’s dishonest. And it doesn’t seem to offer us much hope in the way of resistance to tyranny. If Deleuze is correct, what’s preventing those in power from saying “this is the world that I deem interesting, exciting, and important, and if you disagree, too bad”? And what then would we say to them? No wonder Coffeen is in advertising. Deleuze is a terrific instrument for those in power/with capital seeking to impose their bullshit on the poor and the weak.
The concern of appropriating or recuperating Deleuze and some theorists like Deleuze for the purposes you describe IS very real and has been addressed in Deleuze scholarship (and there have been some instances of the appropriation, one famous military example and various pro-capitalist ones). But what is sort of missing from your critique is the context in which Deleuze wrote: he was surrounded my Marxists and anarchists, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, radicals and communist militants of every sect and persuasion. The ’60s in France were crazy, it wasn’t some hippie #occupy peace & love thing—–it was revolution, insurrection, and that was very real and tangible in everyday life. Deleuze, like Foucault and Sartre, were engaged with that everyday revolutionary praxis, more or less. He didn’t write from an ivory tower some exclusively elitist texts meant for rich kids and reactionaries, he wrote to his crowd, his friends, his surroundings, and to the movement. There are polemical texts where he explicitly states that philosophy today must be a critique of capitalism, or that he sees the concepts and the theory as a kind of toolbox to be used by the revolution.
Secondly, his pedagogical prowess ought to be judged by his actual lectures, not meant for students who pay ridiculous American tuition fees, but were open to everyone (and were, in the 60s and 70s attended by all kinds of people, for intellectuals in France were then a bit like rockstars…) Some of those lectures, on Kant, Leibniz, Spinoza, Rousseau are available for free online. If you google ‘webdeleuze’ you can read them.
They’re a passionate explanation and an effort to really grasp a thinker by understanding what their problems were, how they engaged those problems. In them, he doesn’t really impose any of his own frameworks on them, and in fact is more faithful to their efforts than any analytical exposition of propositions could be. But really, your examples really are not the right image of his teaching. At all.
But, yes, you are right, Deleuzian theory and jargon can be and have been appropriated to purposes he himself would have utterly hated, and associated with thought he actively rebelled against (not to mention Guattari, who was even more militant, and put his anarchist principles to work in his psychiatry). But this is to divorce him from his surroundings. For instance, if I were surrounded by revolution and militants, and all of my friends and colleagues would be radical leftists, I wouldn’t feel a burning need to write analytical expositions about whether the discourse of the enemy (accepted as enemy by everyone I know and associate with) has a truth-value in this or that proposition. To me, that would suggest a deep-seated liberalism and reformism, an idea that the revolution is brought forth on the level of philosophy rather than on the streets and the barricades. Deleuze was a revolutionary doing philosophy because he loved philosophy. Around him were mathematicians, anthropologists, neuroscientists, artists and laborers who were engaged in revolutionary praxis without pretending their respective medium of work is the exclusive means to combat capitalism and the state. In a nutshell, he wasn’t A Noble and Enlightened Savior for the Poor and the Weak; in his lifetime, he saw the poor and the weak rise up to save themselves. And also, ffs, ‘What is Philosophy?’ and this podcast doesn’t exhaust his thought, work, teaching or life.
taking a break at 1:30ish into the podcast (which is great so far tho we are in the deep end of the pool now so will be interested in how it plays to the wider public) to note that we should take a look some time at Richard Rorty on Davidson, metaphors and Kuhn, in fact for the more analytically socialized a show on Donald Davidson (schemes/contents, metaphors, and such) might be a good bridge to this kind of continental work, back to listening!
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-aesthetics/
just a follow up note that De Landa has his own distinct project going on and I hope that some day soon he will speak of Deleuze as an inspiration and not for Deleuze, and since Wes was MIA:
http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia02/parrhesia02_smith.pdf
The same problem seems to exist in any kind of paradign shifting text–what’s the most effective, or one of the more intersting/useful ways for interpreting something that is itself urging a fundamentally different set of terms and conditions of interpretation?
Wittgenstein’s work falls into this a lot.
Hi and kudos – Daniel Coffeen mentioned he had just done a paper on Art & Design. I’d be very interested to read it. If it is available, can you please point me to it? (Couldn’t see it, or an email address on his site http://www.joyfulcomplexity.com)
He says it’s at http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/2013/04/design-vs-art.html?m=1.
Super. Many thanks
I haven’t read Deleuze, but I enjoyed the discussion. A couple questions- Is there no downside to encouraging philosophers toward the proliferation of new concepts rather than other, perhaps less self indulgent tasks, such as the synthesis or examination of existing ideas and concepts? Or are those things intended to be included under this notion of philosophy? The anecdote of Foucault and Deleuze hanging out and getting high together seemed naturally in line with this. It sounds like it might be a good strategy for developing one’s own perspective and ideas, but I wonder how conducive it is for creating philosophers that can actually communicate with other people.
Despite finding the postmoderns genuinely interesting, often even profound, I’ll admit that I’m consistently irritated by the writing. Searle claims that Foucault told him outright that, in Paris at the time, no one would take you seriously if at least a third of your writing wasn’t completely incomprehensible. Maybe Foucault was joking( Searle didn’t seem to think so), but I have to wonder if it wasn’t at least partially true.
” I wonder how conducive it is for creating philosophers that can actually communicate with other people.”
I think that if these philosophers were creating concepts which dealt with the ability to communicate philosophical concepts, then it would be conducive. This is not a tautological statement, just indicating that if a philosopher wants to impact the world, as I think Deleuze thinks they should, then they need to expend some energy to the style of how they communicate their ideas. I think that Deleuze and Guattari spend a lot of energy on this – Thousand Plateaus in particular is an exercise in not just explaining multiplicty, but ‘doing’ multiplicity (in the form of a book), so that even if some paragraphs or pages are difficult to fathom in a critical sense, their message is still felt in an intuitive sense.
Daniel,
Your concerns are voiced regularly and you are clearly not alone. The whole process seems to have started with Hegel who not only became unbelievably difficult, but also presented a theory of everything. His influence continues to be strong, not because of his obscurity, but because of the power of his thought.
Husserl then picked up the heritage of difficult writing and thinking and moved the cause forward. Then there was Heidegger, the next philosopher of everything who was obscure as well as metaphysically revolutionary and his thought continues to influence many. Then the French decided to compete with the Germans, and the war was on. But in the mean time, many obscure concepts became verbalized and made explicit.
Are all of these Continental Philosophers just scamming everyone and trying to make it difficult just because they can? As I throw myself into trying to understand each philosopher, Continental or Analytic, I usually find my frustration of understanding to be at my own inability and lack of experience to understand (shared by many), and my lack of patience, which, if pursued, leads to comprehension and the ability to decode the uniqueness of the philosopher’s language.
Why do they develop such idiosyncratic languages? I now believe that it is due to the actual complexity and difficulty of the reality which they are trying to reduce to language, because time after time, the language becomes clear and could not mean other than what it says (not necessarily in all details, but in the main concepts and meanings). At least that is my experience. What Deleuze is up to is an entirely new metaphysics with many foundational issues at stake which perhaps could not be approached in any better way.
There are many anecdotes about philosophers and authors which are not pertinant unless their work is adversely affected, which I do not believe is the case with Deleuze.
Thanks for the response, Wayne. I think part of my frustration stems from a dislike of being forced to secondary texts, which often seem to add as many disputes as they appear to resolve, or if not, beg the question of whether the ideas can be expressed more clearly. I’m always suspicious of philosophers who overload readers with piles of their own jargon, because it begins to feel more like indoctrination than education. It’s extremely difficult to think critically about things that can only be said or thought about in one way. The narrower the bridge of common language to the new terms and ideas, the more guesswork that’s left for the reader.
Generally speaking, I’m all for philosophers writing poetically, but when you look at someone like Nietzsche, it’s clear that this can be done while still remaining largely intelligible to the everyman. I applaud the mission of pushing the boundaries of language to accommodate new ideas, many of my favorite poets work in a similar way, but whereas a good poet can wring a new idea out of the familiar, many philosophers seem to prefer skipping that work, and just slapping down a new term and assuming the reader will pick it up on the fly. As you say point out, though, I’ll be interested to see if my perspective changes as I continue delving into this stuff.
I’ve wondered if a little purposeful obscurity never found it’s way into the writing of Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, or for that matter, Zizek. It also seems likely that there’s good motivation for writers in the academic world to be difficult rather than easily understood. I don’t at all mean to imply that there aren’t great ideas there – some of these guys got me interested in philosophy to begin with, and I still prefer most of them to the analytic tradition.
Just speaking for myself, I find that the more abstract an idea I am trying to explain, the more difficult it is to be clear. I most appreciate when someone can make the obscure clear, like these PEL guys.
I think Foucault is understandably but unfairly lumped in with folks like Derrida and Deleuze when it comes to their obscurantism.
I agree with both Daniel and Wayne, BTW, but I think reading Derrida as a form of prose poetry, in which he SHOWS his points about the inaccessibility of meaning, is quite helpful. Foucault, on the other hand, suffers I think from what Wayne is describing–very abstract ideas that are difficult to make clear.
Not sure where Deleuze fits into this, but I will say the only things I have been able to garner from him were expressed nicely by the PEL guys.
David–
Looking forward to hearing more from you about Foucault.
Random Notes on the podcast:
Good Deleuzian times with the conceptual personae: Daniel the Sophist, Wowbanger Mark, Synergetic Seth, and Dylan the Dynamic Mechanic. Good choice of “What is Philosophy” to jump into Deleuze with the focus on the meaning of “concept.” It is also easy to slide off the Plane of Immanence due to the interlocking concepts Deleuze has developed. I’m fairly sure that the mention of the “crack in the sidewalk” qualifies more for a percept rather than a concept. (This safeguards turning the thing in itself into a transcendental).
Regarding various references to Derrida–he pretty much avoids metaphysics while Derrida is all in. There is almost no difference between each when it comes to their stance on difference, except their way of expressing it. Derrida has focused his position on difference textually, while Deleuze applies difference to everything–the biological, psychic, physical, sociological, etc. In other words, they are equally deconstructive and their positions are comensurable.
Regarding a comment on Deluze not “dislocating the self:” I will eventually be blogging or posting on Deleuze’s concept of self (at the end of chapter 5, ‘Difference and Repetition’). However, there is also almost no necessary conflict between Lacan and Deleuze’s concept of self (worthy of another blog or post). The self is no less dislocated for Deleuze than for Lacan, and he consistently references the “fractured I,” meaning there are no privileged transcendental concepts, either of “I” or of “God.” In fact, on his explorations of the sentient self, he talks about sub-egos, fitting with his concept of emergence and immanence. Deleuze’s concept of self is no more secure than Lacan’s. Deleuze makes many positive references to Lacan in his earlier works, and they may have collaborated if Lacan had not been rude to Deleuze (Story is he kept Deleuze waiting excessively in his waiting room and was basically rude when they met.)
Regarding Delanda on Deleuze (see Joe Hughes, 2009, p. 183): Good News–the best elucidation of Deleuze’s approaches to biology, math and science from the position of a non-essentialist metaphysics. Bad News–Delanda recasts “Deluze’s ontology as a ‘realist ontology’ thus dragging Deleuze back into the false alternative–mind or matter–that French philosophy had just overcome.” (Hughes, p. 184).
Overall, the PEL episode was an amazingly entertaining wild-toad ride through a Plane of Immanence. The conceptual personae, Daniel the Sophist, Wowbanger Mark, Synergetic Seth, and Dylan the Dynamic Mechanic avoided merely nailing Jello to the wall and significantly helped elucidate Deleuze and his definition of “What is Philosophy.” Thanks for the ride.
interesting so you don’t read Anti-Oedipus as working against Lacan?
As for Deleuze avoiding metaphysics while Derrida embracing it, or their being basically on the same page in relation to difference/deconstruction, that’s some radical through the looking glass stuff there looking forward to seeing how you come to such against the grain conclusions in your coming posts. Did you study continental philo here in the US (assuming that you are in the US)?
dmf–
Regarding Derrida, I got that backwards somehow: Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition is his foundational metaphysics based on difference. While Derrida takes difference all the way as well, he mostly focuses on the verbal, textual, without addressing Nature and “biopsychic life”, like Deleuze does. That is not to say that Derrida does not end up addressing similar metaphysical issues along the way. Difference is deconstruction all the way down in that nothing gets privileged beyond what it is, from words to particles–singularity over universality, Historically God has been privileged to explain the universe. Humanism has privileged the self to explain the universe (overstatements of course). Difference privileges nothing, and hence is deconstructive. Derrida never wrote a word to express his own position unless he was responding to some one else’s position, addressing how they would privilege this or that, and come back around to fill out the wider reality.
Of course, Anti-Oedipus works against all psychoanalysis including Freud and Lacan (in favor of social versus psychological drives). I was focusing more on the concept of self as a privileged entity, which is denied by both. (P.S. I am US based).
dmf
I appreciate the subtleness/challenge of your comments.
Regarding: Between Deleuze and Derrida [BD&D]; eds. Patton-Protevi, article by Daniel Smith:
Smith says “Derrida refuses to assign any content to this transcendence, what he retains from the tradition [negative theology] is its formal structure: differance is that which is never present as such, is absolutely other, discernible only through its trace, whose movement is infinitely deferred, infinitely differing from itself, definable, at best, in terms of what is not.” (BD&D, p. 54)
“In Deleuze one finds an ontology that seeks to expunge from Being all remnants of transcendence, whereas in Derrida one finds an ontology that seeks to trace the eruptions and movements of transcendence within Being.” (BD&D, p. 55)
I find the absence of Deleuze’s concept of transcendental immanence to be very glaring in his development of transcendence in Derrida, and its absence in Deleuze. In fact, many Derridians were upset with Derrida’s later movement toward the possibility of transcendence. Derrida himself only speaks transcendentally with the caveat of “perhaps” when it comes to the possibility of justice, etc.
In contrast, Deleuze emphasizes the transcendent as breaking through the empirical with profound impact. His transcendent is not based on privileged human reason or on privileged God concepts , but on attempting to understand the conditions for the possibility of conscious experience (the sense of “I”). Since reality does not reveal the preconditions of experience, we must use transcendental, deductive study to reveal the implicit conditions necessary for consciousness. These unthought conditions lie beyond the reach of empirical consciousness, so there is no “I” who experiences, but only contingent and emergent effects of events, responses, memory functions, social forces, chance happenings, belief systems, economic conditions, etc.—the reality of intensity and multiplicity.
Yes, Deleuze insists on the primacy of immanence as the possibility of transcendence, while Derrida insists on the primacy of opposition [negative thology] as the possibility of transcendence (but with no content). It is my thesis that Deleuze and Derrida have more in common than not. A true difference between the transcendental and immanent would be between Levinas and Deleuze.
not sure quite how this line of thought that you are crafting together fits in with the question/topic of what is Philosophy/Thinking (Was Heisst Denken, if you will) but I can see that you prefer working through secondary texts so if you get a chance see what you make of:
http://www.jcrt.org/archives/01.3/caputo.shtml
As you may know, I’m currently mostly through Deleuze’s Difference and Repetion, which is my source along with primary texts of Derrida. Your questioning caused me to check out Daniel Smith’s opinions, which reflect yours, and then have the basis on which to respond. I have found Caputo foundational in getting a hand on many Continentals, and do not disagree with his positions.
Lets get to the basis of your objections–I can only respond to the explicit. “What is Philosophy” is concepts, according to Deleuze, and I am trying to express the meaning of his concepts, which is based on Difference and Repetition. Amazing this was his last book.
Oops–“this” meaning What is Philosophy. I think he must have been amazed at how how little his philosophy had influence, and tried to make his “concepts” more accessible in this last book.
Derrida speaking on “what comes before the question”:
dmf
I am thoroughly enjoying your resonance with Derrida, which is helping me understand him more deeply, and especially appreciate his concept of rapport with others, affirming first the “yes” with the Other (which is his strength) .
I am also amazed by your internet discourse facility–as though you have a database of concepts to pull up at will, and can speak “internetease” regarding your own philosophical understanding–very cool (although I appreciate your own voice as foundational).
Now, to the Derrida/Deluze UFC. So Deleuze claims that the best approach to “What is Philosophy” is to address, not solutions, but problems (questions) and what does Derrida say? The issue is not questions (problems), but “What comes before the Question.” I’m not sure anyone survives the deconstruction of Derrida, so I think this tantalizing seven minutes of philosophy by Derrida is wonderfully foreboding.
What is trace for Derrida? Minimal repeatability. Sound like Repetion in Deluze? Derrida is on the same page with Deleuze here, trying to outflank him by questioning questioning (a brilliant move, not unlike a chess master), and very Deluzian to try and think the unthinkable thought. But does “super-questioning” really get beyond questioning? And does it get to the Other? Do we need the Other? Hell NO! –if it means Master-Slave relationships–a total confounding of reality (any response to this is welcomed).
It appears to me that Derrida is founding his metaphysics as he goes by bouncing off of others and adding to his metaphysics while Deleuze first establishes his metaphysics and then proceeds (guess that is an observation of a limitation on Derrida’s part). But basically I am in process on Deleuze and Derrida and looking forward to better understanding of both. Many thanks for your input dmf–so cool to see Philosophy in the making.
thanks for the ongoing efforts and kind words, these are very tough matters as we have by and large been taught to think/interpret in terms of quasi-scientific/encyclopedic modes and these thinkers are in some significant ways working against this kind of analytic approach/tradition and so challenging us to think of what exceeds such disciplines/approaches and yet the make use of them at the same time, part of the ‘shock’ of the new requires enough of a context/associations of the familiar/known to make it at least recognizable as possibly containing information/knowledge while still not being reducible to what is already known, and if we are to learn new ways of knowing/seeing we will have to learn to tolerate, perhaps even embrace, not-knowing not grasping. These matters are hard enough to discuss with lots of face time, texts at hand, and common educational bases so we are all having to make it up as we go within these new frameworks/technologies, there are no guarantees of success but than I have always been a bit of a DIYer and ya know nothing gained nothing lost, some people don’t enjoy moving beyond their comfort zones of mastery others do, no accounting for taste…
dmf
No accounting for taste at all 🙂 And thanks for your going beyond the comfort zones of mastery, which may be our own illusions/false securities anyway. Nothing risked, nothing gained. Thanks for your perspectives–Wayne.
I’ve always imagined the difference between Derrida and Deleuze being their respective starting points and hence respective notions of the limit.
Derrida begins with metaphysical claims that will always already have undone themselves — which, of course, makes the possibility of beginning a double gesture: to close and unclose at the same time. Derrida, then, always positions himself at this juncture where one thing gives way to something else; this is the performance of differance.
Deleuze, meanwhile, doesn’t feel any need to undo metaphysics. He’s interested in the odd logics by which forms come to be constituted. For this reason, Badiou considers Deleuze a metaphysician. To which Deleuze would say, Who cares? Deleuze claims repeatedly that the middle is where things get interesting, things pick up speed. If Derrida positions himself at the juncture where one text gives way to another (the limit), Deleuze positions himself at the point of a text’s (multiple) emergence (the middle).
Now, for Deleuze, the limit and the middle are not opposed; a form’s limit is not its outline but its very constitution. For Derrida, however, the limit is a point of bleed.
Consider their rhetorical/reading strategies: Derrida begins from the outside in, from the footnotes and mistakes, the periphery of the text (the margins of philosophy). Deleuze, meanwhile, begins mid-conversation — the opening line of The Fold is, “There have always been folds…” as if we’d all been discussing that for ages. That is, Deleuze begins in the middle.
Or consider how they read philosophers. Derrida deconstructs them, discovering those moments at which a philosophy, concept, text undoes itself. Deleuze, however, crawls inside a text and (re)inhabits it to create a Deleuze-Liebniz, a Deleuze-Spinoza, etc.
Deleuze seeks the complex emergence of form. Derrida seeks the double gesture of a text’s doing/undoing.
I’ve never been convinced by Derrida’s self-effacing/erasing claims that the texts where self-deconstructing, I think that like Deleuze he was also in the assemblage/creation (as bricolage is akin to engineering/inventing) business, but I do think that Derrida felt that like Heidegger he was sort of unleashing/uncovering what was always already at work in the historical efforts/genius of Philosophy/Concepts, while Deleuze seems more in line with current models of emergence and such.
do you read his later work on Justice, Hospitality, and such as kinds of phenomenologies/graphing of quasi-transcendental Concepts or as more performative/rhetorical speech-acts with a more ameliorative/pragmatist angle? I have asked Ronell and others but never really gotten much of an answer.
Daniel–
Thanks for your contrasting pictures of Derrida and Deleuze. To me, the way they differ the most is on the logic of opposition—a foundational concept for Derrida, while Deleuze sees the logic of opposition as false because there is a whole world outside of opposites: singularities which are always identified by diffrences.
Also, thank you for your entertaining and enlightening participation in the Deleuze podcast. Here are my thoughts attempting to clarify Deleuze’s concept of “Concept,” and would appreciate your feedback:
The answer to “What is Philosophy?” for Deleuze is all about the development, explication and dynamic integration of concepts and systems of concepts.
What makes Deleuze so hard to pin down is that he rejects abstract, analytic thinking that is usually mistaken for philosophy, and also as common thinking. Therefore, all of his terms will normally be thought of in terms of the “Image of Thought,” or in terms of some abstract and analytical thinking which he explicates as illusory.
So if we start with “concept,” the misinterpretation that he is referring to presuppostional thinking (Socrates is a man) and categorical/abstract thinking (therefore Socrates is human) which leads to the building blocks of a philosophy. For Deleuze, “concept” bypasses the artificial barrier between reason and sensibility, by fundamentally expressing the richness of lived experience, not focusing on Platonic forms (“horseness” does not yield the experience of a horse). Genuine concepts need to be able to take us beyond our abstract thinking, our everyday experiences and lead to novelty and new possibilities.
A way of getting beyond mundane concepts which usually are focused on making analytic observations for the purpose of coming to a solution, is to think in terms of what is the problem that the solution is trying to solve. It is most productive to think outside the solution (outside the box), and include additional possible variables related to new concepts and establish novel connections.
Valid concepts address states of affairs in events, insights, experiences and problems as contingent on each event. Concepts are thought of as dynamically a part of the singularity of circumstances of its production and are thus neither hypothetical nor an apriori. Concepts are active, creative and embedded rather than abstract, representative, descriptive, and simplifying as is the”Image of Thought.” We shall see how concepts take different forms in art, science and other domains.
Not only is Deleuze’s concept of “concept” a good example, all of his books are assemblages of concepts (symbolized) now existing on the Plane of Immanence: actualizations which are both provisional solutions, and signs toward future problems to be raised up out of the virtual of Ideas (the nonsymbolized).
The next concept, “Plane of Immanence” gives a clue to his radical position of the sheer immanence of life. Everything is in everything all the way down, pure differences–nothing transcends or escapes to another realm as with the excesses and essences of Kant and Plato. What this means regarding Kant, is that reason yields the transcendental illusion of knowing things in themselves. Kant outlines this illusion, defines the transcendental unity of apperception, and almost pulls out of the illusion, but then descends back into the abstraction of the transcendental, (which yields the illusory concepts of all three of his Critiques.) Kant comes close to true thinking with the concept of the sublime.
The Plane of Immanence is synonymous with the Actual, what we would call reality. Concepts appear in the Plane of Immanence as here-and-now provisional solutions to lurking problems which actually arise from a deeper source than concepts, which is that of Ideas, linked to problems which hover just outside the Plane of Immanence in the space of the Virtual, the not-yet, the possible, the problematic and the potential.
Perhaps the best metaphor here is that of the ocean where the Plane of Immanence is the surface, below the surface is the Virtual (potential, ideas) , and the waves are the Actual (reality, concepts) , but provisional solutions, just for now. The surface of the ocean (the plane of immanence) does not cause anything–it is the “place” where the play of forces merely come into being and participate in becoming (through the processes of Difference and Repetition). What selects good Ideas is the process of Repetition itself.
What is Philosophy? Philosophy (and each domain) is derived from potential, virtual ideas which have actualized into individualized concepts of: philosophy, art, science, mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, sociology, etc. The creativity of art is expressed in percepts and affects, science is expressed in propositions (E=MC2), and philosophy is expressed in concepts.
Regarding Derrida and Deluze, above: ” the way they differ the most is on the logic of opposition—a foundational concept for Derrida, while Deleuze sees the logic of opposition as false because there is a whole world outside of opposites: singularities which are always identified by diffrences.”
I guess the conclusion from this is that Derrida is caught in the same oppositional/negative loop as Hegel which by necessity must result in an infinite logical regress of representational, imagistic thinking, rather than moving out of the loop, out of the box, out of the text.
Haven’t given this much thought yet, but it fits with his not establishing his own broader metaphysics, and waiting for someone to make a privileged statement, and then make his case–a basic negation/balancing process rather than some logically bigger picture. Even his Avenir, his “perhaps” of the messianic future of justice is based on justice, etc. being the impossible (negation) rather than affirmation. Any thoughts?
I’m afraid that the philosophical complications of thinking of the conditions of the possibility would be a whole seminar series worth of work just to get working definitions on the table, but we do have to consider that Derrida insists on a kind of first/primal “Oui” in his work despite his emphasis on deferral in différance, now whether or not he ever delivered on this promissory note is a whole other matter, you may want to look into his work on khôra but I found that his later work is as much of dead end as the later Heidegger, good luck.
The above observation regarding the false logic of oppositional/negation thinking is reiterated here:
http://www.lacan.com/zizplato.htm (a helpful lacanian website) I think this is written by Zizek–
“Deleuze’s most radical anti-Hegelian argument concerns pure difference: Hegel is unable to think pure difference which is outside the horizon of identity/contradiction; Hegel conceives a radicalized difference as contradiction which, then, through its dialectical resolution, is again subsumed under identity. (Here, Deleuze is also opposed to Derrida who, from his perspective, remains caught within the vicious cycle of contradiction/identity, merely postponing resolution indefinitely.) And insofar as Hegel is the philosopher of actuality/actualization, insofar as, for him, the “truth” of a potentiality is revealed in its actualization, Hegel’s inability to think pure difference equals his inability to think the virtual in its proper dimension, as a possibility which already qua possibility possesses its own reality: pure difference is not actual, it does not concern different actual properties of a thing or among things, its status is purely virtual, it is a difference which takes place at its purest precisely when nothing changes in actuality, when, in actuality, the SAME thing repeats itself. – Effectively, it may appear that it is only Deleuze who formulates the truly post-Hegelian program of thinking difference: the Derridean “opening” which emphasizes the endless difference, the dissemination that cannot ever be sublated/reappropriated, etc., remains within the Hegelian framework, merely “opening” it up…”
“The speculative object and the practical object of philosophy as Naturalism, science and pleasure, coincide on this point: it is always a matter of denouncing the illusion, the false infinite, the infinity of religion and all of the myths in which it is expressed. To the question “what is the use of philosophy” the answer must be: who else would have an interest in holding forth the image of a free man, and in denouncing all of the forces which need myth and troubled souls in order to establish their power?”
– Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, p. 278-9
Seth:
Regarding what is the criteria for selecting better concepts, Deleuze refers not to what is in the philosopher’s head but more to the evolutionary force that selects out a better anything–from the intellectual to the biological to the quantum physical. I think the driver of this ‘becoming’ of the play of forces is what Deleuze starts out with in Difference and Repetition: repetition itself.
Repetition is about discovery and experimentation which allows new experiences, affects and expressions to emerge, as opposed to mere reproduction of the Same. Therefore Difference becomes essential in evolution of repetition. “What repeats is the full force of difference in and of itself, those pre-individual singularities that radically maximize difference on a plane of immanence.”
The play of the forces of difference and differentiation selects out what gets repeated. Habit and convention are over-ridden by the creativity of repetition in all domains of “biopsychic life.”
(See Adrian Parr, in the Deleuze Dictionary, p. 225)
[Re-posting here because I would like this posted as a new comment, not as a response to a comment] Just listened to most of the podcast. I find Deleuze maddening. If philosophy isn’t about the truth, but about creating and developing concepts that are interesting and beautiful and important, then the avowed task of other philosophers – to get at the truth – is undermined. This stuff is like a virus that kills our capacity to think critically in choosing one concept over another because it’s better or more cogent or more humane or more closely corresponds to the world. And Daniel Coffeen’s statement of what “our job is as readers” (http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2013/05/17/on-daniel-coffeen-rhetoric-deleuze-and-such/) is also maddening. If I had a teacher who taught philosophical texts (Plato, JL Austen) in a Deleuzian way – as illustrations of a philosophical concept found elsewhere (in Deleuze) rather than a set of claims and arguments that ought to be examined on their own terms and against other ideas – I’d reject the teacher as disingenuous. Teaching Plato-as-Deleuze or Austen-as-Deleuze is just as bad as a Christian ideologue teaching, say, Tolstoy as an illustration of the truth that Christ is Lord – without explaining that this is his/her presupposition! It’s imposing his philosophical framework on us. It’s dishonest. And it doesn’t seem to offer us much hope in the way of resistance to tyranny. If Deleuze is correct, what’s preventing those in power from saying “this is the world that I deem interesting, exciting, and important, and if you disagree, too bad”? And what then would we say to them? No wonder Coffeen is in advertising. Deleuze is a terrific instrument for those in power/with capital seeking to impose their bullshit on the poor and the weak.
Margaret, I’m not sure why you have to insult Daniel or what he does for a living in order to register an intellectual disagreement. How does that get anyone to be sympathetic to your point? Are your hands so clean?
“If philosophy is not about truth”
“kills our capactity to think critically in chosing one concept over another”
“imposing his philosophical framework on us. It’s dishonest.”
“doesn’t seem to offer us any hope in the way of resistance to tyranny”
“if you disagree, too bad”
“impose their bullshit on the poor and the weak”
Margaret–
Most of your comments (e.g., above) indicate that you see Deleuze/Coffeen as authoritarian in defining truth, and therefore maddening. I too am maddened if anyone tries to tell me what truth is or is not.
I do not know from your comments at what point in the podcast, or why you felt alienated by PEL’s presentation of Deluze, apparently around the issue of truth versus concept first, and then regarding Coffeen’s statement of “our job is as readers” (although I can not find this quote on the link you provided).
I don’t know if you have read Deleuze’s (& Guattari’s) “A Thousand Plauteaus, or “Anti-Oedipus,” but I guarantee you that they come from anything but an authoritarian point of view. I would suggest that you are reacting more to the PEL presentation rather than to the true perspective of Deleuze.–Wayne.
this brief blog post might be compatible and yet a more simple way to describe philosophy’s relation to art and science.
http://elementalcosmos.com/post/42409628694/elementalmethod-artandscience
This was the first PEL podcast that I have downloaded and since then I have listened and enjoyed many more. I was curious to see how Deleuze and Guattari are perceived from the strictly philosophical point of view. I come from contemporary art and this duo together with many other, often French thinkers are very popular in artistic and curatorial circles. You’d be actually hard pressed to find an art or architectural biennial catalogue in recent times (which are growing in number exponentially each year) that doesn’t mention D&G in some way. Your guest-expert projected a typical overwhelming enthusiasm that I associate with fans of this kind writing, and which funny enough, couldn’t be more different from the manner the writers themselves have. But you guys did give it a thorough read and I really enjoyed the discussion.
Since I am not a philosopher, reading D&G is in some ways much easier for me: I can gloss over things, take and appropriate what I like, react intuitively and respond to its poetry. And the writing itself resembles art. That is I think an important aspect of D&G work: that the text shouldn’t just describe things from some kind of meta position, but should be in the middle of it, to act and perform. Some of those old philosophical questions like the dualism of mentality and matter have daily presence in an art practice: a thinking human is going through the process of conceptualizing and creating material things. Maybe that is something D&G are trying to achieve: to move beyond immaterial theory and push philosophical text to adopt a material form. Something analogous to the development of the 20th century painting.
Listening to PEL made me want to read more about what’s going on in contemporary philosophy. That in turn lead me to read up on analytical philosophy, which seems to take the center stage in academia. It is no surprise that this type of stuff wouldn’t have much in common with arts. Just this desperate insistence on the wit in some of those OxCam writers seems to subconsciously overcompensates for how utterly dry, boring and removed their subject matter is. I think that this dynamic has created a vacuum in the culture. Which would explain the emergence of various types of “theory” that have flooded the field and taken a lot of territory that philosophy once used to occupy. The development of the theory including the use of the term, especially the way it was appropriated since Frankfurt School could actually be an interesting theme for a PEL episode.