Hey, where is everybody?
Come on, when you read a Deleuze post, don't you have that little itch at
the end? That sense of some tendril being thrust from the screen through
your eyes, your brain, down the nerves to your fingers hovering over that
"reply" function? Extend the rhizome! Don't "create" if you're too sleepy,
but let the ping pong ball keep bouncing!
For myself, I've been reading the galley of "What is Philosophy?" which
should be out in a month or two. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell
trans, Columbia putting it out.
The book is fairly arborescent in
structure--D&G seem to be stepping back an assessing philosophy, fighting
off the infidels and advertisers and making distinctions. The skeleton?
SECTION ONE: Philosophy
4 chapters:
What is a concept? [Herein they define a properly philosophical concept,
which is non-discursive, self-referential, distinguished from propositions:
"The concept speaks the event, not the essence or the thing"
2: The Plane of Immanence: Amazing and rich construction of this fractal
plane, this philosophical sieve that cuts chaos, this infinite zone always
warring against the tendency towards transcendecne and producing the
"image of thought" which hosts the concepts delineated above.
"Concepts ar the archipelago or skeletal frame, a spinal column rather
than a skull, whereas the plane is the breath that suffuses the separate
parts. Concepts are absolute surfaces or volumes, formless and
fragmentary, wheras the plane is formless, unlimited absolute, neither
surface nor volume but always fractal..."
3.Conceptual personae: the idiot, the cogito, the friend--philosophical
personnae. "It is through our personae that we philosophers become always
something else and reborn as public garden or zoo."
4. Geophilosophy: A suprisingly direct, problematic and fascinating
discussion of politcs and history as they relate to the philosophical
undertaking. Anarchists will be pleased, and Deleuze's critique opf the
language of rights should be read by anyone trying to kidnap him into
naive pc pomodism. Also a great critique of "communication"--in many ways,
WIP? does a lot of incisive (and often funny) lambasting of the various
things that D&G (though it sounds more like D than G to me--is that
personalist of me?) are unimpressed and bored with: logic, communication,
journalistic novels, territorialized politics. It has a bit of "I Have
Nothing to Admit" flavor.
"...thought itself is sometimes closer to an animal that dies than to a
living, even democratic, human being...We do not lack communication. On
the contrary, we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance
to the present."
PART 2: Philosophy, Science, Logic and Art {wherein our heros distinguish
properly philosophical creation from the "functions" of science, the
"propositions" of logic and the "blocs of percepts and affects" of art.}
5. Functives and Concepts. Couldnt follow much of this, but I need to read
it again. "The fact that science is discursive in no way means that it is
deductive. On the contrary, in its bifurcations it undergoes many
catastrophes, ruptures and reconnections marked by proper names [the
scientific equivelent of philosophical personae]."
6.Prospects and Concepts. A critique of logic, some of which I couldn't
follow because I don't know much about the Anglo-American tradition, but
D&G really let loose some doozies. Devestating words against the logic of
consensus, opionion and communication:
"[Logic] is less like a game of chess, or a language game, than a quiz show."
"Ours is the age of communication, but every noble soul flees and crawls
far away whenever a little discussion, a colloquium, or a simple
conversation is suggested. In every conversation, the fate of philosophy
itself is always at stake, and many philosophical discussions do not go
beyond discussions of cheese...The philosophy of communication is
exhausted in the search for a universal liberal opinion as consensus, in
which we find again the cynical perceptions and affections of the
capitalist himself."
7. Percept, Affect, and Concept
Excellent discussion of art, with passages that breathe like D's wonderful
book about Proust. Also cool anarcho-stuff, like the following:
"Will all this [the event of art] be in vain because suffering is eternal
and revolutions do not survive their vicotry? But the success of a
revolution lies only in itself, precisely in the vibrations, clinches, and
openings it gave to men and women at the moment of its making and that
composes in itself a monument that is always in the process of becoming,
like those tumuli to which each new traveler adds a stone. The victory of
a revolution is immanent and consists in the new bonds it installs between
people, even if those bonds last no longer than the revolution's fused
material and quickly give way to division and betrayal."
8.Conclusion: From chaos to the brain.
Havent read it yet. Sounds good.
And one for the rhizomatic "Orientals":
[from the Tibetan Tangyur]: "Since the foundation of sentient beings is
without roots, the foundation of Buddha-knowledge is equally without
roots. This rootlessness is the root of enlightenment."
Hot potato!
[__]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \ / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[__]
[] Erik Davis (oo) Cernunnos sez (cribbing the Fall): The only []
[] erikd@xxxxxxxxx __ thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes. []
[__]==================== ww ==============================================[__]
------------------
Come on, when you read a Deleuze post, don't you have that little itch at
the end? That sense of some tendril being thrust from the screen through
your eyes, your brain, down the nerves to your fingers hovering over that
"reply" function? Extend the rhizome! Don't "create" if you're too sleepy,
but let the ping pong ball keep bouncing!
For myself, I've been reading the galley of "What is Philosophy?" which
should be out in a month or two. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell
trans, Columbia putting it out.
The book is fairly arborescent in
structure--D&G seem to be stepping back an assessing philosophy, fighting
off the infidels and advertisers and making distinctions. The skeleton?
SECTION ONE: Philosophy
4 chapters:
What is a concept? [Herein they define a properly philosophical concept,
which is non-discursive, self-referential, distinguished from propositions:
"The concept speaks the event, not the essence or the thing"
2: The Plane of Immanence: Amazing and rich construction of this fractal
plane, this philosophical sieve that cuts chaos, this infinite zone always
warring against the tendency towards transcendecne and producing the
"image of thought" which hosts the concepts delineated above.
"Concepts ar the archipelago or skeletal frame, a spinal column rather
than a skull, whereas the plane is the breath that suffuses the separate
parts. Concepts are absolute surfaces or volumes, formless and
fragmentary, wheras the plane is formless, unlimited absolute, neither
surface nor volume but always fractal..."
3.Conceptual personae: the idiot, the cogito, the friend--philosophical
personnae. "It is through our personae that we philosophers become always
something else and reborn as public garden or zoo."
4. Geophilosophy: A suprisingly direct, problematic and fascinating
discussion of politcs and history as they relate to the philosophical
undertaking. Anarchists will be pleased, and Deleuze's critique opf the
language of rights should be read by anyone trying to kidnap him into
naive pc pomodism. Also a great critique of "communication"--in many ways,
WIP? does a lot of incisive (and often funny) lambasting of the various
things that D&G (though it sounds more like D than G to me--is that
personalist of me?) are unimpressed and bored with: logic, communication,
journalistic novels, territorialized politics. It has a bit of "I Have
Nothing to Admit" flavor.
"...thought itself is sometimes closer to an animal that dies than to a
living, even democratic, human being...We do not lack communication. On
the contrary, we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance
to the present."
PART 2: Philosophy, Science, Logic and Art {wherein our heros distinguish
properly philosophical creation from the "functions" of science, the
"propositions" of logic and the "blocs of percepts and affects" of art.}
5. Functives and Concepts. Couldnt follow much of this, but I need to read
it again. "The fact that science is discursive in no way means that it is
deductive. On the contrary, in its bifurcations it undergoes many
catastrophes, ruptures and reconnections marked by proper names [the
scientific equivelent of philosophical personae]."
6.Prospects and Concepts. A critique of logic, some of which I couldn't
follow because I don't know much about the Anglo-American tradition, but
D&G really let loose some doozies. Devestating words against the logic of
consensus, opionion and communication:
"[Logic] is less like a game of chess, or a language game, than a quiz show."
"Ours is the age of communication, but every noble soul flees and crawls
far away whenever a little discussion, a colloquium, or a simple
conversation is suggested. In every conversation, the fate of philosophy
itself is always at stake, and many philosophical discussions do not go
beyond discussions of cheese...The philosophy of communication is
exhausted in the search for a universal liberal opinion as consensus, in
which we find again the cynical perceptions and affections of the
capitalist himself."
7. Percept, Affect, and Concept
Excellent discussion of art, with passages that breathe like D's wonderful
book about Proust. Also cool anarcho-stuff, like the following:
"Will all this [the event of art] be in vain because suffering is eternal
and revolutions do not survive their vicotry? But the success of a
revolution lies only in itself, precisely in the vibrations, clinches, and
openings it gave to men and women at the moment of its making and that
composes in itself a monument that is always in the process of becoming,
like those tumuli to which each new traveler adds a stone. The victory of
a revolution is immanent and consists in the new bonds it installs between
people, even if those bonds last no longer than the revolution's fused
material and quickly give way to division and betrayal."
8.Conclusion: From chaos to the brain.
Havent read it yet. Sounds good.
And one for the rhizomatic "Orientals":
[from the Tibetan Tangyur]: "Since the foundation of sentient beings is
without roots, the foundation of Buddha-knowledge is equally without
roots. This rootlessness is the root of enlightenment."
Hot potato!
[__]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \ / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[__]
[] Erik Davis (oo) Cernunnos sez (cribbing the Fall): The only []
[] erikd@xxxxxxxxx __ thing real is waking and rubbing your eyes. []
[__]==================== ww ==============================================[__]
------------------