Working Through Process

A blog dedicated to working through different philosophical texts in manageable increments: 10 pages of reading and one entry of questions and thoughts per day. Email

[workingthroughprocess]

Difference and Repetition pp. 50-60.

And we're back. Feeling the drag of time spent away. Had a hard time getting the wheels running again. Today's reading had a lot of Deleuze arguing against other writer's ideas of difference. I mostly tuned out during those discussions. The most important stuff from this section dealt with the idea of intensive depth and multiplicities. 

1. Articulates an idea of difference that emerges out of an "abstract and potential multiplicity" (50). He's laying the foundation for the Idea and for the virtual as the abstract and potential multiplicity. He wants this space to have depth to it. A milieu of "overlapping perspectives, of communicating distances, divergences and disparities, of heterogenous potentials and intensities" (50). In such a space determining/cultivating difference via opposition or the negative or identity is impossible because difference only remains on the surface level. The depth of difference is ignored. The depth of this space, the intensive depth of difference is the primary force in the creation and emergence of all things out of difference. Deleuze continually reminds us about the depth of this abstract multiplicity throughout the rest of the book, and that the depth of difference infuses all types of space. He writes:

[i]t is as though we were in Lewis Carroll's mirror where everything is contrary and inverted on the surface, but 'different' in depth. We shall see that it is the same with every space; geometrical, physical, biophysical, social and linguistic. (51)

2. Spends a lot of time arguing that a philosophy of difference must refuse determination as negation. We cannot consider difference in terms of what something is not because this type of thinking leads us down a path tied to representation and identity which he dismantled in the introduction. Lots of Hegel and Leibniz paired against Nietzsche all to say that we cannot use the negative as a model for characterizing difference.

3. Something important I think I should introduce from one of Protevi's outlines is the following formula:

Ideas = virtual = difference = structure

spatio-temporal dynamisms = intensive individuation = repetition = genesis

These comparisons of language employed by Deleuze are going to come in handy when we start drawing pictures to visualize concepts like multiplicities or actualization or the virtual. They might not make much sense right now but as we get further and further into his definitions of how a philosophy of difference works they'll help hopefully.

The next section completes Chapter 1. Pretty exciting. I'm trying not to get ahead of myself in terms of drawing on ideas from the latter part of the book that are informed by the current portions. But I think I need to foreshadow concepts so we can make the connections between what he is arguing against, how he argues against, and what he offers as an alternative. Thoughts? Good to be back and hopefully this will all be like riding a bicycle.  

[workingthroughprocess]

Still Here, Still Going

There will be a dark period of about a week here while I travel to New Orleans for spring break. I will be back with a vengeance on March 14th. We'll hopefully finish the book by the end of March and move on to something new. I'm open to suggestions. 

[workingthroughprocess]

Difference & Repetition pp. 40-50

What a difference a day makes. For most of today's reading I felt overwhelmed and completely clueless. I had to rely extensively on my notes and on Dr. Protevi's outline. And I still didn't get any of that Leibniz/Hegel stuff. I mean I sort of get it but only in relation to the larger argument Deleuze is making. Anyway, here are the things I thought aside from the clueless exhortations. 

1. Univocal being has it's roots laid in three different philosophers: Scotus, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Scotus defines neutralizes Being with regards to the infinite and finite (universal and singular). In order to move away from the model of analogy he made Being abstract. He still offers to types of distinctions which relate Being to difference: 1) formal distinctions, real but not numerical distinctions between things and 2) modal distinctions, established between attributes and the intensive variations of which they are capable (39). He uses the example of different shades of whiteness between finite and infinite intensities. Spinoza adds the element of expressivity or affirmation to Being. He also characterizes Being as being comprised of substance, attributes, and modes. In his Ethics he claims that distinctions are never quantitative or numerical rather formal--qualitative and modal. This part confused me. What is important I think is that Spinoza suggests that modes operate as degrees of power and that these modes are obligated to "deploy all their power or their being within the limit itself" (40). Finally Nietzsche suggests that only the extreme forms (large or small at the limit of their power) return, and then transform into something else by passing their limit. The identical, the thing they return as is not identical at all, rather it is the result of becoming in the repetition, a return to the Same of difference. If I'm getting that right? Not sure.

2. Probably one of the most important things for my understanding is the way Deleuze talks about limit and ground. Limit no longer means a limit of form, but a convergence to ground (Protevi Outline). Dr. Protevi explained it to our class using the concept of a supersaturated solution as the ground. From the supersaturated solution crystals form out of it, the crystals differentiate themselves from the solution (the surface) once a certain limit has been reached. The crystals don't have a form in the solution but emerge from the potential of the supersaturated solution. Like the lightening. Like frost from the air. There is infinite potential within the solution. However there is virtual potential for crystallization NOT for possible crystals. Such a mistake of thought would infer tiny forms that have not become real yet instead of a process of crystallization where crystals can form but are not predetermined. This is orgiastic representation--the storm beneath the apparent calm.

3. Honestly I don't care much about the Leibniz and Hegel stuff. I couldn't follow all the nuances and I understood what Deleuze was doing as an argument against their articulations of limits and the finite and infinite. In both cases they remained tied to the concept of identity. Basically it felt like Deleuze went on a long explanation of why they were wrong, so he could be right, which is fine. 

4. He introduces the concept of differential relations and differential calculus which is heady heady stuff, at least for me. He puts it to use in the next section. I am going to have to draw up a few diagrams to express myself properly (Protevi always teaches with drawings which make a lot of sense to me and really really help). So I am going to prep those things and move to the next section. 

This will be the final entry for the week. I am going to a wedding and will be out of town so I will pick back up on Monday when I return.  

[workingthroughprocess]

Difference & Repetition pp. 28-40 (part 2)

Feeling better today so let's finish up yesterday's readings:

3. Deleuze writes that Aristotle's ideas on difference tie difference to representation and concepts, which he has argued against so far in the book. General difference (genus) and specific difference (genera) both eliminate difference from the equation because they are models tied to the representation of an identity  within judgement. He argues against analogy or difference by comparison through judgement because it is through this moral dimension that one thing is judged to not be equal to another because it does not adhere to the essence of some originary thing. He writes

here we find the principle which lies behind a confusion disastrous for the entire philosophy of difference: assigning a distinctive concept of difference is confused with the inscription of difference within the concepts in general--the determination of the concept of difference is confused with the inscription of difference in the identity of an undetermined concept. (32)

Rather than treating difference as a concept we have to inscribe difference into our thinking about difference, even if we are only thinking on concepts or categories. In Aristotle when things are categorized, Deleuze argues that we rely on judgement and that the sense of Being put forth is not collective, but distributive and hierarchal. Being becomes wrapped up in analogy, and analogy is "the essence of judgement, but the analogy within judgement is the analogy of the identity of concepts. That is why we cannot expect that generic or categorical difference, any more than specific difference, will deliver us a proper concept of difference" (33).    

4. He starts riffing on univocality of being by articulating the space which being is. I've tried describing this field as a differential field, a state space, a mutlidimensional space of coordinates and modalities and intensities, a spatio-temporal dynamism. He describes Being as the space in which distribution of modalities occurs and that each is different than the other even though the space, Being, is the same for all. Being is univocal because everyone is in the same boat, even though everyone is different.

There are not two 'paths,' as Parmenides' poem suggests [thought to be the first articulation of the nature of Being], but a single 'voice' of Being which includes all its modes, including the most diverse, the most varied, the most differenciated. Being is said in a single and same sense of everything of which it is said, but that of which it is said, differs; it is said of difference itself. (36)

He introduces the concept of the nomad or nomadic distribution in space. Here there is "no longer a division of that which is distributed but rather a division among those who distribute themselves in an open space--a space which is unlimited, or at least without precise limits" (36). Remember the lightening differentiating itself from the sky, or the surface from the ground.

5. In his space of being things are not divided by the requirements of representation, they are measured in intensities. Instead of having to adhere to the rule of law according to the proximity or distance of a thing to a concept or principle, he argues for things to be measured in intensities and leaping over/beyond limits. Here:

limit no longer refers refers to what maintains the thing under a law, nor to what delimits or separates it from other things. On the contrary, it refers to that on the basis of which it is deployed and deploys all its power...the smallest becomes equivalent to the largest once it is not separated from what it can do. (37)

In the process of being Deleuze articulates, things are produces through a process of individuation rather than individualization. He outlines the the process of individuation on page 38. He sets up the model for everything that procedes (actualization, the virtual, production). One basic way of thinking about these two different models (form my notes):

 The top model would be a poor conception of difference, the bottom would be a good model ('ind' in the top stand for individual not individuation). Let's let this be the 1st rough sketch of the ontological model Deleuze articulates throughout D&R. 

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Difference & Repetition Chapter 2: Difference in Itself pp. 28-40.

Well I didn't have to constantly rely on my notes or any outline today, I just let myself take the time to slowly figure out what he was saying and where he was going. It felt nice honestly. Still got pretty hung up in all the animal kingdom classification stuff, but what can you do. In this chapter I can really start to get a feel for the nuacnes of the philosophy of difference he is arguing for. Again, always have to keep coming back to the realization that he sets up "classic" arguments or theories of difference (this section focuses mainly on Aristotle) in order to show how they're insufficient, inserting his own philosophy or extensions on the tradition to make something new. Some more big themes are introduced in this section too, the 4 shackles of representation, individuation, univocal being. Here are my thoughts. 

1. He spends the first couple of pages of chapter 1 talking about how we might consider things distinguishing themselves from other things. He writes "instead of something distinguished from something else, imagine something which distinguishes itself--and yet that from which it distinguishes itself does not distinguish itself from it" (28). He focuses on the examples of the ground rising to the surface, where the surface is distinguishes itself from the ground, and of lightning in the sky. In both cases it is the thing, the surface or the lightening, that distinguishes itself from the ground or from the sky which do not in turn distinguish themselves. "Difference is made, or makes itself" (28) in such a way. I think here he is introducing the ground work for his concept of emergence, for a field of pure potential, a dynamic space of difference that things emerge from through repetition and difference. He touches on the space more in the latter pages of this section.    

2. The four shackles of representation: so Deleuze hates representation, at least as far as difference and repetition are concerned. He states that "to rescue difference from its maledictory state seems, therefore, to be the project of the philosophy of difference" (29). This means rescuing difference from what he calls the four shackles of representation. Representation shackles difference four ways:

identity, in the form of the undetermined concept; analogy, in the relation between ultimate determinable concepts; opposition, in the relation between determinations within concepts; resemblance, in the determined object of the concept itself. These forms are like the four heads or the four shackles of mediation. (29)

He covered why each of these things are bad in the introduction and I think we sorted through them too. He concludes that difference can not be neat and tidy, it cannot be tied to an essential identity that we constant compare it back to again and again, rather difference must be "monstrous" and be allowed to actually be different than the representation of difference the Western tradition has practices up until now. But first he articulates the the points he wishes to argue against, namely Aristotle's theories on difference. There are some good questions he asks at the top of p.30.  

Ok. I have to take a break. I've got a wicked headache. But I wanted to get a post up for today, I did read it all. I sound like my students...Regardless, I will finish the last few pages tomorrow and then do a separate post for 40-50.      

[workingthroughprocess]

Difference & Repetition: pp. 20-30.

This section is where the book starts taking off for me. The final pages of the intro. really flow as Deleuze sets out the agenda for the rest of the book. At least that's how it feels. He also introduces some important concepts for the first time which he continually draws on throughout the rest of the text. I'm going to cover the main points as I understand them and then touch on a few models of conceptualizing what he's laid us thus far.

1. Outlines the problem of trying to get at the essence of repetition without relying on a traditional understanding of essence. The whole of the rest of the introduction feels like Deleuze trying to articulate an essence of repetition that allows us to conceptualize repetition without using conceptual difference as the guiding principle of defining the definition. If that makes sense. He's trying to come up with a working definition of repetition that incorporates difference into the definition instead of relying upon the identity of the concept through representation. I'm being general here on purpose. He is much more specific and I'll try to touch on the specifics as I work through them.

2. One of Deleuze's main points in the book is the the conditions for producing a thing should not resemble the conditioned thing, or more simply: the conditions should not resemble the conditioned. We see him start to get at that idea by considering two types of repetition: static and dynamic. Static repetition is bad, dynamic is good in terms of making room for difference. He writes that "one refers back to a single concept, which leaves only an external difference between the ordinary instances of a figure; the other is a repetition of an internal difference which it incorporates in each of its moments, and carries from one distinctive point to another" (20). Rather than thinking of repetition in terms of symmetry, sameness through comparing the appearances of two seemingly identical things, which relies upon the concept of a thing based on some originary identity to define a thing from without, Deleuze argues for a dynamic repetition that has an internal repetition built inside of itself, which defines itself from within. He writes that "in the dynamic order there no representative concept, nor any figure represented in pre-existing space. There is an Idea, and a pure dynamism which creates a corresponding space" (20). This is an important quote because he is articulating a state space, a multi-dimensional model for understanding the creation of things, which I wrote about yesterday, but also because he introduces "the Idea." The Idea plays a huge part throughout the book. The Idea is pure dynamism, multiplicity, the virtual. The Idea is the basis for all these concepts. They are all part of each other really.

3. I want to spend a bit talking about internal difference and the sign/signal model he alludes to. As I understand it a Signal is a system with orders of disparate size and dissymetrical elements. A Signal is a differential field, a system of relations of things with different values, sizes, intensities, appearances. The sign is what happens across the communication of these orders. Signs are flashes of communication that allow us to learn how to interact with things. He makes an important series of points about reproducing signs without difference versus repeating sign in their heterogeneity. He uses the swimming lesson on the beach as his example. We watch the teacher demonstrate with her body how to swim in the ocean, which is a series of waves. Learning on the beach has nothing to do with actually negotiating the wave and swimming. We must recognize signs that the wave gives us, and way of issuing our own signs through bodily movement of interacting with the wave--of swimming. So swimming then becomes a series of constant negotiations with the other (the wave) through recognition of signs that the waves gives us (how hight the crest, the speed of the wave, etc). We then issue our own series of signs via our bodily movements that link up with the wave as swimming. Every wave is different and thereby every repetition of signal recognition and bodily movement incorporates difference into itself. This is becoming. The signal would then be swimming. The signs are the interactions of the self through a recognition of the other, repeating with difference as the productive force for our capacity to swim. That's how I am processing this stuff.

4. There is a big important difference between the negative and something being different than. Deleuze tries over and over to cultivate a positive, productive view of internal difference rather than a negative view. Absolutely have to think of difference, the internal differences of repetition as productive, as producing things rather than those differences being a lack, something negative that fails to reproduce the essence of a concept.

5. He rearticulates the two different repetitions: repetition of the Same (static, bare repetition) and clothed repetition (dynamic repetition, which includes difference in itself, an internal dissymmetry, one that includes the alterity of the Idea in itself). Pages 23-24 paints a really nice picture through comparison of how to consider the difference between these two repetitions. He writes:

The two repetitions are not independent. One (dynamic, clothed rep.) is the singular subject, the interiority and the heart of the other, the depths of the other. The other (the Same, static, bare rep.) is only the external envelope, the abstract effect. The repetition of dissymmetry is hidden within symmetrical ensembles or effects; a repetition of distinctive poitns underneathe that of ordinary points; and everywhere the Other in the repetition of the Same. (24)

Bad repetition, repetition without difference, is the repetition of the Same, which is the result of repeating based on a concept, conceptual difference. However it still has a deeper internal repetition built into it but gets sidetracked and hung up on the concept the self thinks it must adhere to. Good repetition, clothed repetition (clothed because it has multiple repetitions and difference built into itself, internally), this repetition

is in no way approximative or metaphorical. It is, on the contrary, the spirit of every repetition. It is the very letter of every repetition, its watermark or constitutive cipher. It forms the essence of that which every repetition consists: difference without a concept, non-mediated difference. It is both the literal and spiritual primary sense of repetition. The material sense results from this other, as if secreted by it like a shell. (25)

This is how Deleuze forms the "essence" of repetition. It's a conception of an essence where the traditional idea of essence is impossible, because it has difference built into all the way down. The essence therefore becomes a more generalized or loose understanding of essence that has difference and repetition built into itself in every case. This is where most everyone gets really confused with people like Deleuze or Derrida is because how can they be saying that this is the essence of repetition when they've spent 50 pages talking about the impossibility of essences? Well it's because they are redefining what those words/concepts mean by going back through the history of philosophy and poking holes in past definitions to make new ones that are not totalizing, are not myopic, and include difference into their structure so that difference, dependence on the Other always lies at the heart of understanding and being in the world.

6. On pages 26 and 27 he basically outlines the project for the rest of the book. I think this is a great place to stop for today and then include 28-30 in tomorrow's entry.

I feel good about today. Things are making more sense to me than they did the last time I went through the book. I hope my writing mirrored that feeling.               

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Difference & Repetition: Dynamic Systems

For post-structuralists of the Deleuzian type, subjectivity is an effect of differential forces. Subjectivity is produced over and over by the relation(s) of differential forces. These forces are actual measurable things. Identity is an effect produced out of a differential field and subjectivity is an identity effect produced by the play of differential forces. These folks are hard core materialists or realists which to me means that they want to account for being through actual events/experiences that can be measured in some way rather than through a symbolic sign/signifier account of being. Knowledge needs to account for order AND novelty for the hardcore materialists, grounded in matter. Actual material processes.

If one thinks that matter is chaotic then you can't account for order. If the only way one looks at the organization of matter, any object or thing, as chaotic, having no pattern or order to it, then there is no way to explain the ordering of that matter without adding a spiritual element, a transcendent spiritual force that conditions the matter from without, from outside the system of relations in the matter. Lots of different words for this, god, spirit, law etc. If the chaos of matter is pacified then one cannot account for novelty within the same system, also because of the spiritual element. These materialists also believe that "modern science" has moved toward understanding nature as machines or mechanistic which also eliminates freedom of the individual and ultimately difference, unless we say that humans are a special case that are unique in their creation. So instead of using either of these two approaches to matter and materialism, there is nonlinear dynamics or dynamic systems theory. 

Nonlinear dynamics is a non-mechanistic materialism that talks about complex material systems AND allows someone to take order and novelty into account. As I understand it, it's a way of studying a system of relations that produces a thing always through a series of internal relations. For example, the fertilization of an egg and the resultant baby/animal/thing that is produced. It accounts for the production of the baby as a series of differential relations that occur inside the egg to produce the baby. How matter and energy work together to produce a thing. Manuel Delanda calls this process morphogenesis. It is obviously wicked complicated and I don't understand it as much as I'd like. In his book Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, Delanda says:

Deleuze rejects several of the entities taken for granted in ordinary forms of realism. To take the most obvious example, in some realist approaches the world is thought to be composed of fully formed objects whose identity is guaranteed by their possession of an essence, a core set of properties that defines what the objects are. Deleuze is not a realist about essences, or any other transcendent entity, so in his philosophy something else is needed to explain what gives objects their identity and what preserves their identity through time. Briefly, this something else is dynamical processes. Some of these processes are material and energetic, some are not, but even the latter remains immanent to the world of matter and energy. (Delanda 3)

This is all really just stage-setting I think. I don't want to get into the particularities of dynamic systems theory (DST) yet because none of the terms Deleuze uses in D&R, like multiplicity, singularity, space, etc. have been introduced yet. So I think that the best way to suss out the important points of DST is to tackle them as Deleuze reveals his concepts that correspond in some manner to those of DST. But I do think it is important to introduce this stuff because so much of my understanding of D&R is filtered through DST. When I talk about concepts like difference or repetition or whatever I find that I have the tendency to get lost in the abstract. Deleuze takes great care to always ground his stuff in actual processes and draws upon differential geometry and math and science in very real ways, to talk about real things, which grounds his philosophy in actuality rather than abstraction. This helps me to then use his philosophy to talk about actual things/events/people rather than conceptual ideas. 

Hope this is all making sense. It's been a  while. If you want to check out other resources for some of this stuff I suggest Delanda's book, or googling state space, nonlinear dynamics, or differential geometry. But man, getting through even the wikipedia pages for those things was so difficult for me that I had to step away and just use my notes from class. Another day.

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Difference & Repetition: Day 2, pp. 11-20

Today was a day of difficulties. I felt like I didn't have the tools to process the intense mathematics Deleuze draws on to articulate his third opposition of repetition to generality, from the point of of concepts or representations. That said I slogged through it. I felt less bogged down somewhere around page 15 or 17. I had to stop a lot and re-read things and look up a bunch of stuff. Two definitions were really important for me to process what he was saying:

-nominal category: idea or concept that can be grouped together into a set based on shared or arbitrary characteristics  

-predicate: a variable that can stand for a relation but whose own terms have not been assigned a particular relation 

It was certainly slow going this morning. that said, here are my thoughts.

1. Reminds us that repetition and generality are opposed from the point of view of conduct and of law. Sets the stage for the third opposition, from the point of view of concepts or representations. I think he is spending so much time telling us that repetition is not generality in the beginning because later in the book he argues against classic ideas of identity and representation and that the most common misconceptions about repetition, at least bad repetition, is made through resemblance--things looking like like one another--which is generality. Maybe he is trying to get as many arguments against repetition out of the way at the beginning so that he can then intervene and lay out his own theories. Well that's what it feels like.

2. So, concepts and representation. Ugh. The bottom of page 11 was particularly difficult for me. I understand him to be saying that we make concepts of things that exist in the world. These things have infinite ways of being comprehended. Because of the infinite ways that a concept can be formed from a thing, that means that moments of concepts group together (which brings time into the equation?) and allow us to reflect back upon the thing through these groupings as remembering and recognition (memory and self-consciousness). The relation between the concept and the thing (object) under/as the function of memory and recognition is representation. This is the first time he spells out his idea of representation I think. From this he defines conceptual difference (difference through concepts) and representation as mediation (the relation between the object and our conceptualization of it, the concept we have of it, which is almost always created in terms of the image) as having three parts:

1) Principle of difference: every determination actually belongs to comprehension of a concept 

2) Principle of sufficient reason: always one concept per individual thing 

3) Reciprocal principle of identity of indiscernibles: one and only one thing per concept. (Protevi, Outline for D/R, 2)

He then lists the four types of blockages that conceptual difference creates for his "good" repetition (I'm going to start referring to it as good or bad repetition, not as a value judgement but based on what I think Deleuze is arguing for--good repetition will mean what he advocates, bad repetition what he argues against).

3. Blockage of Logic: concept can be blocked at the level of the predicates it includes because it remains fixed in the concept and becomes something else in the thing. So when we conceptualize "animal" our concept remains fixed in whatever it is, but becomes something else in the movement from concept to a thing like a man. The idea being that when we conceptualize what an animal is we do not account for the difference in the reality of one type of animal, the man. Ou concept remains what it was but is different in reality. It becomes stuck or blocked at the level of the concept. I understand this as a really nice way to account for the difference of reality than our particular understanding. We always have to account for the difference we see and experience. We are not the center.

4. Natural Blockages of the nominal concepts, concepts of nature, and concepts of freedom: In all three blockages, Sameness of representation or conceptual identity "is invoked to account for repetition: repetition is attributed to elements which are really distinct but nevertheless share strictly the same concept" (15). All three examples define repetition through strictly negative terms, by strict repetition, bad repetition, repetition connected only to the copy. Deleuze argues that one needs to inject remembering, recognition, the work of memory into the process to avoid defining repetition on in the form of identity in the concept.

5. Breaks down an understanding of Freud that shifts the negative to a positive, productive force. Repetition is everything and all there ever was. Destroys the idea of an origin or originary act that all repetition tries to get back to. Instead it's repetition all the way down, that even our love of the mother is based on others repetitions of acts and ideas etc. This sets up the impossibility of a orignal event or concept transcending the repetition and controlling it from without. First hint at immanence and repetition as having no outside, only an internal or immanent system and that this system is productive.

I'll stop at the bottom of 19 because he does a pretty substantial shift into bare and clothed repetition. I think tomorrow I'm going to focus on rearticulating my understanding of non-linear dynamics and spatio-temporal dynamisms. He hints at the stuff at the end of today's stuff and I need to refresh myself before I jump back in. I'll do some sort of riffing on that tomorrow, moving on to pp. 20-30 on Monday.   

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Difference & Repetition: Day One, pp. 1-10

Introduction: Repetition and Difference

1. "Repetition is not generality." The first ten pages deal with the problem of conflating the concept of repetition with generality. Generality, and misunderstandings of repetition, consist of two types: qualitative resemblances and quantitative equivalences--both deal with substituting one thing for another. He makes a point later in the reading about a sort of laziness that is practiced by taking the value of one thing as another because they appear similar or equivalent, hence generality. Repetition doesn't replace things with other things, "repetition as a conduct and as a point of view concerns non-exchangeable and non-substitutable singularities" (1). Is this the first place the concept of "singularity" shows up in Deleuze's work? He defines singularity later in the book, becomes a central force in his philosophy in D&R. Singularities have no equal or equivalent, they are singular. Repetition functions in relation to singularities.  

2. I like the notion of repetition as theft and gift rather than exchange. Not about substitution of equal values. Repetition of the singular builds and destroys, creates and eliminates. Even if things might pass for the same that doesn't mean that they are not different--"repetition can always be 'represented' as extreme resemblance or perfect equivalence, but the fact that one can pass by degrees from one thing to another does not prevent their being different in kind" (2). Setting up his attack on representation (at least classic Western ideas of representation) as the elimination of difference.

3. Lots of stuff about generality belonging to the order of laws. He focuses on laws of nature and of science--tied to his argument of generality as exchange. These two laws only substitute and exchange, when we restrict open nature by defining the phenomena in mathematical terms we are substituting one generality for another--qualitative resemblance is rewritten as quantitative equivalence (Protevi, D&R Outline, 2). The law becomes moralized through the ambiguity of "supposing the moral law to be external, superior and indifferent to the natural law; but the application of the moral law can be conceived only by restoring to conscience itself the image and the model of the law of nature" (4). We say that the moral law is above the law of nature, but we use the model we've established for the law of nature to articulate the moral law. Resist this habit of behavior. Repetition subverts through irony and humor around, above, below, or in between the law. Repetition is opposed to moral and natural law. Repetition is transgressive.

4. A long discussion on the how Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Péguy all characterize repetition as a superior mode of thought. They do this in four ways: make something new of it, oppose repetition to moral and natural laws, oppose repetition to generality. This section is interesting to me because it feels like Deleuze is setting up his task by saying that these guys did it, I can too and will by extending on their very important work. I am also really into the way that Deleuze frames each of their works as pieces of philosophy that are performative, that perform on the page.

They want to put metaphysics in motion, in action. They want to make it act, and carry out immediate acts. It is not enough, therefore, for them to propose a new representation of movement; representation is already mediation. Rather, it is a question of producing within the work a movement capable of affecting the mind outside of all representation; it is a question of making movement itself a work, without interposition; of substituting direct signs for mediate representations; of inventing vibrations, rotations, whirlings, gravitations, dances or leaps which directly touch the mind. (8)

Not only do they write about, they write like. This seems to me to be Deleuze admiring their projects and setting up one of his own. And I think D&R functions very much like a performative document once I get my head around the super dense language and tricks of logic he uses.

5. Although his articulation of theatre and performance is a bit fumbly, I think the conversation about the potentiality of the empty space filled with the very real actions of performers, over and over, is a nice metaphor for the philosophy he sets out in D&R. He clearly hates the classic idea of representation, and much of the recent theories of performativity, identity, gender, difference do complicate what exactly representation could mean. I have to continually remind myself that he is speaking from a particular perspective that helped get the ball rolling on subsequent conversations about representation.

These are my initial thoughts. I don't really have any one set path or agenda. I am interested in experimenting with the form for all of this. I am especially interested in different ways of writing and articulating myself, to connect productively in as many ways with people as possible.    

[workingthroughprocess]

Difference & Repetition: Preparatory Notes

Protevi makes a few important points in The Challenge of Difference and Repetition that helped me get back in the swing of D&R. First, the book is Deleuze's dissertation. The language is academic and super dense. As such Deleuze is arguing against some big names in the history of philosophy, Kant being the primary figure Deleuze continually refutes. Protevi issues a challenge to approach the book openly as an exercise in learning rather than gaining knowledge. This approach mirrors the approach Deleuze argues for throughout the book over and over--depersonalization, opening ourselves up, discovering habits of thought/behavior, forming new ones over and over again. Quite a challenge. 

Kant's philosophy is not my bag. I will be drawing from secondary sources heavily and any information brought to the discussion by you all. Unfortunately Kant factors heavily into Deleuze's arguments throughout D&R, so he explains Kant quite a bit but in order to refute or challenge Kant's ideas. One challenge for me is to try and understand Kant's ideas so I can understand just what exactly Deleuze is trying to say. Protevi talks generally about Deleuze encountering Kant primarily through the idea of transcendental philosophy:

Transcendental philosophy in its technical modern form was inaugurated by Kant with the distinction between transcendent and transcendental.

“Transcendent” objects refer to those which are thought but cannot be experienced (they are beyond experience, that is, they “transcend” experience), that is, there is either no sensory data corresponding to them (the soul, God) or there is no way of synthesizing the totality of the object (the world).

“Transcendental,” on the other hand, refers to the method of looking for the universal and necessary conditions of possibility of any rational experience. That is, it works backward from experience to what must be if that sort of experience is to be possible.

Deleuze will criticize Kant for copying the transcendental field in the image of the empirical field. That is, empirical experience is personal, identitarian and centrifugal: there is a central focus, the subject. (Kant has a Cartesian heritage then: the vital importance given to subjective consciousness, that is, the “I think” or cogito.) All our experiences are tagged as belonging to us. Kant says this is only possible if we can posit the TUA, the Transcendental Unity of Apperception, that is, the possibility to add “I think” to all our judgments: “[I think] the cat is on the mat.”

Deleuze will instead want to have the transcendental field be differential: the virtual is the condition for real experience, but it has no identity. Identities of the subject and the object are products of differential processes. Deleuze still wants to work back from experience, but his rule is that the condition should not resemble the conditioned. As the empirical is personal and individuated, the transcendental is impersonal and pre-individual. The Deleuzean virtual is not the condition of possibility of any rational experience, but the conditions of genesis of real experience. (Challenge of D&R, emphases mine)

Generally speaking, Deleuze argues against Cartesian subjectivity, against the idea that we are autonomous beings in control of the world using "I think, therefore I am," as the basis for that claim. Deleuze complicates that by arguing against considering identity as having an essence or essential quality that can be represented. For example, he would argue against the idea that there is an essential quality or characteristic of being a woman or black or queer. Deleuze wants to free thoughts of difference from "the demands of representation" and create a "philosophy of difference." For me, Deleuze offers a great way to think about difference and identity in joyful and ironic and loving ways that mirrors the experience of living life. Maybe that's too optimistic but whatever, I really believe in it.

Also of note, Deleuze studied the works of people like Spinoza, Bergson, Hume, and Nietzche. He came from a math and science perspective. This is very different than the perspective of someone like Derrida who also wrote about radical difference, but from a linguistic/symbolic perspective that stemmed from studying people like Heidegger, Saussure, or Husserl. So it's a whole different approach that focuses on systems and systems of actual relations rather than symbolic ones. He plays with structures but is not a structuralist. It might be more helpful to consider Deleuze a post-structuralist and Derrida a post-phenomenologist if we're using that terminology. Just riffing.

These are my initial thoughts as I sit and stare at the cover of the book. I'm going to read pp.1-10 and then write some notes or ideas and post them. As far as feedback or participation goes, I've enabled Disqus and of course we could use the Ask and reblog options of Tumblr. If you all come up with different ideas let me know and we can figure something out.         

[workingthroughprocess]

Some Resources to Start With:

Here are a few things I'll be using to help me get through D&R:

1. John Protevi's website. He is a professor at LSU and was one of my mentors. He teaches philosophy in the French dept. at LSU and is one of foremost Deleuze scholars in the world. Plus he is just a super wonderful human. He has incredibly thorough outlines of each chapter in D&R and I will be drawing from them extensively throughout the process. Also, he has a whole lot of information he has worked up on Foucault, Bergson, D&G, and Heidegger as well. The info is free for use but please do not cite anything up on his site without contacting him first and asking permission. 

2. James Williams book Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition: A Critical Introduction and Guide. This is a great secondary source to help suss out the text of D&R. The language is plain but not dumbed down, well written, and lucid. 

3. Scans of my notes from Dr. Protevi's seminar. These will most likely be really terrible and hard to decipher, but might help.

4. Anything you all bring to the table. I'm really the most excited about this stuff.

[workingthroughprocess]

Hi. Welcome to Working Through Process, a blog for working through different philosophical texts in small bits. The idea is to maintain a consistent reading pace through whatever text we're working on, offer thoughts, ideas, or questions, and share information with whoever is interested. My desire is to start some sort of working group that collectively works through the texts together thereby teaching one another as we go. Ideally we'll get a good mix of different backgrounds and specialties sharing and informing understandings of the text. That's the plan, but I'm open to suggestions.

The first text I'm picking is Difference and Repetition by Gilles Deleuze. It's a very dense and difficult book. It's also extremely rewarding and required reading if you are interested in philosophies of difference or continental philosophy. I picked the text because I have not read it in a couple years and it's a favorite. I understand that it's not for everyone, but that's sort of the point I'm getting at with the project. I believe that this is important and accessible stuff regardless of how impenetrable it may seem. So my proposal is this: read 10 pages a day and share questions, thoughts, or problems we have. Not too sure who'll be into this but that's part of the fun.

Thanks for reading.  I'll start with pp. 1-10 tomorrow (2/18/11).