File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1998/deleuze-guattari.9810, message 467


From: amd <A.M.Dib-AT-lboro.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Event, Paradox, and Fractals
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 20:24:51 +0000



Thanks Paul for your reply. I do appreciate all the responses done. Although
I know that there is some sort of a relation between structure and idea, I
just got  astonished by Boundas and Marks' equation of both terms without
any qualifying description. I do not know where I read Deleuze (is it in
TP??) saying something like there is no structure but events???? Apparently,
Deleuze kept on changing and adding on his lingo articulation of the
structure. The structure he found in D&R reflects a tint of structuralism
without a structure. The reconciliation of the dynamic and static aspect of
genesis is the difference that he made to the concept of structure. 

I just feel a bit intimidated when such an equivalence is made. Perhaps,
this has to do with my thesis work where I kept searching for a concept that
dismantles the structure seen as a limit. I wanted a term that expresses
enablement and dispersion. It strucks me always when I read Anthony Giddens'
theory of structure and system, which was my preceding frame of analysis,
and Deleuze's idea of event, and the virtual. It is an irony that my
starting point (giddens thoughts with respect to the system and structure)
repeats itself in reading Deleuze. The rigor of that complex language of
Deleuze is currently more **lucidly** expressed in those social theorists
who are trying to reconciliate the issue of structure and action. For sure,
there is a big difference of project, grounds, methods and ethics between
Deleuze and those theorists. 
   
 


At 06:35 PM 10/30/98 EST, Paul you wrote:

>Deleuze describes ideas in terms of structure in chapter four of Difference
>and Repetion.  In that discussion he tries to show how the process of
>differentiation reconciles the genetic and structural accounts. 

I returned back to chapter four , and enjoyed rereading it all the day. On
the margin of my books loads of footnotes. Actually, these were traces of
attending Ansell- Pearsons' course on Deleuze three years ago at Warwick
University. I always felt that this book DR is most insightful one, an
energiser that keeps sowing and plowing seeds in Deleuze's later work. 

There are plenty of points that I came across and useful to be discussed.
Unfortunately, I cannot express them on this email as I have to go back home
early tonight. I wonder if there will be a sort of close reading of this
chapter. I know that many trials of reading books on the list are total
failure. AO is an example. However, selecting a chapter with a specific
topic could be more fruitful. 

 At one point
>in the chapter, he even explores some structural hypotheses-- Althusser's
>ISO's, genetics, and atomism.  He seems to dismiss atomism, which makes sense
>when read in light of Nietzsche, but partially retains genetics (from the
>standpoint of Cuvier *I think*), and seems to favor (surprisingly) Althusser's
>notion of structure.  Roughly, Deleuze seems to think that a structure or Idea
>is a problem, definined by internal relations of singularities in a process of
>development towards actualization.  These structures or Ideas change when
>divided because they are qualitative multiplicities...  Insofar as a
>qualitative multiplicity yields a difference in kind every time it is divided,
>it also yields a different problem that can be poorly or well formed...  "We
>always get the solutions (or truths) that we deserve in light of the problems
>we give ourselves". 

I shall leave the answer for another day or might be another week:))

 Hopefully that helps some, but it's difficult to
>determine what precisely Deleuze means insofar as chapter four is probably the
>most difficult and demanding portion of the book (a great deal of knowledge
>surrounding mathematics and Neo-Kantianism is pressuposed on the the part of
>the reader here.

Yes your remarks are helpful and indeed this chapter is demanding. I enjoyed
refreshing my thoughts. There is a long journey to go:)

amdib


   

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