Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1998 18:10:58 +0800
From: Paul Bains <P.Bains-AT-murdoch.edu.au>
Subject: Re: expression/ontology


It is confusing, or rather i am often confused. 

With ref. to Sahara, (which i haven't read) I should say i 'agree' with the
presentation that was quoted. And in fact contrary to the impression i gave
yesterday (the problem of short emails) there's nothing wrong with
ontological claims!
After all, it is Scotus who turns metaphysics into ontology in the 13th
century (but when is this term first used?). A science of being-as-being
rather than a physics of the being of concrete singulars or the being of
reason (logic). 
This is the univocity of being that is but a corollary of scotus' formal
distinction (a third distinction neither of things nor thought). And this
comes from Avicenna's 'being-as-first-known'.

Now i really can't do justice to this here. I'm trying to write something
about this now but it's still in labour. 
One of the best places to see something of this is in Zourabichvili's
*Deleuze. Une phil. de l'evenement*, PUF 1996. Esp the section 'Rencontre,
signe, affect:

"How would a logic of forces renew the theory of sense (sens)?  A 'thing' -
a phenomenon of any order, physical, biological, human - has no sense in
itself, but only due to force that takes possession of it. Thus, it has no
interiority of essence: its status is to be a _sign_[italics in french),
referring to something other than itself - to the force it manifests or
expresses......Thing, being, content, signification [meaning?]: this is what
a phenomenon is reduced to when it is separated from its genesis and the
conditions of its appearance, when it is no longer seized/understood [saisi]
as a sign." p.31.

Now there is much more, but one could say that what is special about the
ontology of the sign relation is precisely that it has the being of an
'external relation' - it is 'between' things and this understanding precedes
hume and russell by a long way. In fact the thomist and scotists understood
full well that relation (not that which is relative) has a peculiar
ontological status - it is neutral or indifferent to the mind-dep/mind-indep
distinction. This can be traced back to Aristotle's categories and his
concern that relation seems to infect all the categories.

Now Deleuze brilliantly catches on to the importance of external relation
but it is interesting to still further explore the importance of this for
'subjectivity' or 'experience'. Guattari hints at the impt of Peirce's
'interpretant', and relation is central to the constitution of exp. as a
permeable interface betwn interiority and exteriority. Relation is
indifferent to being realised in nature or cognition. In fact it's tempting
to see relation as the transcendental field or the plane of consistency or
the abstract machine of language. The whole being of relation is in 'being
toward', and it is imperceptible. 

Now i won't bore you any more but it is interesting (for me) to explore this
place 'between Deleuze and late latin scholastic semiotics'. Alliez has done
this a little with Scotus (Capital Times) but he leaves many things
unfinished (there is a vol to follow). 
The tricky bit is that Scotus' understanding of 'objective being/esse
objectivum' i.e. that which exists in awareness, can lead straight into
modern idealism.

However, it is possible to retain the notion of an 'objective world' (NOTE,
this is not the modern conception of objectivity. Nor is it subjective - cf.
translator's notes to Expressionism in Philosophy, p407). This requires
understanding the 'objects' of awareness as signs (relations). This requires
a semiotic that is v clear about how signs work; and understanding the diff
btwn 'objects' of awareness and the things of a prejacent environment.

One of the points that the 'Sahara' quote makes is that within human
experience, every being is relative, i.e., involved with and dep. upon
things other than itself. The actual relations that a being is involved in
are 'external' relations.. The individuals are not themselves relations
altho they are involved in relations (they are relative beings). And the
individuals cannot be understood unless the relations they are involved in
are understood. Ecosophy.

The exp of the eternal return is that it would be impossible to change
without changing all the relations, which is impossible without changing the
universe???????????????So we totally and positively embrace everything
that's happened??????????????????And that will happen - and in doing that we
have become what we really are - and changed/born again.

Pas de regrets,

Until a good while later, when i am less confused. Where's my umbrella?

Paul,

Ps. This 'objective world' is also Jacob von Uexkull's 'umwelt'.
Voila



At 03:54 PM 10/1/98, you wrote:

>But is this what Deleuze really engages in? What then is the sense of
>eternal return as the univocity of being, the being of the sensible? A, or
>rather, the sense of being, yes, but the being of sense, surely not.
>Eternal Return gives expression to the univocity of being which is to say
>it is the univocity of being.
>
>Yours confusedly,
>
>Steve