From: "Widder,NE" <N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Dialectic (Addendum)
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 23:03:11 -0000


Apologies for some typos and unclear comments in the last post.

>I don't know how to 'demonstrate' or 'show' you in this respect.

Simply meant that I don't know how to 'demonstrate' or 'show' you, except by
explaining Hegel's argument.  I'm certainly not going to type out the 60
page argument for you.  The ultimate way to demonstrate it is to have you
pick up the book and look at it.

>This also says nothing.  It says that on a molar level we only
>experience a becoming reactive of forces, it does not say that the
>separation of force from what it can do does not occur on a molar level.

Should have said "it does not say that the separation of force from what it
can does not occur on a molecular level, or only occurs on a molar level."

>N&P begins by stating Nietzsche's most general project, it does not say
>"this is the first step Nietzsche takes."  More on the difference below.

I guess I never got to any more below.  But to put the point simply, N&P
doesn't describe Nietzsche's philosophy in the simple order of going from
its first steps onwards.  You say the first step in Nietzsche's philosophy
is the double conditioning of consciousness.  Well, what is consciousness?
What is conditioning?  What is a thing?  Coming up with the (often mundane)
answers to those are the starting points for any philosophy.  The double
conditioning of consciousness is several steps down the road.  To say that
there is an ultimate difference at that point between Hegel and Nietzsche is
not to say there is a difference from their very inception, only from the
very inception of Deleuze's book on Nietzsche.

>>The crux of the problem is to show whether dialectical opposition is
>>similar to D's affirmative doubling movement.

I guess I neglected to respond directly to that.  But the points I have been
making throughout are that there are similarities between the two even if
they are ultimately different.  I have pointed specifically to a realm in
Hegel that could be called virtual (I did not say it was THE SAME as
Deleuze's virtual), and the critique of atomism, but there are probably
others.  The point is that these are steps taken which are similar, but your
lack of knowledge of Hegel's thought prevents you from recognizing that (or
recognizing where Deleuze could not be criticizing Hegel except if he were
an ignoramus).

>H's consciousness is not
>>double, so how can it be called "virtual"?  Even if I saw a molecular
>>level in H, that wouldn't necessarily mean there is a virtual doubling.

This point I also did not directly respond to.  But I have explained why
Hegel's movement of forces can be called molecular or virtual:  it is a
movement which does not present itself in immediate experience but ends up
being, for Hegel, the condition under which experience can have meaning, can
literally 'make sense'.  It is a fully real movement in the sense that it is
not something that may or may not possibly be there.  And it is a movement
which invokes notions of spatiality which are different from merely physical
space -- the spacing involved in the repulsion and return of the self-same,
in the movement of being-in-itself to being-for-another to being-for-self is
not an actually existing movement at the level of actual space and time.

Now, as for the rest of your point, it rests on nothing more than the claim
that if what I am saying is for Hegel something of a virtual realm isn't
EXACTLY like Deleuze's, then it's not a virtual realm.  Since I have never
equated the two, and have said repeatedly that this ontological level in
Hegel's thought is like, but not the same as, Deleuze's, your criticisms
amount to no more than a personal insistance on your part.

Nathan
n.e.widder-AT-lse.ac.uk