Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 19:54:51 -0500
From: "B. Metcalf" <bmetcalf-AT-ultranet.com>
Subject: RE:  Dialectic


Nathan,

>If Deleuze really thinks that there is no
>double conditioning in Hegel, or no molecular or virtual realm (or something
>like it), or that Hegel's thought is at the level of the atomistic thing and
>its relations, then I would say that Deleuze's reading of Hegel is
>completely pitiful.  But I actually think Deleuze is not that bad -- as a
>matter of fact, I am really taking issue with your reading of Deleuze's
>criticisms, and the license you take in constructing a Hegel to which you
>say these criticisms apply.

I did not say there is no double conditioning in Hegel.  I said I do not
see it as similar to Deleuze's doubling: "It is not enough to say that
consciousness is consiousness of something:  it is the double of this
something, and everything is consciousness because it possesses this
double." D&R p.220.

I do not think Hegel has *something like* a molecular or virtual realm.  I
do not see it as similar.  But *similar* is a matter of interpretation and
evaluation.  From my Deleuzean perspective of divergent pluralism, I think
it is possible for each of us to have divergent interpretations and
evaluations of the same texts without either of us necessarily being "wrong".


>Now, as for a "demonstration", I think I will try to make this short.  To
>put the matter as briefly as possible, Hegel says that the concept of a
>thing and its relations, of an essence-in-itself that is prior to its
>relations to other essences, runs into various contradictions and cannot
>sustain itself.  Hence he introduces the concept of force, as necessarily
>relational, and says that the essence of a thing can be understood not as
>the foundation but rather the product of these relations.  That is why
>relational forces are on another ontological level.  That forces can account
>for essence and relations is what makes it prior to an atomistic notion of a
>thing-in-itself or an essence.  This is, I'm sure you realize, what Deleuze
>says about force in the early pages of N&P.

Again, I have to say I do not see this as even similar to Deleuzes
molecular level.  These forces are in relation to the concept and are
therefore molar.  They cannot differentiate the concept differentially.


>Hegel, as I've told you FOUR times now, is not an atomist.  If you are going
>to remain ignorant of Hegel, at least don't remain ignorant of the fact that
>I have told you this is not what Hegel thinks.  Again, if Deleuze thinks
>Hegel's philosophy is one of atomism, he is wrong.  But again, you are here
>assuming that the first few pages in N&P refer to Hegel even if he is not
>named, and it is probably you rather than Deleuze who doesn't understand
>Hegel.

I know you have told me that Hegel is not an atomist, and from a Hegelian
perspective I'm sure he's not.  However, according to my interpretation of
N&P p.6, Deleuze's criticism of atomism applies to Hegel.  Since Hegel's
forces are related to the identity of the concept and therefore are molar,
these forces are ONLY reactive.  Hegel's reactive-molar forces cannot give
his "atomistic thing" the necessary dynamism to avoid Deleuze's criticism
of atomism which I have applied to 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.  Look, in simple terms,
>the triumph of reactive forces is an event.  As such, it always occurs on a
>level of virtuality.  That is why the slave revolt in morality is not MERELY
>an historical event which occurred back in the days of early Christianity.
>And the fact that p. 64 says that becoming reactive is constitutive of man
>indicates that it occurs on a molecular level -- if it was simply molar, it
>could not constitute man at all.

I never said the Deleuze-Nietzsche reactive forces are ONLY molar.
Becoming reactive takes place on both molar and molecular levels since
these levels are not dualistically separate.  I only meant that the process
of Becoming Ractive of the forces is, in my reading of N&P, the cancelling
of difference of the molar level.
  

>>I did not say that oppositions have nothing in common.  Real polar
>>opposition, as I have said all along, allows no escape from the identity
>>of the Same.
>
>Here you simply display your ignorance of philosophy.  It is only with Hegel
>that the idea that there is no escape from identity, that oppositions reduce
>to the Same. 

Then how am I displaying my ignorance of philosophy?  Aren't I in agreement
with Hegel?

Beth