Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 12:37:34 -0500
From: "B. Metcalf" <bmetcalf-AT-ultranet.com>
Subject: RE: Dialectic


Nathan,

>the way Hegel's realm of forces is similar to the virtual -- it presents a
>movement which is certainly not actual, but is fully real, cannot be treated
>as a possibility which may or may not be realized.  We can also add that it
>is a realm of immanence, insofar as differences are not indifferent to the
>surface or space upon which they relate.  Care to tell me how these aspects
>DO NOT make it similar to Deleuze's virtual?  Care not to repeat the
>difference that I have made from the very beginning -- that the ultimate
>synthesis is conjunctive vs. disjunctive?

I think that what you have described in H is the possible, not the virtual.
 You say,
"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." 

Just because H's relational forces are ontologically prior does not mean
they are virtual.  For D it is not a matter of ontological priority.  It is
a matter of *repetition*.  D&R p. 19-20, "Our problem concerns the essence
of repetition.  It is a question of knowing why repetition cannot be
explained by the form of identity in concepts or representations..."  At
the end of this passage D says, "...For in the dynamic order there is no
representative concept, nor any figure represented in a pre-existing space.
 There is an Idea, and a pure dynamism which creates a corresponding space." 

You may disagree with D that H's thought is representational, but D
explains that representation is not avoided by any ontological priority of
force relations, rather representation means that repetition is related to
the form of identity in concepts.     
Therefore D does understand and address H's thought.  However, D doesn't
use any ontological framework with which to do it, since that is the very
representational framework he rejects.   

Hegel's forces are nothing like what D says about forces in the early pages
of N&P.  Hegel does not have anything similar to D's virtual.  What you
take to be H's virtual is really what D calls the possible.  It is in the
representational (molar) order.  D&R p. 211 "What difference can there be
between the existent and the non-existent if the non-existent is already
possible, already included in the concept and having all the
characteristics that the concept confers upon it as a possibility?..."


>>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.    
>
>The dynamism Deleuze outlines is that of relationality.  Hegel's forces
>provide -- at the level of the critique of atomism -- precisely this
>dynamism by showing how the relaitonality of forces can account for essence
>as an effect, as well as relations among essences. 

The dynamism Deleuze outlines is NOT that of H's relationality.  Hegel's
forces are still involved with the repetition of the form of identity in
the concept in spite of their ontological priority.  They are on the level
of the molar.  They are reactive.  They cannot be differentiated
differentially.


>>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.
>
>Hegel is not mentioned here, so how do you even know he applies?  And since
>you don't know Hegel yourself, how can you judge whether his doubling is
>like Deleuze's when it is clear the Deleuze develops his independently of
>engagement with Hegel?

Isn't D&R all about the distinction between the dialectic of representation
(Hegel's infinite representation being one example) and Deleuze's dialectic
of the differential problematic?  D&R p. 178 "We can therefore treat
representations like propositions of consciousness, designating cases of
solution in relation to the concept in general.  However, the problematic
element, with its extra-propositional character, does not fall within
representation....This differential element is the play of difference as
such, which can neither be mediated by representation nor subordinated to
the identity of the concept."  Therefore the quote on p.220 is about that
distinction between representation (including Hegel's) and Deleuze's
differential element.  Throughout D&R  Deleuze explains why he does not see
these two types of dialectic as similar.  You can disagree.  But you would
have to respond to what Deleuze says in D&R. 


>>Since Hegel's forces are related to the identity of the concept and
>>therefore are molar, these forces are ONLY reactive.
>
>We have already been over this strange understanding of
>molarity/molecularity.  You have yet to show how the becoming reactive of
>forces is not a virtual event

But, of course, the becoming reactive of the forces involves the virtual
event!  I have said there can be no dualistic separation of the molecular
and molar.  N&P p. 64, "What is negation?  It is a quality of the will to
power [I take this to be the virtual event], the one which qualifies it as
nihilism or will to nothingness, the one which constitutes the
becoming-reactive of forces.  It must not be said that active force becomes
reactive because reactive forces triumph; on the contrary, they triumph
because, by separating active force from what it can do, they betray it to
the will of nothingness, to be a becoming-reactive deeper than
themselves....Is there another becoming? [I take this to refer to N's
eternal return].  Everything tempts us to think that perhaps there
is....But we can ask why we only feel and know a becoming-reactive.  Is it
not because man is essentially reactive?  Because becoming-reactive is
constitutive of man?"  It is my interpretation that this is in reference
Deleuze's genetic constitution of the molar level.  If you have a different
interpretation, I would be open to it.


>So what?  The becoming active of forces is also, eventually, the
>reinstatement of diffrence on the molar level.

No.  The becoming active of forces is N's eternal return, and that is not
molar.  


>>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".
>
>Don't put yourself on some Deleuzean pedestal.  You don't need to be a
>Deleuzean to say "we can agree to disagree".  But also, don't think that
>just because we can have many divergent interpretations which are not wrong
>we can therefore never have a wrong interpretation.  Pluralism does not mean
>complete relativism, as Deleuze himself has pointed out. 

That's right.  That's why I used the word *necessarily*.  I meant that it
is possible for at least one of us to be wrong. 


Beth