From: "Widder,NE" <N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Dialectics
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 20:36:24 -0000


Beth,

>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." 

Yes, that is what I said, and none of this defines the possible.  Hegel's
force is not something that may or may not be there.  The Notion is not
something that may or may not be realized.

>
>Just because H's relational forces are ontologically prior does not mean
>they are virtual.

That is why I said "similar to the virtual."  And I have explained why.
Please address why the similarities I have made are incorrect, and not
simply note other ways in which they are different.  The latter is nothing
more than evasion on your part.

>For D it is not a matter of ontological priority.  It
>is a matter of *repetition*.

The two are not mutually exclusive.  In any event, given the amount of
reference to Being as difference throughout D&R, as well as the long comment
on Heideggerian Being, there is more than enough to show how the virtual is
intimately concerned with ontology and ontologically originary difference.

>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." 

Again, none of this excludes the virtual being ontologically prior.  The
entire difference-in-itself chapter is devoted to showing the ontological
priority of difference as (non)-being or (?)-being.  Hence the passage
through Aristotle, Duns Scotus, et al., up through Nietzsche.

>You may disagree with D that H's thought is representational,

I did not say that.  I said it had nothing to do with representation in the
simplistic form of a set of universal concepts relating to particular
objects -- which is exactly the language in which you have consistently put
it.  Deleuze doesn't think H's thought is representation in that sense
either, hence he is very specific in separating H as a thinker of 'orgiastic
representation' from earlier thinkers involved in 'organic representation'.

But the way you treat the representational aspects of H's thought reduces it
to the organic representation that even Deleuze realizes it is not involved
with -- that is, at least, the only way I can understand your persistant
claims that Hegel's thinking tries to unite "the concept with its
internal/external relations to the thing", or whatever your exact words
were, as well as your consistent references to "Hegel's aotmism".

>but D
>explains that representation is not avoided by any ontological priority
>of force relations,

No he doesn't.  Unless you are referring to his comments around p. 10 of
N&P, he never addresses Hegel's forces.  And the way he addresses Hegel in
N&P is an inadequate caricature.  His analysis of Hegel in D&R does not
address the issue of force in Hegel at all.

>rather representation means that repetition is related to the form of
>identity in concepts.

Well, if this is his understanding of Hegel's Concept in D&R, he at least
corrects that impression in WiP?  Hegel's Concept is simply not an ordinary
concept, and the Identity involved in it is not understood in terms of
simple correspondence.

>Therefore D does understand and address H's thought.

Well, you haven't established that Deleuze understands Hegel's thought,
since your only reference to Hegel's thought by which you could evaluate
Deleuze's understanding is Deleuze's writings.  And everyone knows he has
addressed Hegel's thought, some of us just think its inadequate and in many
ways incorrect or unfair.

>However, D doesn't
>use any ontological framework with which to do it, since that is the
>very
>representational framework he rejects.   

Where did you come up with the idea that ontology is necessarily
representational.  You have heard of Heidegger, no?  And you are aware of
the whole analysis of Duns Scotus's Opus Oxoniense as the greatest work of
pure ontology.

>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.

Here you go setting up oppositions again.  And you still haven't addressed
the character of Hegel's forces which I have said make it similar to the
virtual.

>What you
>take to be H's virtual is really what D calls the possible.

Now you have a bizarre understanding of possibility.  What do you call a
possibility that is necessarily real, but is not actual and not given in
immediate experience?  I call it something similar to the virtual.

>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?..."

What makes you so sure that the concept referred to here is Hegel's?

>>>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.

I have said there are similarities.  Have I ever said they were exactly the
same.  If there are similarities, but also differences, then it follows that
the dynamism Deleuze outlines is not that of Hegel's relationality.  You
have disagreed with the similarities I have outlined, but pointing out the
other differences in no way answers what you have disagreed with.

And so your insistance here still does not amount to a response to what I
have pointed out.

>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.

Once again you are asserting your completely unsubstantiated claim that
reactive forces are not molecular.  Need I remind you that in your last post
you said the opposite, and admitted that reactive forces are "NOT only
molar".  Your whole argument now rests on showing that reactive forces as
understood in terms of Hegelian negativity are only molar.  And you have
done nothing to demonstrate this.

>>>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?

Probably that is what D&R is about.  But that does not mean there are
similarities.  Nor does that mean that the similarities are not those that I
have outlined.

>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.

In other words, he explains why he thinks they are different.  But that
doesn't mean there are not similarities.  Again, you are invoking a simple
opposition -- you think that if there are differences then there cannot be
similarities.  Your thinking is completely binary -- as well as illogical.

So again I'll ask you:  since you have said in the last few posts that you
do think there are similarities between Hegel and Deleuze, just not the ones
I've outlined, TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK THE SIMILARITIES ARE.

>  You can disagree.  But you
>would
>have to respond to what Deleuze says in D&R. 
>

I have responded.  In fact, the entire exchange from November, 1997 was
started over D&R.  I suggest you go to the archives and look at what I said
then.  As I said then, it was a rather odd reading he gave of Hegel in order
to find a route to difference through Leibniz but not through Hegel.


>>>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.

Nor can there be the dualistic separation between Deleuze and Hegel you have
consistently enacted...

> 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.
>

You have no basis to make the jumps necessary for your interpretation.  Just
quoting this passage is not enough.  It in no way suggests that the becoming
reactive of forces is simply a molar action operating back on the molecular.

As for my interpretation, just look at Foucault's essay -- or, for that
matter, Deleuze's analysis of Foucault's conception of power, and the
difference between power and domination/repression.  In fact, go compare
that with the misreading of Foucault given in A Thousand Plateaus, where
they suggest that the problem with Foucaultian micropowers is precisely that
it sees resistance as mere counterattack -- something Deleuze corrects in
the Foucault book where he recognizes that both active and reactive
movements characterize the dynamics of micropowers.


>>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.  

Re-read the above line -- THE BECOMING ACTIVE OF FORCES EVENTUALLY
REINSTATES DIFFERENCE ON THE MOLAR LEVEL.  That is because it occurs on a
molecular level.

>>>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. 
>

Well, I say you're wrong.  I also say that you haven't addressed one of the
ways in which I've said that Hegel's realm of forces are similar to
Deleuze's virtual.  You have only bypassed the issue -- again.

>Beth  

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