Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 07:43:02 -0500
From: "B. Metcalf" <bmetcalf-AT-ultranet.com>
Subject: RE: Dialectics


Nathan,

>	The molar level as a whole is not constituted by the becoming
>reactive of forces.  The molar is a macro-fold, as such it relates events
>through their difference.  The becoming active of forces therefore
>constitutes the molar just as the becoming reactive of forces does.  

I agree that the active and reactive forces both take part in the process
of the actualization (the becoming molar) of the virtual.  However, I do
not agree that active forces are molar.  Only the forces which have become
reactive are molar.  I see the molecular/virtual event in process of
actualization which underlies the molar.  But the intensive-active forces
are always molecular.  The becoming active would be the eternal return to
the molecular virtual.  

It sounds to me as though you are thinking of this "macro-fold" as
something like a dialectical oppositional movement, synthesizing molecular
forces into the molar.  That is not my understanding of D.  That is not
similar to D's differential difference of excess and default on the
molecular level. 


>	Don't try to save yourself by giving me some complex articulation of
>the  simple "we just have different perspectives on things." 

>From your description of your intierpretation of D, it seems that you are
thinking of his perspectivism as just different perspectives on a prior
synthesis.  This would introduce a normativity which cancels differential
difference.  I do not see this normativity as similar to what D is talking
about.    

 
>	For what is now probably the TENTH time, Hegel has a level which has
>similarities to the virtual.  I have never said it IS the virtual.  But it
>is certainly not the molar as Deleuze has described it.  Your inability to
>think outside of Deleuzean terms has left you to make incorrect statements:
>If Hegel's realm of forces isn't Deleuze's virtual, then it must be the
>possible (I have shown you why that is wrong) or the actual (and I have
>explained to you why that is wrong).  You have yet to say it has to be the
>real, but that would be wrong too.  Why can't you accept that Deleuze's
>divisons are not exhaustive?

H's relationality still is repetition in the form of the identity of the
concept and is therefore harnessed to the possibility of the molar concept.
 If you think it is not, then don't just tell me ten times.  Say why.


>> Therefore, Hegel's representational forces cannot be intensive difference
>> (active forces).  For D, intensive difference (molecular) can only be
>> repetition WITHOUT A CONCEPT.       
>> 
>	Fine, there are differences -- and the ones you have just stated
>correspond to the very differences I admitted long before you got involved
>in this discussion, that the difference is in the form of synthesis.  That
>does not mean there are not similarities, so tell me why the similarities I
>have drawn are incorrect.

Here, again, it sounds like you are thinking of D's difference in the form
of a synthesis.  That is not what I think D's difference is.  Deleuze's
different relates to different by means of difference.  How is that similar
to Hegel's relationality?  Don't just keep saying it is similar.  Say why.

Also, since Paul thinks I am reticent about calling Deleuze's project
ontological, I will refer you to D&R p191.  I thought I had made myself
clear that I was speaking against ontology as the 'what the thing is'
question, which I take to be H's question.   

Beth