From: "Widder,NE" <N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Dialectics
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 13:38:15 -0000



	Beth,

> 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.
> 
	I have not said active forces are molar -- I have said it is part of
the virtual realm which constitutes the molar through actualization.  And
you have also agreed in a previous post that reactive forces are not molar
but molecular.  So what you are objecting to here is nothing more than a
figment of your imagination.

> Only the forces which have become reactive are molar.
> 
	Become active is not the same as becoming reactive.  The first
implies a completion of movement and hence actualization.  By the same
token, forces which no longer are becoming active but which have become
active (noting that these temporal connotations are significantly altered
from their everyday use in this thinking), would also be 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.
> 
	Yes, but then what would be the forces which "have become active"?

> 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.
> 
	Well, that is not the case.  The actualization of the virtual
through the building up of folds is detailed in the Leibniz book, as well as
the Foucault book.  The actual IS a synthesis of folds, but it is a
disjuncitve synthesis.  Please do not collapse synthesis and dialectics
together.

> That is not my understanding of D.  That is not similar to D's
> differential difference of excess and default on the molecular level. 
> 
	It is only not similar because you are treating the synthesis of
folds as conjunctive.  The disjunctive synthesis is detailed throughout D&R,
as well as LoS -- in fact, it's in just about every book in some capacity.

> >	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.    
> 
	Again, look at the Leibniz book, I can point you to the pages later.
That's where Deleuze articulates probably most clearly how perspectivism
involves perspective upon a rhizomatic field.  There is no normativity,
because the field has no centre.  The synthesis is not prior in any simple
way to the perspective, but that doesn't mean the perspective is not limited
and specific, for if it were not that would introduce perspective as a
merely subjective phenomenon.  The latter is precisely the way you seem to
be introducing perspectivism.

>  
> >	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.
> 
	I have told you why 10 times if not more.  I have accepted Hegel's
final adherence to identity as being what ultimately differentiates Deleuze,
but have explained how in other ways their thinking is similar, and I have
explained why this differentiation does not make Hegel's thinking fit simply
into the category of the possible.  Go back and READ the previous 10 times,
and you will find the answer to the questions you ask.

	And try not to quote the very question in your response to me which
you immediately bypass:  why can't you accept that D's divisions are not
exhaustive, and that other thinkers categories need not fit into them fully?

> >> 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.
> 
	It IS a form of synthesis?  How did you get through N&P and D&R
without realizing that?  The Eternal Return, for example, is SPECIFICALLY
outlined in terms of the synthesis of time.  It is a disjunctive synthesis,
but a synthesis nonetheless.

	If you are not even going to recognize such basic things in Deleuze
is doing, how are you going to differentiate D and H?

> That is not what I think D's difference is.  Deleuze's
> different relates to different by means of difference.
> 
	Yes, that is called a disjunctive synthesis.  That is why Deleuze
actually states an affinity to Heidegger and the latter's notion of Sameness
as the synthetic principle of identity misrecognized by metaphysics.

> How is that similar to Hegel's relationality?
> 
	Because it is a synthesis.  Because both present synthesis as a
consequence of the rejection of atomism.  Because both relate synthesis to
the question of meaning.  Shall I go on?  Or can you just read the posts you
have already received?

> Don't just keep saying it is similar.  Say why.
> 
	I have said why far too many times.  Don't keep asking to me to
explain again, read the explanations you have been given.

	And while you're at it, respond to the questions I have put to you.

> 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.   
> 
	Well, as I have said several times now, and back in the previous
exchange, this is not H's question.  I have explained why, so don't ask me
to explain again.  Suffice it to say, Hegel dismisses that 'what the thing
is' question in the Preface to the Phenomenology, and his thinking is much
more akin to the 'how is a thing completely determined' question that
Deleuze attributes to Leibniz.

	Don't forget to answer the question you have still not answered:  if
you think there are similarities between Hegel and Deleuze, but not the ones
I've outlined, tell me what they are.

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