Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 14:09:25 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: h's question


The point that Deleuze makes here has always reminded me of an offhand
comment that Quine makes somewhere.  According to Quine there are two
types of philosophers, those that do philosophy and those that do the
history of philosophy.  The first deal with philosophical problems and
attempt to push the envelop of what can be thought, the latter try to
make a previous philosophy work by pulling it into a coherent system. 
This distinction certainly doesn't hold for Deleuze completely insofar
as he thought that the history of philosophy was a way of doing
philosophy, of grappling with problems and such, but there does seem
to be a similarity here.  At any rate, this "getting out" is not some
mystical schwarmerei or fantacism that gestures vaguely without really
doing anything, but a rigerous and engaged form of critique and
problematization that goes to the edge of what it can do.  One might
compare it to the method of problematization that Foucault describes
in _The Politics of Truth_.  Whether one is engaged with a particular
philosopher or a particular problem, part of taking difference to its
limit consists in doing the problem justice.  For one must seduce that
which they engage, just as much as they must get free of it, and part
of getting free of it is precisely that seduction which turns all the
tools of reason against itself, inverting and transforming the entire
game.  This is no different if one CHOOSES to ENGAGE Hegel...  Leave
Hegel behind, fine, but don't engage him in a half-ass fashion if
that's the battle you have chosen to fight.

Paul




---yaya <cw_duff-AT-alcor.concordia.ca> wrote:
>
> 
> 
> 	Precisely. H's question is not D's question. And deleuze does
> remark:"If you aren't allowed to invent your own questions, with
elements
> from all over the place, never mind from where, if people 'pose'
them to
> you, you haven't much to say...." and "Even reflection, whether it's
> alone, or between two or more, is not enough. Above all, not
relfection."
> and lastly "Objectons are even worse. Every time someone puts an
objection
> to me, I want to say: Ok, let's go on to something else. Objections
have
> never contributed to anything. It's the same when I am asked a general
> question. THe aim is to get out, to get out of it. Many people think
that
> it is only by going back over the question (in this case the
Question of
> Hegel's difference and Deleuze's difference) that it's possible to
get out
> of it. 'What is the position with philosophy Is it dead  (Read Hegel
here)
> Are we going beyond it?' It's very trying. They won't stop returning
to
> the question in order to get out of it. But  getting out neer
happens liek
> that. Movement always happens behind the thinker's back (Hegel's
dead back
> totality, his famous synthesis; his "unhappy consciousness" etc.),
or in a
> moment  when he blinks (and Kierkegaard leaps up; or Nietzsche on his
> horse). Getting out is already achieved, or else it never will."
> "(Dialogues 2  trans. etc) What is interesting here is how Deleuze
> suggests we can sidestep a battle as to get on with things, on own's
own
> path one's own line of flight and one's own interests. IF all
readings of
> philosophy are misreadings then it is inevitable that Deleuze will
misread
> Hegel and this is as it should be. There is no right reading as this
would
> be itself an idealist error or rather an idealist assumption ie.
> discoveringthe real Hegel on whatever subject before one reads
Deleuze, or
> before one reads Deleuze and Guattari. In fact we are already read by
> Hegel and Hegel is re-reading Plato. Deleuze is not climbing the
ladder of
> consciousness to read the eyes of either thinker. He works around the
> sides and makes something  happen elsewhere. The same thing applies to
> Guattari. G. makes some pretty silly statements about Lacan and
Freud for
> instane, but really it is polemical. G has a purpose. So does D. He
wants
> to get out  and not to stay in the question. So both of them must
misread
> Hegel however accurately they read Hegel. I remember a conversation
with
> Foucault in the book Knowledge and Power. F. is asked something
> about sexuality and Freud in the conversation, and he laughs as he
admits
> he has not read all of Freud or even half of Freud. The point is that
> Foucault is already elsewhere. He did his homework and started his
moves
> long before then. He was already reading Freud even when he was not
> reading him. Same thing in my view applies with the Hegel Deleuze
thing.
> Deleuze is already elsewhere. HE is not interested really in what the
> Hegel mahine argues beyond a certain point; he takes the emissions
of that
> thinker I mean the particles  where he wants to go. Knowing in this
case
> makes  knowingmove to another place completely. He is of course
misreading
> and that is unavoidable. But is it unscholarly? Is it the point to
be a
> mirror or is it to move. OF course it is the latter, and that is what
> Deleuze does,, he moves it elswhere. Pierce's comments say as much as
> one can say about Hegel being a castle with no foundation in
reality, I
> mean reality as an Outside. People like to criticize Sartre for his
> misreading of the Hegelian synthesis however they miss the boat.
> Sartre takes one element and combines it with Marx and moves it
elsewhere
> while debunking the silly idea of a scientific dialectic. Deleuze
performs
> a parallel operation both with and without Guattari and for different
> reasons and as he says at a different speed from Guattari. Some
readers
> might say it is a question of pedagogy however if one understands that
> all readings are misprisions of the earlier thinkers then one operates
> from another premise completely. For Deleuze and Guattari the very
nature
> of being is political. Is this a Hegelian notion? Perhaps but what
of it?
> What not of it? Of course it is because it has become so in the
hands of
> Sartre and his critique of the dialectic, and the explicit and
implicit
> attack on Hobbes which inhabits that Critique. One cannot help but
misread
> Hegel says Sartre and further hestates one cannot but misread Marx.
Marx
> is the air we breath he stated as well. Can one do better than the
air one
> breaths? yes, say Deleuze and Guattari one takes a particle a piece
and
> moves it elsewhere onthe line of flight and while doing so you
collapse
> what you are fleeing from.
> 	In Deleuze and Philosophy- Deleuze the Difference Engineer - Keith
> Ansell Pearson discusses briefly the misreading Deleuze makes of
Hegel.
> However again, the misreading is not a misreading but a movement
away to
> something altogether different. elsewhere. THe term misreading and the
> term misprision which I useed are from Harold Bloom, the literary
critic.
> 
> 
> 
> 

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