Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 02:36:47 -0500 (EST)
From: yaya <cw_duff-AT-alcor.concordia.ca>
Subject: -labour/Hegel/sadness/Spinoza


=09Some excerpts re:Deleuze references to Hegel and Spinoza.                                     
                      GILLES DELEUZE - SEMINAR SESSION
                         ON SCHOLASTICISM & SPINOZA
                                     
                         Vincennes, 14 January 1974
                                     
                      Translated by Timothy S. Murphy
                              murphyx-AT-ucla.edu
                                     
   We had begun with Spinoza for Spinoza is perhaps the only one to have
   worked from the point of view [sous les esp=CBces] of reason, to have
   pursued a kind [esp=CBce] of mad thought. There's always in Lovecraft,
   the author of novels of terror and science fiction, there's always
   reference to a mysterious book which falls from the hands of whomever
   touches it and this book is called the Necronomicon, the famous book
   of the mad Arab. And Spinoza's Ethics is just that, the famous book of
   the mad Jew. The true name of the Ethics is the Necronomicon.
  
   I had begun by explicating the following: imagine how Spinoza saw
   things; when he directed his eyes toward things he saw neither forms
   nor organs, neither genera nor species. It's easy to say, but less
   easy to live like that. It's necessary to train one's self, although
   there are those who are gifted. I open a parenthesis: French
   philosophy...there are bits of nationality about which I understand
   nothing, but I note that the French are the sort who believe for
   example in the ego [moi]; it's not by chance that their only
   philosopher said "cogito." The subject, the ego; there are some
   strange people who say "the ego." I don't understand. I think of the
   differences of nationality because the English are the sort who have
   never understood what the Ego means. There was a famous colloquium to
   which all the sorts of so-called analytical philosophy, of current
   English logic, had come, and then there was Merleau-Ponty on the
   French side, and the others, the English, were there like they were at
   the zoo. It's not that they were against him.
  
   But it's quite curious, if you take the great English philosophers-of
   course, they say "I," but yet again it's not this that's the
   problem-for them it's the most comical notion and they ask themselves
   from where can such a belief, that of the ego, come. A belief in the
   identity of the ego is a madman's trick [truc de fous]. And they
   really think like that, they don't sense "egos" in themselves. The
   English novelists are similar: their heroes are never presented as
   "egos." Think of French novels, then it's truly the opposite, one
   wallows in "egos," everybody says "cogito" in the French novel.
  
   Let's try to imagine how Spinoza saw things. He did not see genera,
   species, he did not see categories, so what did he see? He saw
   differences of degrees of power...
  
   I said broadly that to each thing will correspond a kind of degree of
   power and that, if need be, two things said to be of the same species
   might have degrees of power much more different that two things of
   different species. To make this more concrete we say that to each
   degree of power corresponds a certain power of being affected. Its
   power of being affected is what reveals the degree of power of a
   thing, of an animal, of [GAP IN TRANSCRIPT], in other words: you will
   not be defined by your form, by your organs, by your organism, by your
   genus or by your species, tell me the affections of which you are
   capable and I'll tell you who you are. Of what affects are you
   capable?
  
   It's self-evident that between a draft horse and a racehorse the power
   of being affected is not the same, in a fundamental way; the proof is
   that if you put a racehorse into the assemblage of a draft horse, it's
   quite likely that it will be worn out in three days.
  
   We have this group of notions: being is said in one and the same sense
   of everything of which it's said; hence beings are not distinguished
   by their form, their genus, their species, they're distinguished by
   degrees of power. These degrees of power refer to powers of being
   affected, the affects being precisely the intensities of which a being
   is capable. Now it's becoming more coherent. With the result that, I
   assume, when Spinoza directed his eyes toward whatever, he grasped
   powers of being affected. He grasped populations of intensities, he
   grasped capacities and perhaps he confused an ox and a draft horse,
   and on the other hand he did not confuse a racehorse and a draft
   horse. As we would say today, he makes these cuts [coupures]
   differently than the others. Then there's no longer just an effort to
   do: in any case, it's not necessary to believe that power [pouvoir]
   means a possibility that might not be fulfilled. Power [puissance] and
   degrees of power, this is no longer the Aristotelian world which is a
   world of analogy, it's not power which is distinguised from the act.
   The power of being affected, in any case, is or will be fulfilled, is
   fulfilled at each instant; it's necessarily fulfilled, and why? It's
   necessarily fulfilled at each instant by virtue of the variable
   assemblages into which it enters. That is, the affect is the manner in
   which a degree of power is necessarily actualized [effectu=C8] as a
   function of the assemblages into which the individual or the thing
   enters.
  
   A power of being affected is always fulfilled; it can be fulfilled in
   different ways, everything depends on the assemblage. In what ways can
   it be fulfilled, since it's fulfilled in any case? This is Spinoza's
   last thought: he says broadly that it's fulfilled in any case, but it
   can be fulfilled in two fashions. A degree of power is necessarily
   realized, or a power of being affected is necessarily fulfilled, that
   refers to these same two propositions, but very broadly speaking it
   can be fulfilled in two directions: either my power of being affected
   is fulfilled in such a way that my power of acting increases, or in
   such a way that my power of acting diminishes. Spinoza specifies: when
   my power of acting diminishes, this means, very broadly speaking, that
   my affects are sad; my power of being affected is completely fulfilled
   by sadness. For example "I'm guilty" or "I'm depressed" or "it's not
   going well"; but "it's not going well" completely fulfills my power of
   being affected. And why, when my affects are sad, is my power of
   acting diminished while my power of being affected is fulfilled? The
   way in which Spinoza views people is very very beautiful. It's even
   more beautiful when one sees the objections that people made to him,
   for example that imbecile [d=C8bile] Hegel. When Hegel says, against
   Spinoza, "ah that one never understood anything of the labor of the
   negative," it's perfect, the labor of the negative is a load of crap.
   It's not that he doesn't understand, he understands very well: the
   labor of the negative or the sad passions are those which fulfill my
   power of being affected in conditions such that my power of acting
   necessarily diminishes. When I'm sad my power of acting diminishes.
   It's obvious, it sufficed to think it: when you're affected with sad
   affects there's an object, something, an animal or a person which
   combines with you and that person or thing affects you with sadness.
   But in the case of the sad affect, the power of the other thing and
   your own would be subtracted since all your efforts at that moment
   would consist in struggling against this sadness and hence your power
   and the power of the thing which affects you would be subtracted.
   When, on the contrary, you are affected with joyful affects, the power
   of the thing which affects you with joyful affects and your own power
   are combined and added so that your power of acting, for that same
   power of being affected which is your own, is increased. Thus
   everything is crystal clear.
  
   There you are, the linkage of notions: univocity of being, differences
   of degrees of power, powers of being affected each of which
   corresponds to a degree of power, power of acting which increases or
   diminishes depending on whether the affects which fulfill your power
   of being affected are by nature sad or joyful.