From: "Widder,NE" <N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Dialectics
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 11:34:35 -0000



	Beth,

> Nathan,
> 
> >	I have not said active forces are molar -- I have said it is part of
> >the virtual realm which constitutes the molar through actualization.  
> 
> Then we agree about that.
> 
> 
> >	Become active is not the same as becoming active.  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 don't agree with that.  This may be *similar* to what H is doing.  But
> it
> is not what D is doing.  
> 
	Why do you mix up everything that has happened in this exchange?
>From your initial disagreement with me on the similarities between D and H,
we have gotten into other aspects of D's thought.  I have not said these are
necessarily similar to H, so why are you suggesting that this is what I have
said?

	We have also gotten into your particular reading of D, which should
be kept separate from what D is doing.  You brought up the idea of forces
that "have become active" and "have become reactive".  I have pointed out
that this is clearly different from becoming active and becoming reactive.
I have suggested that if anything, having become active or having become
reactive would be molar, but I have also suggested in the parentheses that
the temporal connotations here have to be modified.


> >> 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"?
> 
> I still don't know what you mean by "become active".
> 
	You brought up the past tense of becoming.  You are the one who has
talked about forces that "have become reactive".  I'm asking you to explain
it to me.

> Active forces are those which have not become reactive by being separated
> from what they can do.
> 
	Well, for starters, Deleuze is quite clear that active forces simply
don't become reactive.  Reactive forces are not the same thing as active
forces separated from what they can do.

> Becoming active, to me, is the eternal return, and that is not molar.  
> 
	Like duh (to quote Michael).  I have said that too.  I have said
that becoming active is virtual, but the virtual goes through processes of
actualization, no?  I have spoken of the actualization of the eternal return
-- which is different from the eternal return itself -- as being molar.

	You are failing to read previous posts again.

> >> 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. 
> 
> >The actual IS a synthesis of folds, but it is a
> >disjuncitve synthesis.  Please do not collapse synthesis and dialectics
> >together.
> 
> I wasn't.
> 
	Yes you were.

> But I thought you were.
> 
	Because you were.  Let us quote from your last post.

>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

	You saw the word synthesis and assumed I meant Hegelian dialectical
synthesis.  Why you made that leap is beyond me.  You have at least
collapsed the synthesis and dialectics together for the purposes of
(wrongly) ascribing that to me.

> I still suspect you might be interpreting D's synthesis in a Hegelian way.
> 
> 
	Suspect all you want.  Read the posts before you respond, and you'll
find out that I am not.  You said I was reading Deleuze's actualization of
the virtual in an Hegelian way because I was invoking the idea of a
synthesis of folds.  Since you have no basis for replacing "synthesis" in
the previous sentence with "dialectical synthesis", your suspicion is of
your own making.

> >	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.
> 
> I am NOT treating the synthesis of folds as only conjunctive.  
> 
	No, but you are suggesting that I am.  Let me quote from your
previous post.


>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.  
>  
	And of course, recall the other quote above, where you say that D's
difference is not a synthesis.


> >	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.
> 
> No, I am not.  In The Fold p.20 D says, "...perspectivism amounts to a
> relativism, but not the relativism we take for granted.  It is not a
> variation of truth according to the subject, but the condition in which
> the
> truth of a variation appears to the subject.  This is the very idea of
> Baroque perspective."  Do you think this is the same as D's perspectivism?
> 
	I will have to get my Leibniz book out when I get home to find the
particular passages I had in mind.  But suffice it to say, based on the
above paragraph, you ARE treating perspectivism as the relativism "we take
for granted".  That is why you are trying to put your admitted ignorance of
Hegel on par with my knowledge of Hegel.

> Are you equating D's perspectivism with that of the Baroque?  
> 
	Read the damn quote you just provided and read what I said in my
last post.  In the last post I rejected the idea of perspectivism as a
subjective relativism.  In the quote above, Deleuze makes clear that Baroque
perspectivism (and, from that, his own perspectivism) is not a subjective
relativism.  You are capable of putting 2 and 2 together, no?  You will then
find that what has happened is that I have accused you of invoking the very
relativism that Deleuze rejects.

> See Cinema 1 beginning at the bottom of page 72.  Deleuze talks about
> "free indirect discourse" (which can be roughly compared to Baroque
> perspectivism), saying that this form "raises many problems for
> grammarians and linguists: it consists of an enunciation taken with an
> utterance, which itself depends on another enunciation...There is not a
> simple combination of two fully-constitued subjects of enunciation, one of
> which would be reporter, the other reported.  It is rather a case of an
> assemblage of enunciation, carrying out two inseparable acts of
> subjectivation simultaneously...There is no mixture or average of two
> subjects, each belonging to a system, but a differentiation of two
> correlative subjects in a system which is itself heterogeneous....It is no
> longer metaphor which is the fundamental act of language, inasmuch as it
> 'homogenises' the system; it is free indirect discourse, inasmuch as it
> testifies to a system which is always heterogeneous, far from
> equilibrium...Free indirect discourse, however, is not amenable to
> linguistic categories, because these are only concerned with homogeneous
> or homogenised systems...there is no subject
> which acts without another which watches it act, and which grasps it as
> acted..."  Therefore, Deleuze is not talking about a normativity of
> enunciation, but of assemblages of enunciation.  There is normativity in
> Hegel's relationality.  That is why I CANNOT call D & H similar. 
> 
	Mixing up the aspects of this exchange again.  You introduced the
idea of perpectivism to account for our divergent readings of Hegel, as
another attempt to save your sorry position which is based on ignorance.  I
have responded that this perspectivism you invoke does not save you, because
perspectivism is not a subjective relativism in the way that you have
clearly been using it.  THIS PART OF THE EXCHANGE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE
QUESTION OF THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DELEUZE AND HEGEL.

	And, of course, you are invoking a crude opposition yet again.  You
have said before that you do not think there are no similarities between
Hegel and Deleuze, just not the ones I've outlined.  You have never answered
the question of what you do think is similar between them.  Now, you say
that you cannot call Deleuze and Hegel similar -- demonstrating once again
that you want to establish a binary opposition between them. 

> >> 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.
> 
> I have never heard you explain it once yet.
> 
	You have never read the posts.

> So could you please (even if for the eleventh time) explain, 'how does
> Hegel's relationality not fit neatly into the category of the possible,
> given that there is repetition in the form of the identity of the concept?
> 
> 
	To repeat yet again (why are you forcing me through an eternal
repetition of the same?):  The realm of relational forces that Hegel posits
presents a movement which is not a possibility that may or may not be but is
fully real.  It is also not an actual movement because it does not actually
appear in immediate experience, but immediate experience is led to it as the
condition of this experience having sense or meaning.  That this movement of
forces in Hegel is one of being-in-itself to being-for-another to
being-for-self THROUGH being-for-another, of course, means that it is
ultimately a movment of identity.  But that does not mean it is an actual
movement, nor a merely possible one, in his thinking.  Thus, it has a
structural similarity to the virtual in Deleuze's philosophy, insofar as its
relation to given experience is concerned, and the role it plays in
establishing sense and meaning.  It is also similar to Deleuze in the way it
follows from a critique of atomism.  Now, that does not make it identical to
Deleuze's virtual, only similar in certain respects -- respects which are
bypassed in certain ways by Deleuze and in every way by your Hegel you have
dreamt up for yourself.  But it is also an important set of similarities
because it indicates how Hegelian thought, when stripped of its commitments
to identity and to the spatialization of difference, becomes something more
like a Deleuzean thought of difference.  This last aspect is important not
only because it helps establish helpful linkages with other thinking -- so
that, say, some Heidegger disciples might actually come to recognize what
Deleuze is doing and won't be so apt to dismiss him -- but also because it
helps strip Hegel of the aura of being the "enemy", which is precisely the
way he is so often characterized by Deleuzean disciples, as well as by
Deleuze in some unfortunate passages, especially those found in N&P.  These
passages are unfortunate because they lead to ridiculous caricatures of
Hegel like the one you have been parading across the list for the last
couple of weeks.

	Explanation done.

> >	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?
> 
> If Hegel's category is something that does not fit Deleuze's divisions,
> then don't just say so.  Tell my why.  Only then can I try to answer you.
> 
	Well, I have explained it now 11 times, so start trying to answer
me.
>  
> >	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.
> 
> Excuse me.  I misread your previous question.  Of course, there is
> synthesis in Deleuze.  But I don't see it as *similar* to Hegel's. 
> 
	Beth, you are blind.  I have said how the form of synthesis is
ultimately different between the two.  I have demonstrated how it is in this
synthesis where thd difference lies.  That does not mean there are not
similarities between Deleuze's and Hegel's thinking.

	You are now mixing things up in a different way.  To say that there
are differences in their mode of synthesis does not mean there are not
similarities in their thinking, the latter being what I have said all along.

> >> 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.
> 
> Maybe you have explained it before, I don't remember.
> 
	Well, it was explained in the 1/6 post, so your memory is really not
very good at all.

> Anyway, I do not agree.
> 
	SInce you have no knoweldge of Hegel, your disagreement carries not
weight.

> If you want to persuade me, you will have to explain it again.
> 
	I am not quite sure I am interested in persuading you, since you
seem so blissful in your ignorance of Hegel.  And I already know that
explaining it again will do no good.  So just read the posts.

> I think Hegel does ask that question, and that is why I can't call his
> thought in any way similar to Deleuze's.
> 
	Re-establishing the binarism.  I guess this is your ultimate answer
to the question I asked you which you yourself prompted -- if you do think
there are similarities, but not the ones I've outlined, what are they.  This
last answer is just one last pathetic remark taken from your own ignorance.

> >	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.
> 
> I think there are no similarities important enough to mention.
> 
	A typically ignorant and dogmatic answer from a thoughtless person.
Since you remain ignorant of Hegel, you don't even know ones that you could
mention, regardless of whether they were important enough to mention or not.
Since you have not read my many explanations, you have not even adequately
responded to the important similarities I have outlined.

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