Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 10:25:07 -0800 (PST) From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: RE: Dialectics Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe the biggest problem with the Deleuze/Hegel debate is that there is no debate. As far as I can tell, Deleuze nowhere presents an argument against Hegel, but instead levels uses Hegel as a lynchpin for a critique. How does this work? As far back as his review of _Logic and Existence_, Deleuze can be seen as pointing out a form of difference in the dialectic that is not dialectical or based on contradiction. This difference is the difference between the Phenomenology and the Greater Logic that does not resolve itself through the sublation of a contradiction. On these grounds, Deleuze then claims that contradiction is not more than difference, but less. That is, he claims that difference must precede contradiction and that contradiction must be a shadow of difference. With this point in mind, he then claims that western philosophy has been without a concept of difference, but has instead been content to inscribe it in the concept and identity. Thus, through this critique Deleuze offers himself the opportunity to develop a concept of difference that isn't subservient to the four shackles of representation and the concept, thereby opening up the possibility of a new way of looking at things. So why isn't this an argument? How does critique differ from argument? In the first place, it appears that Deleuze is committed to the thesis that there is representation, possibility, the concept, etc.. In fact, it's not too difficult to discern a genetic account of how representation is actualized in the pages of D&R. If this is the case, we cannot say that Deleuze's engagement with Hegel is an attempt to show that Hegel is somehow false or wrong... If it were, that would be an argument. Rather, Deleuze uses Hegel to show that there is something more, difference and repetition, and that that something more changes the way we look at things. This would explain why Deleuze claims that philosophy is at its best as critique. Critique isn't the negative task of destroying something, but the positive task of making room for something else. If there's a grain of truth in the foregoing, it seems to me that a lot of the secondary literature surrounding the Deleuze/Hegel encounter becomes ridiculous. On the one hand you have the Hegelians crying out ad nauseum that Hegel has been misread and that he already anticipates Deleuze here or there. *Bleck* This only indicates that they are reading Deleuze as standing in a position of opposition to Hegel, thus opening himself up to a dialectical sublation. As a student of Hyppolite's, it's highly unlikely that Deleuze would have lacked the dialectical sophistication not to have foreseen the deadlock that would occur from opposing Hegel. On the other hand you have the disciples of Deleuze that endlessly repeat the legends of Deleuze's overturning of Hegel, unconsciously placing themselves right back into Hegel. Under a more Lacanian reading, this endless repetition could be seen as a symptom born out of a trauma, or a primary ambiguity in Deleuze's *non*philosophy where a failure to depass a blockage perpetually returns in the form of the Real. Neither side of the confrontation is very palatable insofar as the first is entirely too scholarly, while the second reveals a certain insidious dogmatism in the hearts of some Deleuzian spirits... A fundamentalism, on might say, that fetishizes Deleuzian concepts, critiques, and language and gives up on the project of creating concepts to bypass problems in the socius. As far as I can tell, the only two ways of bypassing this deadlock consist in either (a) placing stress on the critical aspects of Deleuze's project and discerning how he used it to create new concepts that help to undermine representational structures that have become too rigid, or (b) finding a way to rhizomatically reread Hegel that makes him into a thinker of affirmation and non-concentric and non-oppositional difference that would depass the Hegelian totalization of Spirit in the form of Protestant Germany. Either alternative strikes me as strong and interesting, but the endless debate surrounding whether or not Deleuze's *argument* works seems to be a dead end. Paul ---"B. Metcalf" <bmetcalf-AT-ultranet.com> wrote: > > Nathan, > > > 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. > > Nathan, I have tried my best throughout this exchange to try to see things > from your point of view. Now I must say, I don't know why you can't be > more patient with such an "ignorant" and "thoughtless" person. I don't > know why, if you really think Hegel is so similar to Deleuze, that you > can't be more tolerant of someone who sees folds of perspective which are > different from yours. Why must there be a homogeneous way of looking at > Hegel? Why is it so important that I agree with you? > > I have learned something about Hegel from our exchange. I thought it was a > worthwhile exchange. But I still think there is room for different ways of > looking at this. > > Beth > > P.S. I still don't understand how your description avoids the category of > the possible, in that there is still repetition of forces in the form of > the identity of the concept. I don't understand how H can escape merely > conceptual possiblity. But I guess I am just too ignorant to understand. > So I won't ask you to explain it a twelfth time. > > > 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. > > > _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free -AT-yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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