File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1999/deleuze-guattari.9901, message 512


Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 12:19:28 -0500
From: "B. Metcalf" <bmetcalf-AT-ultranet.com>
Subject: RE: Dialectics


Nathan,

>This gets us back to a different aspect
>of our exchange, which specifically has focussed on Deleuze's reading of
>Hegel.  You have staked your claims the D and H are not similar solely on
>D's reading, because you admit not knowing H. 

You have violently hurled insults at me for not being able to fit your
totalizing perspective of H.  I have NEVER made any interpretation of H,
because I know I am not qualified to do so.  I do not argue with your
description of H.  However, I think I do understand something about D's
perspective of H, and I think that D does not misread H (as you think he
does) based on what I know of your description of H.  Rather, D has a
different plane of immanence.  D does not violate your definition of the
possible when he interprets H as still being in the realm of the possible.
It's just that you are hearing D from H's plane of immanence.    

>I have pointed out that this
>is not what H is up to and that D on this point is wrong about him.  If this
>caricature of H is removed, you will find there are similarities.  You have
>refused to think outside this caricature, because for you ignorance is
>bliss.

You become angry with me because I will not play by your rules.  You think
that anything outside your totalizing perspective of H is a caricature.

>> For D, H's is NOT that multiplicity which tolerates no dependence on the
>> identical in the subject or in the object.
>> 
>	Like duh.  I have said that all through this exchange, in fact I was
>saying this from before this exchange began.  You are again trying to say
>that D and H are not similar because of other ways in which they are
>different, and you are in no way addressing the specific similarities I have
>outlined.

H's is not the multiplicity which tolerates no dependence on the identical
in the subject or object.  I think THAT is the very criterion that D sees
as critical.  THAT is why it is not similar to D's virtual.  All the
similarities you have listed are those which are not critical to the
question of virtuality from D's perspective.


>	Let's go back and remind ourselves of your shifty position, shall
>we? 

"Shiftly" because it won't fit into your schema.

>I pointed out similarities in D's virtual and H's realm of forces.  I
>was quite specific in how they both oppose atomism, underlie meaning and
>sense, give primacy to relationality, and so forth.  I have also said from
>long ago that H's synthesis is conjunctive (and, therefore, we can say that
>it is not a realm of multiplicity in the same way as Deleuze's virtual
>forces).  You have said that the similarities I have identified are not
>similarities by pointing to the difference I have already stated.  You whole
>argument is fallacious.

You have pointed out only how things appear from your Hegelian perspective.
 I don't think they appear the same way from D's perspective.

>> Therefore, D would say that H's is really a representational repetition in
>> the form of the *possibility* of the concept.
>> 
>	I don't give a shit what Deleuze would say.  That is irrelevant.

Yes.  Our whole exchange has been nothing but dueling planes of immanence.

>You have been drawing on Deleuze's reading of Hegel, and staked your claim
>to it being a correct reading.  Since I have objected to parts of it which I
>feel are incorrect, it does no good to respond to my objections by repeating
>them to what Deleuze would say.

Who gets to say what THE CORRECT reading is?  You?

>	That said, this is also NOT even what Deleuze would say.  Show me
>one place where Deleuze defines "possibility" as "representational
>repetition".  He speaks of the realization of the possible in that sense,
>but not the possible itself.  Hence, here again, the way you draw on Deleuze
>is flawed.

D does not change the definition of the possible.  H merely applies it
differently because he sees things from a different plane of immanence.

>> I have never said H thought of his own position in those terms.
>> 
>	No, but you have stated that Deleuze understands Hegel, with nothing
>more than Deleuze's comments as your basis, no knowledge of Hegel.  

I see nothing in D's criticisms of H which would contradict your
description of H.  It seems to you that D "misreads" H, because you aren't
seeing things from D's perspective.

>	Now, again, you are trying to defend it by saying that it is just
>Deleuze's perspective, and Hegel's self-perspective would obviously be
>different.  You are here just trying once again to justify your own
>ignorance and put it on par with someone who has actually read some Hegel.

I am not trying to defend D's criticisms of H.  Since I do not know H, I
would be in no position to accept D's criticisms.  All I am doing is saying
that D's criticisms of H (justified or not) is not based on a misreading of
H (at least nothing in your description of H's position is contradicted by
D).  

>> H & D have very different planes of immanence.  The presuppositions of one
>> plane cannot be used to prove the other wrong.
>> 
>	Typical relativist comment, of the very sort Deleuze rejects.  You
>have the Leibniz book, see for yourself.

I repeat, The presuppositions of one plane of immanence cannot be used to
prove another wrong.  That is not a relativist comment.  Rather, to think
you can disprove D  from the point of view of H, is to believe in H as a
totalizing foundation.

>	I notice you skipped the long part where I explained why I called
>you thoughtless and ignorant.

Yes, I cut through the crap.    

>Care to justify your curt dismissal of
>similarities between Hegel and Deleuze as being too unimportant to mention?

O.K.  If you insist.  I will point out a similarity.  As someone else
said...Hegel and Deleuze both have one 'l' in their names. 

Beth


   

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