Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 13:20:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Bryant <levi_bryant-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Relativity


This question of what the concept is in D&G is absolutely fascinating,
and, for me, holds a lot of possibilities.  Usually, when we think of
concepts, we think of abstract representations defined by an intension
that is the inverse determination of an extension.  That is to say, my
concept of "tableness" is here defined by a set of represented
predicates that defines what counts as a table in the field of my
experience.  The Deleuzian idea of concepts is similar in the respect
that it allows things to be actualized in the course of our experience
by defining a question-problem complex that sets the dynamic process
of (indi)different/ciation in action, but it is radically different
because it is not a matter of knowing, but if opening up a field of
differences.  In this sense, concepts are not something you or I have
in order to think, but instead are like images or vectors of movement
in becoming forming a plane of possible encounters and confrontations.
 Exciting stuff!

Paul  




---michelle phil lewis king <kinglewis-AT-hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> 
> Daniel wrote,
> >
> >I am well aware of the use of "concepts" as tools, and the ambiguity
> >involved in treating d&g as systematic thinkers... but I actually see
> >d&g as offering, in the end, an all or nothing propositon... these
> >concepts are not truly debatable, but to be used, as machines: and
> >machines determine their own use by the way they are made, which is
> >identical with how they function... which is not to say I accept
their
> >proposition, necessarily...
> 
> >I'm asking for trouble, but I think it's pretty obvious that they are
> >offering a systematic (but rhizomatic) philosophy... ( because they 
> have
> >a different idea of what a system is... because they understand that
> >there are OPEN systems, rhizomes, multiplicities that can grow, and
> >which change as the grow...) and are therefore not at all
> >relativists....
> >
> To the vague operation of my mind I think you're on to something
here.. 
> I read a demand running through Deleuze and then D=G that one should 
> submit to the rhizome.. to writing and the war machine, to a 
linguistic 
> of flows broken by points and flows which are not linguistic. The 
> meaningful voice should submit to the effect of another unity, that
of 
> the break-flow. The machine. So in this notion a pluralism of
meaningful 
> voices in dialogue would have to submit to the cruel unity of a
machine 
> in action, cutting them up, interupting them and their comfortable 
> pluralism with other points and flows. Slicing them up into another 
> unity in movement.Violent, brutal, malevolent. Necessary.
> 
> The idea that a rhizome is a collection of seperate personal 
> perspectives, of views that gives meaning to what each sees and which 
> communicate  through different opinions traded amicably in
discourse, is 
> shattered by the work of the writing machine that Deleuze and
Guattari 
> ennact. No agreement is possible. The rhizome itself undermines the 
> contented trade of opinion through its constant action. Shattering
the 
> brickwork of the crumbling forum, substituting itself for the voices
of 
> reason. Reality. 
> 
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