From: Kalapsyche-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 06:47:22 EST
Subject: Re: dialectic


In a message dated 1/5/1999 6:30:28 AM EST, P.Bains-AT-murdoch.edu.au writes:

<< On page 198 of Cinema 1 Deleuze writes of Peirce's firstness, secondness
and
 thirdness as 'a kind of dialectic; but it is doubtful that the dialectic
 includes all these movements...One would say rather that it is an inadequate
 interpretation.'
 
 Could someone kind person give me some brief indication of the problem with
 Hegel's dialectic. I have never read Hegel so please bear with me and give
 an example if possible.
 
 'all problems are dialectical'. Deleuze (DR 164).
 
 I ask because the mysticism thread reminded me of Gurdjieff and 'the law of
 three' which appears as a dialectic? I also remember Peter Brook talking to
 Al Pacino (in Pacino's King Lear 'docu') about King Lear in terms of a
 dialectic.
 
 Affirming, Denying, Reconciling.
 
 Paul.  >>

I'm not sure if there's something wrong with Hegel's dialectic itself, but
Deleuze rejects the dialectic because it's bound up in a whole economy of
representation that he criticizes most extensively in Nietzsche and
Philosophy, Difference and Repetition and Bergsonism (Though it's more in the
background there).  In Deleuze's view, the Hegelian dialectic cannot make room
for real differences, but instead renders difference to the shackles of the
Same, Similar and the Identical.  In order to see this, it's necessary to have
a little understanding of how the Hegelian dialectic moves.  The dialectic
moves by a process of contradictions whereby the contradictions are resolved
through a mediating term and the process begins anew.  At some point, this
process comes to an end and the unity of Being and Thought is reached in the
Idea.  At this point, all of the preceding contraditions are retained, but in
the form of a unity or a totality.  Given that the dialectic brings about a
totality, it's clear that all the preceding differences are subservient to
that totality, and only acquire their value in terms of it.  Insofar as the
only relavant differences are those that form a contradiction through being
opposed, differences falling outside of these oppositions have no value in the
system.  Thus, to take a simplistic example, an opposition like male/female
renders differences like hermaphroditism irrelavant to the totality.  Were
then placed in a position where we have to force the hermaphrodite into one or
the other classes, without letting the difference stand as a singularity on
it's own.

In my opinion, it's important to be careful with Deleuze's critique of Hegel.
Although this critique is effective insofar as it takes Hegel on in some key
strategic ways, it doesn't really do the dialectic itself justice and tends to
simplify it on a lot of fronts.  I'm not at all certain that a wholesale
dismissal of Hegel is in order yet...  Would that even be desirable?  Anyway,
I hope this sketchy reply helps a little.

Kala