*Contents* 00:50 PLATO 02:20 First figure in Platonic dialectic: The selection of difference 06:54 Second figure in Platonic dialectic: The installation of a myth 11:37 Third figure in Platonic dialectic: The establishment of a foundation 16:13 Fourth figure in Platonic dialectic: The positing of a question-problem complex 22:30 Simulacra 34:30 CHAPTER WRAP-UP 34:52 First closing quote 47:13 Second closing quote 52:01 Summary
I’ve been working on this idea that all things are real. The axiom is simply, “All is real.” Creating an understanding of things through descriptive and declarative propositions is just a matter of categorizing and deductive logic at that point; that’s where Aristotle is useful. I think that this does something similar to what Deleuze does by reversing Platonism in that we remove the need for the search for a transcendent object. What I like about Deleuze here is that he gives us a metaphysics to understand perception and not just a model for the understanding itself - metaphysics rather than epistemology. When we use the Aristotelian method of categorization we are mediating difference to talk about fixed things, or identities in our understanding. But perception has a direct link to action and action always produces a difference. The ways I’ve come to understand how perception works is through differentiation of our bodies through space. And so, to my understanding, perception and action find a ground in unmediated difference where the solution produces a question which produces a solution and so forth. Understanding this can help us understand the connections between the body, perception, action and habit as movement of difference in itself. In this sense, we can understand a difference in kind between the mode of perception and the mode of thought. Action through perception requires us to engage with reality through the being of difference. Reflection through thought requires us to engage with abstractions through the being of identities. What’s important when understanding this is to mediate the difference in kind through the axiom “all is real,” concluding that both these modes are as real as the other. Neither are superior. Neither can be the measure of each other. This isn’t to find some transcendent truth but to simply understand things through a consistent and coherent categorization; consistent but not complete per se. I take a lot from Bergson to understand this interpretation of Deleuze. I also take a lot from your interpretations of both thinkers. So thanks. What I want to ask is if you see any glaring issues with this line of thinking. Perhaps it’s not as coherent as I’d like to think. A critique or additional thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks again for the videos.
Thanks for the interesting comment, Kyle. I’m a bit of a slow thinker, hence the delay in my response. For better or worse, I find I have to mull things over before I can get any decent traction on them. So, I like the way you’ve articulated perception/action as difference and thought/reflection as identity, although I’m not so clear on the relation between them. As I read it, I see three possible interpretations: 1. The way you talk about perception/action (understood as a “movement of difference in itself” and “ground[ed] in unmediated difference”) seems to indicate this is being understood metaphysically. You do also talk about them “producing” difference, which shifts the discussion to the ‘level’ of concrete particularities, but the gist appears (I think) to be metaphysical. If so, is thought/reflection getting the same metaphysical treatment when you ground it in identity? If it is, then we would be positing two equally foundational ‘aspects’ of metaphysical reality here, difference and identity, right? (Deleuze wrote the wrong book!) This is certainly defensible I think (although, as I said, quite different from Deleuze’s thesis); a kind of metaphysical ‘struggle’ between opposite tendencies. It would also provide a metaphysical justification for your claim that “all is [metaphysically] real.” 2. An alternative is that the whole discussion is at the level of concrete particularities, not metaphysics (the sentence about ‘modes’ of perception and thought seems to support this, I think). In this case, perception/action and thought/reflection would be two (‘differenciated’ in the Deleuzian sense) actualisations (also in the Deleuzian sense) of some underlying metaphysical reality. This would also be fine, I think. “All is real” would then be an ontological assertion (something like what Graham Harman or Tristan Garcia maintain (I immediately thought of Harman when you said, “all things are real”)). 3. The third possible interpretation is that perception/action is being understood metaphysically (grounded in difference in itself) while thought/reflection is being understood at the concrete level (grounded in identity). This is a bit more problematic. In this case, there _is_ indeed a difference in kind, but only because of the different ‘levels’ on which the analysis is being conducted. Further, it is hard to see how “all is real” can function as a mediator here. Yes, thought and action are both ‘real,’ but action (understood in metaphysical terms as difference) must be ‘superior’ to thought (understood in concrete terms as identity), given that the latter is also metaphysically grounded in difference. In other words, if difference in itself is metaphysical bedrock (which is what I take Deleuze to be saying, and about which I think you agree), perception/action _and_ thought/reflection both have to find their ultimate reason in it.
@@absurdbeing2219 Hey, it’s taken me a while to organize my thoughts here, so my apologies. I first want to thank you for responding and taking this idea seriously. I appreciate it. Secondly, I’d like to address your interpretations. Actually, I’d like to agree with your first interpretation and challenge it and myself a bit. I’d like to say first that yes, I believe this is a metaphysical treatment compared to an epistemological treatment: Im doing the categorization and creating an understanding rather than trying to study a body of knowledge I’ve already created - but perhaps I’m misunderstanding metaphysics versus epistemology, or I’m misunderstanding exactly what I’m doing here lol. Next I’d like to say, yes, I do believe I was grounding thought and reflection in identity similar to grounding perception in difference. What I should have said is that I’m grounding the BODY and materiality in difference-in-itself, as perception is a faculty of the body. I must also correct myself again and mention that I should have said that I’m grounding the mind and faculty of thought in representation since identity is one of the four methods of representation (identity, opposition, analogy and resemblance), so my apologies for that confusion. The last thing I’ll respond to regarding your first interpretation is the “Difference and Identity” comment. I think Deleuze nailed it with Difference and Repetition. The history of philosophy is full of expositions on the mind, faculty of thought and representation. Deleuze, I believe, is working on a metaphysic that substantiates the bodily element of our lives, contrasting his ideas to the history of philosophy that focuses on the mind, thought (rationality) and representation. What’s important to Deleuze is substantiating difference in itself and repetition for itself so we can develop an understanding of our bodily experience as something as real as the Platonic forms, which absolutely relies on representation, for example. He’s looking for imminence. Repetition is aptly in the title because we can’t understand difference in itself without repetition for itself and vice versa. We can think of this dynamic simply and say that difference in itself is a notion of time whereas repetition for itself is a notion of form, and we can’t have one without the other. So he’s creating a transcendental understanding of materiality: transcendental materialism (this is my interpretation at least). As for your second interpretation, I’ll keep it brief. I don’t think I’m speaking on the level of concrete particulars. I believe I’m trying to develop an understanding that could be utilized universally, in that anyone could pick up the logical conclusions that develop out of the axiom “all is real,” in order to make sense of reality and it’s concrete particulars: once this metaphysic is substantiated then I have a structure I can use to understand concrete particulars. This idea began with me just wondering if I could make sense of things while always keeping consistent with “All is real.” And so far I think I’ve been able to do it. So for the next section of my response I’d like to more thoroughly explain my metaphysical understanding produced by this axiom through a description of our phenomenological elements (body, mind, soul) and faculties (sensation, perception, proprioception, thought, memory, imagination, desire, willpower, production). I’m sorry it’s a bit long but I tried to be as clear as I could. There’s absolutely no need to respond to all the details of this exposition. I’d like to know if it’s something that makes sense to you, that it’s coherent, and hopefully consistent. If there are any glaring logical or taxonomic errors id be happy for them to be revealed. (It will be in the next comment).
@@absurdbeing2219 To begin this exposition, the first thing I’d like to reflect on is what we’re doing right now. We’re trying to gain a metaphysical understanding of reality. So what I do to begin this journey is ground my understanding with the axiom “All is real.” Sometimes when I say this to people they respond with, “Well, are unicorns real? What about Sherlock Holmes?” And I’ll respond with, “Unicorns exist as part of the imagination. They exist as toys and cartoon characters. Sherlock Holmes also exists as part of the imagination. Also within books, movie characters. All these, including the imagination, are real. What I mean when I say this is that we really experience them. The imagination and these different forms we create in the image of our imaginations really affect us, and in this sense are real.” I think of the imagination as a faculty in the Kantian sense, if I understand Kant correctly. Right now we are trying to understand reality and when we do this we are using the faculty of thought (or the “faculty of the understanding” but I think I like “thought” more). We are thinking, in language, trying to represent reality to make sense of it. This is what the faculty of thought does: it symbolizes to make logical sense of experience. In this way it’s always a reflection or abstraction. I draw a lot from Susanne Langer and Bergson to piece together my understanding of the faculty of thought. I suspect this is where Deleuze’s treatment of Aristotle is useful, which is what I was hinting at in my first comment. The faculties of imagination and of thought are both part of our minds. There is also a third faculty, the faculty of memory. Episodic memory. “Pure memory” in a Bergsonian sense, if I remember correctly. In other words, memories of the experiences of the past. Personally, I don’t have a good sense of past visual images. I cant imagine visual images very well at all. What I can remember best with this faculty of memory is voices and feelings. When I recollect the past I can remember how I felt at those times very distinctly from how I feel now. All three of these faculties, imagination, thought and memory all interact with one another. We don’t ever experience one purely over another. What we tend to experience is qualitative intensities of these faculties as they fluctuate and feed into one another. Right now there’s a qualitative experience of the faculty of thought as I write this that is more intense than say the faculty of episodic memory. But wait, there’s more! Not only do we experience the faculties of the mind, we also experience the faculties of our bodies! I believe these would be sensation, perception and proprioception. I’ll say a few brief things on each. Sensation is the contact of our sense organs against material actuality. It’s through sensation that we gain an image of reality. Perception is responsible for memory in duration, in a Bergsonian sense. When images of sensation are prolonged by perceptual duration we gain an experience of surfaces and depths and essences. Proprioception is the faculty of coordination which allows the body to move around in relation to sensation and perception. This is also incredibly important for our sense of affectivity: what and when will something affect my body. These faculties give us a sense of a point of reference or a “center;” a singular experience: a singularity of knowledge, where we no long know things through propositional language but through direct bodily experience (direct perception as JJ Gibson would call it). The element body has a singularity where the mind must take over. It’s in this sense that Deleuze’s notion of being “forced to think” is substantiated: when bodily capability is brought to a threshold of reactivity, where bodily habit does not have a solution for a problem, the mind is triggered to help us break down a situation abstractly so we can find a solution in order to direct our future actions. This way once we’ve solved our problem we can continue on living our daily lives. In the inverse, sometimes when we try to think about things, like how a soccer tactic might play out if one were a coach, but the thought can only go so far as to tell us how it will actualize. At a certain point we have to put the abstractions into actual motions in the form of bodies on a soccer field and it’s the direct material existence that will give us the answers we really want. In other words, they are different in kind, not of degree: there’s no way to increase or decrease an intensive property (like temperature or pressure) that will change the body into the mind or vice versa. Rather, intensive properties can force the body or mind reach a threshold where the opposite element is experienced. I’m suspicious that’s there’s another element besides the mind and the body that must animate living beings and give them a direction through both space and time (Bergsonsian sense). A soul. This is what I suspect Bergson calls Elon Vital. What Deleuze will go on to call productive-desire. What Schopenhauer calls Will. I think what I’m talking about is the element that is “soul” which has the faculties of desire, willpower and production. Desire can be described as a disposition; we are given desires, we do not choose them. Desire is that which produces a choice, produces an impetus to move in some direction rather than no direction at all - no impetus to move is death or being inanimate. When we are presented with a slew of desires must choose between them since we can’t have everything we want at once - the material necessity of logistics. It’s this selection procedure that I call the faculty of willpower. When presented with multiple desires I must will one into actualization, or I must determine what will actualize - one over another. Now that I describe the element of soul I’m not so sure “production” is a faculty but rather what which is the soul: the element that produces. I see the mind, body and soul not in a state of harmony but a sort of state of violence where desire animate life, the body reacts to it, and the mind reflects on it. Reflection can cause hesitations in our reactions, allowing time for us to choose something different (differenciation?) than our repeated reactions. This is how we learn and develop an ego. There’s also a layer of social critique and social memory that’s important to understand how any of this is structured. Social formations are absolutely necessary to understanding this broader picture of the metaphysics of our reality. At the moment I was only trying to substantiate our human experience. The social critique is important to steer us away from human-centered understandings of freedom but I won’t push that envelope any further. The important thing about this metaphysical description I’ve created above is the fact I didn’t categorize anything as “outside of reality.” There was nothing transcendent about this description. The mind, body or soul don’t have a privileged place in this metaphysic. They’re all important in their own right to help describe what’s going on so we can understand our reality. An example of a metaphysics that does seek transcendence: the stoics believe that we must focus the most on our rational faculties so that we can become virtuous so we can become in harmony with nature, which for the stoics is a rational nature where virtue is the “code” for its actualization. For them, to transcend human error we must become virtuous through our faculty of thought, giving thought (rationality) the privileged position in fully actualizing ourselves. This is what I want to avoid. For me, the faculty of thought is more or less just a tool to help us solve problems our bodily habits haven’t developed solutions for. Again, most importantly, they’re all real. We can speak of them all as having as much reality as the other. For Deleuze, I believe he’d say that we are speaking of the faculties as having the “same sense,” (Logic of Sense, I believe). It’s an affirmative metaphysic rather than a dialectical one. The metaphysic I’m trying to build doesn’t create situations where I must negate things into “illusion” or non-transcendence, but rather affirm the reality of all things and simply give everything a place in the understanding through taxonomy. Thanks again for engaging with me. I hope this has been as good an experience for you as it has been for me. Have a nice day.
@@kylerodd2342 Wow. That’s a pretty in-depth outline/breakdown of human existence. There isn’t really anything I want to say about the exposition which, by in large, seems fine, although I might be a little chary of that 'soul' you mentioned. Further, invoking it the way you have (linking it with Bergson and Schopenhauer's _metaphysical_ ideas) would seem to conflict with, or at least need resolution in relation to, your other metaphysical commitments in difference and representation. (Although I suspect we might be talking past each other a little here regarding the word 'metaphysics') Before we go any further, it seems pretty clear that we disagree about Deleuze’s project. While reading _D&R_ it never even occurred to me that Deleuze was according representation any kind of equality with difference. I’ll keep that idea in mind as this series progresses, but I have read the book already (and gone through it a second time to make my notes) and that thought never crossed my mind. I don’t have a problem disagreeing over this. I just think it is important to point out or, like I said, we will end up talking past each other. (By the way, my point about the never written _Difference and Identity_ was not that repetition is unnecessary, but that difference (and repetition) is only one half of the metaphysical equation according to what I think is your reading of Deleuze. As you explained, you feel much has already been written about identity (or ‘representation’) in philosophy, so, rather than giving us a _complete_ metaphysical account of reality with _D&R,_ Deleuze was filling a lacuna. I get it, although, as I said, this is not what I take him to be doing.) The main point I want to return to here after your clarification is what I see as a blurring of the “metaphysical difference,” as (I think) I called it in this video (I definitely remember talking about it, but I can’t remember if I subsequently deleted that part or not!). If I have understood your comment correctly, you seem to define metaphysics by way of contrast with epistemology, such that the former is an originary categorisation or taxonomy, while the latter is something like an explication of this. This is the source of more than a little ambiguity for me in your comment. Metaphysics, for me, means the fundamental nature of reality. It’s ‘beyond’ physics, not in the sense that it is transcendental or non-physical or taxonomical (e.g. fitting physical and non-physical ‘pieces’ into a coherent structure), but in the sense that the physical (and the non-physical) must be grounded in; i.e. arise from, it. In other words, in being truly fundamental, it must describe the way the world (reality) is _prior to_ all of the familiar things we know and love, and that characterise the world (body, perception, thought, matter, space, time, etc.). You can try to install one or more of these things at the level of the metaphysical (like panpsychism does with consciousness, or materialism with matter, for instance), but what makes it metaphysical is that it is being posited as the fundamental nature of reality upon which everything else arises or emerges, all of which it therefore _explains._ And this is the key point I think. Metaphysics is _explanatory,_ not descriptive. It _explains_ ‘ordinary’ features of the world, rather than just describing and categorising them. Thus (according to what is a bit of an unfair characterisation of them), Plato gives us a metaphysics (with his transcendent Forms, whether you agree with them or not), while Aristotle gives us a taxonomical description. What makes difference-in-itself metaphysical, then, is that it appears in Deleuze (as I read him, at least) as the fundamental nature of reality. Reality (what is; being) is not a thing (identical with itself), it is a process (becoming), but what is original in Deleuze is the notion that this process is, not just ‘driven by’ or ‘characterised by’ difference (these notions aren’t strong enough); rather it fundamentally _is_ difference. Difference is metaphysical bedrock. It is not the case that there are things which exist first (identical with themselves) and only afterwards differ in relation to each other. Difference itself is the end (or the beginning, depending on whether you are coming or going) of the metaphysical road. This difference(-in-itself) must therefore be distinguished from what I called ‘concrete’ difference, such as that produced by action (which you rightly link to perception and the body, but which also, in my opinion, lifts it well clear of the metaphysical). Your assertion is that representation is on an equal metaphysical footing with difference; i.e. metaphysical dualism (although again, the differences in our understanding of what metaphysics is frustrate clarity here). Like I said, I don’t see anything wrong with this per se, but what I think is missing here is an account of _how_ ‘representation’ is metaphysical. The standard account of representation (and the way I think you present it as well) is that it is an activity of certain beings (us) which allows us to understand things and facilitates action when habit fails. It therefore _emerges_ from within reality; i.e. in particular beings. Such a phenomenon is not metaphysical; i.e. belonging to the fundamental nature of reality (or it might be, but this is precisely what needs to be demonstrated, and it will, I think, inevitably end up in something like panpsychism or some version of idealism). At this point, as I mentioned above, ‘soul’ is now added to the mix, which you speculate might be something like Bergson’s (100% metaphysical) elan vital. Again, not impossible to do perhaps, but I think something that _needs_ to be done if the account is to be metaphysically coherent. As a result of all this, ‘all is real’ also becomes a little ambiguous. I agree that unicorns are (ontologically) real; i.e. they exist. However, they aren’t a part of _metaphysical_ reality; i.e. the fundamental nature of reality is not unicorns. ‘All is real’ thus seems to me to be an ontological principle that is getting caught somewhere between ontology and metaphysics. You said you started out wondering if you could make sense of things keeping to the principle ‘all is real.’ I can guarantee that you will always succeed in this because the word ‘real’ is being given such a broad mandate. You’ve said fictional things are real. Tristan Garcia goes one step further and argues that square circles are real. They are real (they exist) as examples of logical contradictions. On this account, if we can speak or think it, it will, it _must,_ be real, because ‘real’ is simply a synonym for anything that can be spoken or thought about. In other words, the deck is stacked such that, by definition (literally), the axiom can never be violated. You could argue that this is its strength. Maybe I would even agree with this. My only point here is that I think it’s currently a little ambiguous, inhabiting as it does a bit of a no-man’s-land between ontology and metaphysics. Well, that’s it. I hope this comment doesn’t seem too critical (despite being almost entirely critical!). You did ask for a coherency critique though, so hopefully what I’ve written helps. Of course, I don’t think I’ve rejected any of your claims (soul, interpretation of Deleuze, metaphysics, or the axiom). I may have expressed a different opinion, but, by in large, I’ve tried to respect your position and simply point out areas which don’t quite square with my own understanding.
@@absurdbeing2219 Hey there. Sorry it’s taken a while to respond. Life’s been pretty crazy lately. I read your reply shortly after you posted it and I’ve been thinking about it when I can. First, yes, I believe we were talking past each other when it comes to the term “metaphysical.” I like the way you define it as I don’t think I had a definitive definition anyways. After adopting your definition of metaphysics and taking seriously your interpretation of my idea of metaphors, I thought about what to call what it is I’m doing and I believe it’s probably best to say that I’m trying to build an epistemological or perhaps ontological framework that has as an organizing principle around the axiom that “all is real.” Something like that. But I suppose we don’t have to get bogged down on that any further. As for Deleuze’s project, I definitely could be wrong in my assessment. I don’t think I’m much qualified to make any final assessments. I will try to quickly clarify a few things though. I think you’re right in that Deleuze is giving “difference” the metaphysical grounding you’re describing. I agree that he seems to be attempting to explain things rather than just describe them. I think how my project here differs is that I’m trying to create a consistent description within the dimension of representation by grounding it on the axiom that “all is real.” What I now suspect is that this sort of epistemological framework that I’m trying to build is one that can work comprehensively with Deleuze’s metaphysics. A consequence of beginning with “all is real” is that we must take seriously that language and thought abstracts away from concrete reality (habits and natural reactions) and that we can’t confuse the map with the territory. If this is true then we must ask, “what is the territory?” and we can then turn to Deleuze for the metaphysical grounding. I’m now going to explore this idea a lot more and set aside the dualism for now. I think I can salvage a lot of my ideas but I need to shift around some terms. I want to address one other specific point as well. I think you’re spot on on how you described the “strength” of the axiom; that all things, spoken or thought, are real. I like this because I think trying to oppose anything against the concept of “reality” just runs into issues. This axiom allows us to, at the very least, truthfully say that whatever it is we are talking about is “real.” That to me seems like a ground or a sort of universalizing principle: everything can at least be said in one sense. Now, with your help, I don’t think I’m constructing a metaphysical grounding but rather an epistemological or ontological grounding - a ground for our linguistics representations. I wanted to return to the idea of perception and how the body relates to Deleuze’s project but I’m still boggling my mind on it. I think it’s probably best to wrap it up on this comment thread since you’ve posted the next video. I’m going to watch it, think more on this all and I’m sure we’ll talk again. Perhaps later down the line of this video series that way I have a bigger picture of your understanding of Deleuze and these concepts. Thanks again for the chat. I appreciate your work!
Simulacra in Plato would be like a bad copy. A copy that is different from the original. So the idea of difference is taken from Plato, but he didn`t developed it. What Deleuze does is precisely take that idea and develop it by creating the concept of difference and repetition.
Simulacra are just whatever they are; an idea, a value, a belief, whatever. The important thing is that they are fundamentally difference (i.e. difference in itself), thus not deriving their meaning from a relation to anything else.
So Platonic models and copies are annulled in favor of simulacra. To be is to be different. Being would be a neutral voice that expresses itself equally in each of the different things that make up the world. So there would be only one being that is said in many different ways, but not in concepts like in Aristotle. The being of the sensible is the difference. Being is neutral and it is only said of differences. In sum, what all things have in common is being different.
I think I'm on board with all of that. Although is being neutral? In the first 'moment' Deleuze identifies in the history of being, Scotus neutralised being in the concept, but this was surpassed by Spinoza (where being was affirmed) and then finally by Nietzsche (where being was realised).
@@absurdbeing2219 Of course Spinoza is behind it. A single substance. It's like a verb not yet conjugated in person and tense. It is neutral perhaps in the sense that neutrality is what guarantees a plurality of perspectives. That is why being is also being different.
@@rapidopato I'm not sure that Spinoza is behind anything in Deleuze. I don't think Deleuze would call difference in itself (being) a "single substance" - a term which has strong overtones of monism and identity (with itself). I think we may be differing on how we see Deleuze's history of the explication of being in the last video. You seem to be retaining Scotus (being as neutral) and Spinoza (being as an affirmed single substance) in Deleuze's Nietzsche (being as realised through difference), whereas I see the former two eliminated and surpassed by Nietzsche.
@@absurdbeing2219 Yes, I had interpreted that Deleuze subscribes to a kind of monism, as do Spinoza and Duns Scoto. The thing is that all the authors who have been important to him are monists. All of them are against Platonic dualism, like also Nietzche and Bergson. But Deleuze wants to go one step further. Being is only said about differences. It's a new concept for me, and it's hard to grasp.
@@absurdbeing2219 In any case, I think that in general terms his thought is related to Spinoza. Spinoza is also contrary to Platonism because nothing refers to a transcendent plane nor emanates from the top down: there is only this world and different ways of inhabiting it.
You know what they say, you can't please everyone... To be honest, the fires have cooled on phenomenology for me for the moment. I've been more absorbed with metaphysical questions of late.
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*Contents*
00:50 PLATO
02:20 First figure in Platonic dialectic: The selection of difference
06:54 Second figure in Platonic dialectic: The installation of a myth
11:37 Third figure in Platonic dialectic: The establishment of a foundation
16:13 Fourth figure in Platonic dialectic: The positing of a question-problem complex
22:30 Simulacra
34:30 CHAPTER WRAP-UP
34:52 First closing quote
47:13 Second closing quote
52:01 Summary
I’ve been working on this idea that all things are real. The axiom is simply, “All is real.” Creating an understanding of things through descriptive and declarative propositions is just a matter of categorizing and deductive logic at that point; that’s where Aristotle is useful. I think that this does something similar to what Deleuze does by reversing Platonism in that we remove the need for the search for a transcendent object.
What I like about Deleuze here is that he gives us a metaphysics to understand perception and not just a model for the understanding itself - metaphysics rather than epistemology. When we use the Aristotelian method of categorization we are mediating difference to talk about fixed things, or identities in our understanding. But perception has a direct link to action and action always produces a difference. The ways I’ve come to understand how perception works is through differentiation of our bodies through space. And so, to my understanding, perception and action find a ground in unmediated difference where the solution produces a question which produces a solution and so forth. Understanding this can help us understand the connections between the body, perception, action and habit as movement of difference in itself.
In this sense, we can understand a difference in kind between the mode of perception and the mode of thought. Action through perception requires us to engage with reality through the being of difference. Reflection through thought requires us to engage with abstractions through the being of identities. What’s important when understanding this is to mediate the difference in kind through the axiom “all is real,” concluding that both these modes are as real as the other. Neither are superior. Neither can be the measure of each other. This isn’t to find some transcendent truth but to simply understand things through a consistent and coherent categorization; consistent but not complete per se.
I take a lot from Bergson to understand this interpretation of Deleuze. I also take a lot from your interpretations of both thinkers. So thanks. What I want to ask is if you see any glaring issues with this line of thinking. Perhaps it’s not as coherent as I’d like to think. A critique or additional thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks again for the videos.
Thanks for the interesting comment, Kyle. I’m a bit of a slow thinker, hence the delay in my response. For better or worse, I find I have to mull things over before I can get any decent traction on them.
So, I like the way you’ve articulated perception/action as difference and thought/reflection as identity, although I’m not so clear on the relation between them. As I read it, I see three possible interpretations:
1. The way you talk about perception/action (understood as a “movement of difference in itself” and “ground[ed] in unmediated difference”) seems to indicate this is being understood metaphysically. You do also talk about them “producing” difference, which shifts the discussion to the ‘level’ of concrete particularities, but the gist appears (I think) to be metaphysical. If so, is thought/reflection getting the same metaphysical treatment when you ground it in identity? If it is, then we would be positing two equally foundational ‘aspects’ of metaphysical reality here, difference and identity, right? (Deleuze wrote the wrong book!) This is certainly defensible I think (although, as I said, quite different from Deleuze’s thesis); a kind of metaphysical ‘struggle’ between opposite tendencies. It would also provide a metaphysical justification for your claim that “all is [metaphysically] real.”
2. An alternative is that the whole discussion is at the level of concrete particularities, not metaphysics (the sentence about ‘modes’ of perception and thought seems to support this, I think). In this case, perception/action and thought/reflection would be two (‘differenciated’ in the Deleuzian sense) actualisations (also in the Deleuzian sense) of some underlying metaphysical reality. This would also be fine, I think. “All is real” would then be an ontological assertion (something like what Graham Harman or Tristan Garcia maintain (I immediately thought of Harman when you said, “all things are real”)).
3. The third possible interpretation is that perception/action is being understood metaphysically (grounded in difference in itself) while thought/reflection is being understood at the concrete level (grounded in identity). This is a bit more problematic. In this case, there _is_ indeed a difference in kind, but only because of the different ‘levels’ on which the analysis is being conducted. Further, it is hard to see how “all is real” can function as a mediator here. Yes, thought and action are both ‘real,’ but action (understood in metaphysical terms as difference) must be ‘superior’ to thought (understood in concrete terms as identity), given that the latter is also metaphysically grounded in difference.
In other words, if difference in itself is metaphysical bedrock (which is what I take Deleuze to be saying, and about which I think you agree), perception/action _and_ thought/reflection both have to find their ultimate reason in it.
@@absurdbeing2219 Hey, it’s taken me a while to organize my thoughts here, so my apologies. I first want to thank you for responding and taking this idea seriously. I appreciate it.
Secondly, I’d like to address your interpretations. Actually, I’d like to agree with your first interpretation and challenge it and myself a bit. I’d like to say first that yes, I believe this is a metaphysical treatment compared to an epistemological treatment: Im doing the categorization and creating an understanding rather than trying to study a body of knowledge I’ve already created - but perhaps I’m misunderstanding metaphysics versus epistemology, or I’m misunderstanding exactly what I’m doing here lol. Next I’d like to say, yes, I do believe I was grounding thought and reflection in identity similar to grounding perception in difference. What I should have said is that I’m grounding the BODY and materiality in difference-in-itself, as perception is a faculty of the body. I must also correct myself again and mention that I should have said that I’m grounding the mind and faculty of thought in representation since identity is one of the four methods of representation (identity, opposition, analogy and resemblance), so my apologies for that confusion. The last thing I’ll respond to regarding your first interpretation is the “Difference and Identity” comment. I think Deleuze nailed it with Difference and Repetition. The history of philosophy is full of expositions on the mind, faculty of thought and representation. Deleuze, I believe, is working on a metaphysic that substantiates the bodily element of our lives, contrasting his ideas to the history of philosophy that focuses on the mind, thought (rationality) and representation. What’s important to Deleuze is substantiating difference in itself and repetition for itself so we can develop an understanding of our bodily experience as something as real as the Platonic forms, which absolutely relies on representation, for example. He’s looking for imminence. Repetition is aptly in the title because we can’t understand difference in itself without repetition for itself and vice versa. We can think of this dynamic simply and say that difference in itself is a notion of time whereas repetition for itself is a notion of form, and we can’t have one without the other. So he’s creating a transcendental understanding of materiality: transcendental materialism (this is my interpretation at least).
As for your second interpretation, I’ll keep it brief. I don’t think I’m speaking on the level of concrete particulars. I believe I’m trying to develop an understanding that could be utilized universally, in that anyone could pick up the logical conclusions that develop out of the axiom “all is real,” in order to make sense of reality and it’s concrete particulars: once this metaphysic is substantiated then I have a structure I can use to understand concrete particulars.
This idea began with me just wondering if I could make sense of things while always keeping consistent with “All is real.” And so far I think I’ve been able to do it. So for the next section of my response I’d like to more thoroughly explain my metaphysical understanding produced by this axiom through a description of our phenomenological elements (body, mind, soul) and faculties (sensation, perception, proprioception, thought, memory, imagination, desire, willpower, production). I’m sorry it’s a bit long but I tried to be as clear as I could. There’s absolutely no need to respond to all the details of this exposition. I’d like to know if it’s something that makes sense to you, that it’s coherent, and hopefully consistent. If there are any glaring logical or taxonomic errors id be happy for them to be revealed. (It will be in the next comment).
@@absurdbeing2219 To begin this exposition, the first thing I’d like to reflect on is what we’re doing right now. We’re trying to gain a metaphysical understanding of reality. So what I do to begin this journey is ground my understanding with the axiom “All is real.” Sometimes when I say this to people they respond with, “Well, are unicorns real? What about Sherlock Holmes?” And I’ll respond with, “Unicorns exist as part of the imagination. They exist as toys and cartoon characters. Sherlock Holmes also exists as part of the imagination. Also within books, movie characters. All these, including the imagination, are real. What I mean when I say this is that we really experience them. The imagination and these different forms we create in the image of our imaginations really affect us, and in this sense are real.”
I think of the imagination as a faculty in the Kantian sense, if I understand Kant correctly. Right now we are trying to understand reality and when we do this we are using the faculty of thought (or the “faculty of the understanding” but I think I like “thought” more). We are thinking, in language, trying to represent reality to make sense of it. This is what the faculty of thought does: it symbolizes to make logical sense of experience. In this way it’s always a reflection or abstraction. I draw a lot from Susanne Langer and Bergson to piece together my understanding of the faculty of thought. I suspect this is where Deleuze’s treatment of Aristotle is useful, which is what I was hinting at in my first comment.
The faculties of imagination and of thought are both part of our minds. There is also a third faculty, the faculty of memory. Episodic memory. “Pure memory” in a Bergsonian sense, if I remember correctly. In other words, memories of the experiences of the past. Personally, I don’t have a good sense of past visual images. I cant imagine visual images very well at all. What I can remember best with this faculty of memory is voices and feelings. When I recollect the past I can remember how I felt at those times very distinctly from how I feel now.
All three of these faculties, imagination, thought and memory all interact with one another. We don’t ever experience one purely over another. What we tend to experience is qualitative intensities of these faculties as they fluctuate and feed into one another. Right now there’s a qualitative experience of the faculty of thought as I write this that is more intense than say the faculty of episodic memory.
But wait, there’s more! Not only do we experience the faculties of the mind, we also experience the faculties of our bodies! I believe these would be sensation, perception and proprioception. I’ll say a few brief things on each. Sensation is the contact of our sense organs against material actuality. It’s through sensation that we gain an image of reality. Perception is responsible for memory in duration, in a Bergsonian sense. When images of sensation are prolonged by perceptual duration we gain an experience of surfaces and depths and essences. Proprioception is the faculty of coordination which allows the body to move around in relation to sensation and perception. This is also incredibly important for our sense of affectivity: what and when will something affect my body. These faculties give us a sense of a point of reference or a “center;” a singular experience: a singularity of knowledge, where we no long know things through propositional language but through direct bodily experience (direct perception as JJ Gibson would call it).
The element body has a singularity where the mind must take over. It’s in this sense that Deleuze’s notion of being “forced to think” is substantiated: when bodily capability is brought to a threshold of reactivity, where bodily habit does not have a solution for a problem, the mind is triggered to help us break down a situation abstractly so we can find a solution in order to direct our future actions. This way once we’ve solved our problem we can continue on living our daily lives. In the inverse, sometimes when we try to think about things, like how a soccer tactic might play out if one were a coach, but the thought can only go so far as to tell us how it will actualize. At a certain point we have to put the abstractions into actual motions in the form of bodies on a soccer field and it’s the direct material existence that will give us the answers we really want. In other words, they are different in kind, not of degree: there’s no way to increase or decrease an intensive property (like temperature or pressure) that will change the body into the mind or vice versa. Rather, intensive properties can force the body or mind reach a threshold where the opposite element is experienced.
I’m suspicious that’s there’s another element besides the mind and the body that must animate living beings and give them a direction through both space and time (Bergsonsian sense). A soul. This is what I suspect Bergson calls Elon Vital. What Deleuze will go on to call productive-desire. What Schopenhauer calls Will. I think what I’m talking about is the element that is “soul” which has the faculties of desire, willpower and production. Desire can be described as a disposition; we are given desires, we do not choose them. Desire is that which produces a choice, produces an impetus to move in some direction rather than no direction at all - no impetus to move is death or being inanimate. When we are presented with a slew of desires must choose between them since we can’t have everything we want at once - the material necessity of logistics. It’s this selection procedure that I call the faculty of willpower. When presented with multiple desires I must will one into actualization, or I must determine what will actualize - one over another. Now that I describe the element of soul I’m not so sure “production” is a faculty but rather what which is the soul: the element that produces.
I see the mind, body and soul not in a state of harmony but a sort of state of violence where desire animate life, the body reacts to it, and the mind reflects on it. Reflection can cause hesitations in our reactions, allowing time for us to choose something different (differenciation?) than our repeated reactions. This is how we learn and develop an ego.
There’s also a layer of social critique and social memory that’s important to understand how any of this is structured. Social formations are absolutely necessary to understanding this broader picture of the metaphysics of our reality. At the moment I was only trying to substantiate our human experience. The social critique is important to steer us away from human-centered understandings of freedom but I won’t push that envelope any further.
The important thing about this metaphysical description I’ve created above is the fact I didn’t categorize anything as “outside of reality.” There was nothing transcendent about this description. The mind, body or soul don’t have a privileged place in this metaphysic. They’re all important in their own right to help describe what’s going on so we can understand our reality. An example of a metaphysics that does seek transcendence: the stoics believe that we must focus the most on our rational faculties so that we can become virtuous so we can become in harmony with nature, which for the stoics is a rational nature where virtue is the “code” for its actualization. For them, to transcend human error we must become virtuous through our faculty of thought, giving thought (rationality) the privileged position in fully actualizing ourselves. This is what I want to avoid. For me, the faculty of thought is more or less just a tool to help us solve problems our bodily habits haven’t developed solutions for. Again, most importantly, they’re all real. We can speak of them all as having as much reality as the other. For Deleuze, I believe he’d say that we are speaking of the faculties as having the “same sense,” (Logic of Sense, I believe). It’s an affirmative metaphysic rather than a dialectical one. The metaphysic I’m trying to build doesn’t create situations where I must negate things into “illusion” or non-transcendence, but rather affirm the reality of all things and simply give everything a place in the understanding through taxonomy.
Thanks again for engaging with me. I hope this has been as good an experience for you as it has been for me. Have a nice day.
@@kylerodd2342 Wow. That’s a pretty in-depth outline/breakdown of human existence. There isn’t really anything I want to say about the exposition which, by in large, seems fine, although I might be a little chary of that 'soul' you mentioned. Further, invoking it the way you have (linking it with Bergson and Schopenhauer's _metaphysical_ ideas) would seem to conflict with, or at least need resolution in relation to, your other metaphysical commitments in difference and representation. (Although I suspect we might be talking past each other a little here regarding the word 'metaphysics')
Before we go any further, it seems pretty clear that we disagree about Deleuze’s project. While reading _D&R_ it never even occurred to me that Deleuze was according representation any kind of equality with difference. I’ll keep that idea in mind as this series progresses, but I have read the book already (and gone through it a second time to make my notes) and that thought never crossed my mind. I don’t have a problem disagreeing over this. I just think it is important to point out or, like I said, we will end up talking past each other. (By the way, my point about the never written _Difference and Identity_ was not that repetition is unnecessary, but that difference (and repetition) is only one half of the metaphysical equation according to what I think is your reading of Deleuze. As you explained, you feel much has already been written about identity (or ‘representation’) in philosophy, so, rather than giving us a _complete_ metaphysical account of reality with _D&R,_ Deleuze was filling a lacuna. I get it, although, as I said, this is not what I take him to be doing.)
The main point I want to return to here after your clarification is what I see as a blurring of the “metaphysical difference,” as (I think) I called it in this video (I definitely remember talking about it, but I can’t remember if I subsequently deleted that part or not!). If I have understood your comment correctly, you seem to define metaphysics by way of contrast with epistemology, such that the former is an originary categorisation or taxonomy, while the latter is something like an explication of this. This is the source of more than a little ambiguity for me in your comment. Metaphysics, for me, means the fundamental nature of reality. It’s ‘beyond’ physics, not in the sense that it is transcendental or non-physical or taxonomical (e.g. fitting physical and non-physical ‘pieces’ into a coherent structure), but in the sense that the physical (and the non-physical) must be grounded in; i.e. arise from, it. In other words, in being truly fundamental, it must describe the way the world (reality) is _prior to_ all of the familiar things we know and love, and that characterise the world (body, perception, thought, matter, space, time, etc.). You can try to install one or more of these things at the level of the metaphysical (like panpsychism does with consciousness, or materialism with matter, for instance), but what makes it metaphysical is that it is being posited as the fundamental nature of reality upon which everything else arises or emerges, all of which it therefore _explains._ And this is the key point I think. Metaphysics is _explanatory,_ not descriptive. It _explains_ ‘ordinary’ features of the world, rather than just describing and categorising them. Thus (according to what is a bit of an unfair characterisation of them), Plato gives us a metaphysics (with his transcendent Forms, whether you agree with them or not), while Aristotle gives us a taxonomical description.
What makes difference-in-itself metaphysical, then, is that it appears in Deleuze (as I read him, at least) as the fundamental nature of reality. Reality (what is; being) is not a thing (identical with itself), it is a process (becoming), but what is original in Deleuze is the notion that this process is, not just ‘driven by’ or ‘characterised by’ difference (these notions aren’t strong enough); rather it fundamentally _is_ difference. Difference is metaphysical bedrock. It is not the case that there are things which exist first (identical with themselves) and only afterwards differ in relation to each other. Difference itself is the end (or the beginning, depending on whether you are coming or going) of the metaphysical road. This difference(-in-itself) must therefore be distinguished from what I called ‘concrete’ difference, such as that produced by action (which you rightly link to perception and the body, but which also, in my opinion, lifts it well clear of the metaphysical).
Your assertion is that representation is on an equal metaphysical footing with difference; i.e. metaphysical dualism (although again, the differences in our understanding of what metaphysics is frustrate clarity here). Like I said, I don’t see anything wrong with this per se, but what I think is missing here is an account of _how_ ‘representation’ is metaphysical. The standard account of representation (and the way I think you present it as well) is that it is an activity of certain beings (us) which allows us to understand things and facilitates action when habit fails. It therefore _emerges_ from within reality; i.e. in particular beings. Such a phenomenon is not metaphysical; i.e. belonging to the fundamental nature of reality (or it might be, but this is precisely what needs to be demonstrated, and it will, I think, inevitably end up in something like panpsychism or some version of idealism).
At this point, as I mentioned above, ‘soul’ is now added to the mix, which you speculate might be something like Bergson’s (100% metaphysical) elan vital. Again, not impossible to do perhaps, but I think something that _needs_ to be done if the account is to be metaphysically coherent.
As a result of all this, ‘all is real’ also becomes a little ambiguous. I agree that unicorns are (ontologically) real; i.e. they exist. However, they aren’t a part of _metaphysical_ reality; i.e. the fundamental nature of reality is not unicorns. ‘All is real’ thus seems to me to be an ontological principle that is getting caught somewhere between ontology and metaphysics.
You said you started out wondering if you could make sense of things keeping to the principle ‘all is real.’ I can guarantee that you will always succeed in this because the word ‘real’ is being given such a broad mandate. You’ve said fictional things are real. Tristan Garcia goes one step further and argues that square circles are real. They are real (they exist) as examples of logical contradictions. On this account, if we can speak or think it, it will, it _must,_ be real, because ‘real’ is simply a synonym for anything that can be spoken or thought about. In other words, the deck is stacked such that, by definition (literally), the axiom can never be violated. You could argue that this is its strength. Maybe I would even agree with this. My only point here is that I think it’s currently a little ambiguous, inhabiting as it does a bit of a no-man’s-land between ontology and metaphysics.
Well, that’s it. I hope this comment doesn’t seem too critical (despite being almost entirely critical!). You did ask for a coherency critique though, so hopefully what I’ve written helps. Of course, I don’t think I’ve rejected any of your claims (soul, interpretation of Deleuze, metaphysics, or the axiom). I may have expressed a different opinion, but, by in large, I’ve tried to respect your position and simply point out areas which don’t quite square with my own understanding.
@@absurdbeing2219 Hey there. Sorry it’s taken a while to respond. Life’s been pretty crazy lately. I read your reply shortly after you posted it and I’ve been thinking about it when I can.
First, yes, I believe we were talking past each other when it comes to the term “metaphysical.” I like the way you define it as I don’t think I had a definitive definition anyways. After adopting your definition of metaphysics and taking seriously your interpretation of my idea of metaphors, I thought about what to call what it is I’m doing and I believe it’s probably best to say that I’m trying to build an epistemological or perhaps ontological framework that has as an organizing principle around the axiom that “all is real.” Something like that. But I suppose we don’t have to get bogged down on that any further.
As for Deleuze’s project, I definitely could be wrong in my assessment. I don’t think I’m much qualified to make any final assessments. I will try to quickly clarify a few things though. I think you’re right in that Deleuze is giving “difference” the metaphysical grounding you’re describing. I agree that he seems to be attempting to explain things rather than just describe them. I think how my project here differs is that I’m trying to create a consistent description within the dimension of representation by grounding it on the axiom that “all is real.” What I now suspect is that this sort of epistemological framework that I’m trying to build is one that can work comprehensively with Deleuze’s metaphysics. A consequence of beginning with “all is real” is that we must take seriously that language and thought abstracts away from concrete reality (habits and natural reactions) and that we can’t confuse the map with the territory. If this is true then we must ask, “what is the territory?” and we can then turn to Deleuze for the metaphysical grounding. I’m now going to explore this idea a lot more and set aside the dualism for now. I think I can salvage a lot of my ideas but I need to shift around some terms.
I want to address one other specific point as well. I think you’re spot on on how you described the “strength” of the axiom; that all things, spoken or thought, are real. I like this because I think trying to oppose anything against the concept of “reality” just runs into issues. This axiom allows us to, at the very least, truthfully say that whatever it is we are talking about is “real.” That to me seems like a ground or a sort of universalizing principle: everything can at least be said in one sense. Now, with your help, I don’t think I’m constructing a metaphysical grounding but rather an epistemological or ontological grounding - a ground for our linguistics representations.
I wanted to return to the idea of perception and how the body relates to Deleuze’s project but I’m still boggling my mind on it. I think it’s probably best to wrap it up on this comment thread since you’ve posted the next video. I’m going to watch it, think more on this all and I’m sure we’ll talk again. Perhaps later down the line of this video series that way I have a bigger picture of your understanding of Deleuze and these concepts. Thanks again for the chat. I appreciate your work!
Simulacra in Plato would be like a bad copy. A copy that is different from the original. So the idea of difference is taken from Plato, but he didn`t developed it. What Deleuze does is precisely take that idea and develop it by creating the concept of difference and repetition.
Simulacra in this context is not a repetition or copy but... What then?
Simulacra are just whatever they are; an idea, a value, a belief, whatever. The important thing is that they are fundamentally difference (i.e. difference in itself), thus not deriving their meaning from a relation to anything else.
In The book Hamlets Mill the authors Refer to Plato as the last of the ancients.
So Platonic models and copies are annulled in favor of simulacra. To be is to be different. Being would be a neutral voice that expresses itself equally in each of the different things that make up the world. So there would be only one being that is said in many different ways, but not in concepts like in Aristotle. The being of the sensible is the difference. Being is neutral and it is only said of differences. In sum, what all things have in common is being different.
I think I'm on board with all of that. Although is being neutral? In the first 'moment' Deleuze identifies in the history of being, Scotus neutralised being in the concept, but this was surpassed by Spinoza (where being was affirmed) and then finally by Nietzsche (where being was realised).
@@absurdbeing2219 Of course Spinoza is behind it. A single substance. It's like a verb not yet conjugated in person and tense. It is neutral perhaps in the sense that neutrality is what guarantees a plurality of perspectives. That is why being is also being different.
@@rapidopato I'm not sure that Spinoza is behind anything in Deleuze. I don't think Deleuze would call difference in itself (being) a "single substance" - a term which has strong overtones of monism and identity (with itself).
I think we may be differing on how we see Deleuze's history of the explication of being in the last video. You seem to be retaining Scotus (being as neutral) and Spinoza (being as an affirmed single substance) in Deleuze's Nietzsche (being as realised through difference), whereas I see the former two eliminated and surpassed by Nietzsche.
@@absurdbeing2219 Yes, I had interpreted that Deleuze subscribes to a kind of monism, as do Spinoza and Duns Scoto. The thing is that all the authors who have been important to him are monists. All of them are against Platonic dualism, like also Nietzche and Bergson. But Deleuze wants to go one step further. Being is only said about differences. It's a new concept for me, and it's hard to grasp.
@@absurdbeing2219 In any case, I think that in general terms his thought is related to Spinoza. Spinoza is also contrary to Platonism because nothing refers to a transcendent plane nor emanates from the top down: there is only this world and different ways of inhabiting it.
Wow you’re back! And…you chose….Deleuze. 🤦🏻♂️
Haha just kidding, kind of. I’ll watch….but I was REALLY hoping for Gurwitsch. Oh well, let’s see….
You know what they say, you can't please everyone...
To be honest, the fires have cooled on phenomenology for me for the moment. I've been more absorbed with metaphysical questions of late.