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[The following is summary. My own notes are given in brackets. I give my deepest thanks to the source of the image:
greenpolitics.ca
Image credits given below. The text in question is provided at the end.]
No Man is a Memory-Cone Entire of Itself
(Thanks greenpolitics.ca)
From Gottfried Leibniz'
New Essays on Human Understanding
What’s This Leibniz Passage Got to do with You?
Something near us can have a strong affect on us, consider the earth's gravity, for example. As things get further away, their affect on us is diminished, but yet still expressed in us. Using the gravity example, we might imagine for the sake of illustration that the furthest part of the cosmos is gravitationally pulling on us, and us on it, although to an infinitesimally small degree. In fact, we could imagine all parts of the cosmos expressing themselves in their gravitational pull on us. All these influences would express themselves in our body's tendencies toward movement, but each distant part would affect us to a different degree. So in a way, we might imagine the whole entire cosmos expressing itself in us right now, even the most distant part, but as a wide spectrum of degrees of affection or influence. We, our humble selves, express the entirety of the cosmos. It’s most distant parts touch us, and we touch them.
Brief Summary
Leibniz in this passage seems to be discussing an idea he also explains in his Monadology, namely that all monads express themselves in any given monad, but as a diversity of degrees of affection/perfection.
Points Relative to Deleuze
[Under Ongoing Revision]
Deleuze distinguishes two sorts of repetition in the 2nd chapter of Difference & Repetition. One of them is the repetition of the whole on diverse and coexisting levels. He then quotes Leibniz as saying: “everything can be said to be the same at all times and places except in degrees of perfection” (84a). This repetition of the whole on diverse levels is the sort we see in Bergson’s memory cone. All our memory is always being expressed, but to different degrees of expansion and contraction. So all our memory repeats itself as being found on one of the many layers of the cone, which is to say, every memory repeats itself virtually as one of many degrees of contraction or expansion, even though in actuality they will be expressed as one of those many degrees.
Gottfried Leibniz
New Essays on Human Understanding
Book I
‘Of Innate Notions’
Chapter i
Whether there are innate principles in the mind of man
Philalethes [pp.69-70]
Philalethes dialogues with his friend Theophilus. He recalls their discussions in
Theophilus [p.71]
Theophilus has also been learning in the meantime. He is now impressed with a system that “appears to unite Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the Scholastics with the moderns, theology and morality with reason” (71). This system also gives an intelligible explanation for the union of the body and soul. Its first principles are located in ‘substantial unities’ and also in the harmony between these unities, which was pre-established by the primary substance. What Theophilus says next is the passage Deleuze considers in Difference and Repetition.
I find in it an astounding simplicity and uniformity, such that everything can be said to be the same at all times and places except in degrees of perfection. (71)
[To explain this, let's consider some parts from Leibniz' Monadology.
Monads are the simple parts of the world. As a general illustration for how they relate, Leibniz has us consider something in physics. We imagine the entire cosmos as being filled with matter, rather than having a void, so in this sense it is a plenum rather than a vacuum. That means when one body in the world passes motion to the neighbors near it, those neighbors pass some of it on to their neighbors. In this way, motion moves further and further out from its source. But the further it goes, the less its force. Nonetheless, according to this view, even the slightest disturbance in one part of the world will act upon the furthest parts away from it, although ever so slightly.
For all is a plenum (and thus all matter is connected) and in the plenum every motion has some effect upon distant bodies in proportion to their distance, so that each body not only is affected by those which are in contact with it and in some way feels the effect of everything that happens to them, but also is indirectly affected by bodies touching those with which it is in immediate contact. It follows that this communication extends to any distance, however great. And consequently every body feels the effect of all that takes place in the universe, so that one who sees all could read in each what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened or will happen, observing in the present that which is far off in time as well as in place: sympnoia panta, as Hippocrates said. (part 61)
Perfection is how much a monad acts upon other monads. (“A created thing is said to act outwardly insofar as it has perfection, and to be acted upon by another, insofar as it is imperfect. Thus action is attributed to the monad [...]" (part 49). )
So let’s imagine one monad affecting its nearest neighbor. In this nearest neighbor, the first monad is expressed as a relatively high degree of perfection, because the affection is the strongest with the nearest proximity. The first monad is expressed to a slightly less degree of perfection in the next-nearest neighboring monad. Now, every monad is expressed in every other monad. But each expression in a different monad will be an expression of a different degree of perfection. Recall that the quote under consideration is: “I find in it an astounding simplicity and uniformity, such that everything can be said to be the same at all times and places except in degrees of perfection.” So monad A can be found in all times and places, expressed in the other monads throughout the world. However, monad A is expressed to different degrees, depending on its level of affection on these other places and times. But that means at any one monad, all the others are contracted into it, but each one as a variance in its degree of perfection. Note also that a monad does not extend (The monad is without parts (1); “But where there are no parts, there is neither extension nor figure, nor any possible division. These monads are the true atoms of nature and, in a word, the elements of things” (2). ) So monads as non-extensive are like intensive expressions of the entirety of the world, expressed as variances in degrees of perfection.
Deleuze would like to analogize this to Bergson’s cone.
All memories of the past are expressed in various degrees of contraction and relaxation. Consider a musician performing a piece. Her movements are automatic. There were countless practices and rehearsals. But she does not remember them all distinctly. Rather, all these memories express themselves implicitly in the automatic bodily action of her performance. So this would be like the entirety of our memory contracted down to the bottom tip of the memory cone. After the concert, we might ask her how she learned such a complex piece. Then, the past practices will expand-out in front of her mind’s eye, being more like dreams rather than habitual bodily actions. So then she would be at a higher level of the cone. Now, the cone is always completely there. Only, we find ourselves at one or another layer, that is, at one or another level of contraction or expansion.
We might then compare this to the monads. One monad expresses all the other monads, but as some varied level of perfection, which is the amount the other monad is affecting the one in question. All other monads in a way expressively reside in a certain monad, but, in a sense, do so at a different level of the cone, so to speak.
The essential idea Deleuze seems to convey here is that everything in our memory can coexist with the present and in the present, but at various degrees of contraction and expansion, (like all the monads coexisting expressively in any given monad, but at various degrees of affection/perfection).]
From the Jonathan Bennett translation:
BOOK I—INNATE NOTIONS
Chapter i: Are there innate principles in the mind of man?
Philalethes:. . . .When you and I were neighbours in Amsterdam,
we used to enjoy exploring first principles and ways
of searching into the inner natures of things. . . . You sided
with Descartes and Malebranche; and I found the views of
Gassendi more plausible and natural. I now—after my stay in
England—feel that I’m put into a much stronger position by
the fine work that a distinguished Englishman, John Locke,
has published under the title Essay Concerning Human
Understanding. Fortunately it was recently published in
Latin and in French, so that it can be even more widely
useful. I have profited greatly from reading this book, and
indeed from conversation with Locke, with whom I talked
often. . . . He is pretty much in agreement with Gassendi’s
system, which is basically that of Democritus: he believes
that there is vacuum and there are atoms,
that matter could think,
that there are no innate ideas,
that our mind is a tabula rasa = ‘an empty page’, and
that we don’t think all the time.
And he seems inclined to agree with most of Gassendi’s
objections against Descartes. He has enriched and strengthened
this system with hundreds of fine thoughts; and I’m
14
sure that our side will now overwhelm their opponents, the
Aristotelians and the Cartesians. So if you haven’t already
read the book, please do; and if you have read it, please tell
me what you think of it.
Theophilus:. . . . I have also carried on with my meditations
in the same spirit; and I think that I have profited too—as
much as you and perhaps more. But then I needed to,
because you were further ahead! You had more to do
with the speculative philosophers [= ‘philosophers engaged in
metaphysics etc. but not in ethics’], while I was more inclined
towards moral questions. But I have been learning how
greatly morality can be strengthened by the solid principles
of true philosophy; which is why I have lately been studying
them more intensively and have started on some quite new
trains of thought. So we have all we need to give each other
a long period of mutual pleasure by explaining our positions
to one another. But I should tell you the news that I am
no longer a Cartesian, and yet have moved further than
ever from your Gassendi. I have been impressed by a new
system. . . .and now I think I see a new aspect of the inner
nature of things. This system appears to unite Plato with
Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the Scholastics with
the moderns, theology and morality with reason. Apparently
it takes the best from all systems and then advances further
than anyone has yet done. I find in it something I had
hitherto despaired of—
•an intelligible explanation of how the body is united
to the soul.
I find the true principles of things in the substantial unities
that this system introduces, and in their harmony that was
pre-established by the primary substance, ·God·. I find
in it an astounding simplicity and uniformity, such that
everything can be said to be the same at all times and places
except in degrees of perfection.
Deleuze, Gilles. Différence et répétition. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968
Deleuze, Gilles, Difference & Repetition. Transl. Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Leibniz. New Essays on Human Understanding. Transls. & Eds., Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Leibniz. Monadology. Transl, Robert Latta. Available online at: http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/leibniz/monad.htm
Jonathan Bennett's translation of the New Essays text is obtained gratefully from:
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfbits/leibne.html
Image source:
http://greenpolitics.ca/2008/09/green-politics-is-non-hierarchical/
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