Pt1.Ch1.Sb5 Somers-Hall’s Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation. ‘Conclusion.’ summary

by Corry Shores
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[Note: All boldface and underlining is my own. It is intended for skimming purposes. Bracketed comments are also my own explanations or interpretations.]

Henry Somers-Hall

 

Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation.

Dialectics of Negation and Difference

 

Part 1: The problem of Representation

Chapter 1: Deleuze and Transcendental Empiricism

Subdivision 5: Conclusion

 

Brief Summary:

Somers-Hall concludes chapter 1 by noting that Deleuze’s rejection of the transcendental subject is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to base the move to his transcendental empiricism. Later he will elaborate on the underlying metaphysics.

 

Summary

Previously we discussed the logic underlying Deleuze’s rejection of the transcendental subject. We can have a personal self who is undetermined. The same Adam has multiple incompossible predicates, like sinner and innocent, that are not yet explicated, so Adam is distinguished from other beings yet he need not be determinate.

Somers-Hall (SH) explains that Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism arises from this rejection of the transcendental subject. A unified self is no longer the ground for our syntheses, so that ground is found in the object itself. But Deleuze’s empiricism is not the classical naïve kind, because for Deleuze there is still a transcendental field. “transcendental empiricism still searches for the conditions of experience”. (38d) Recall how transcendental idealism seeks first the conditions of possible experience. Instead, Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism begins with states of affairs in the world [of experience].

In following empiricism in dealing with the actual world, Deleuze claims that what are sought are the conditions of real experiences. That is, what are sought are the conditions for the generation of specific phenomena, rather than the formal conditions for the possibility of phenomena in general. (39)

And unlike in  Kant’s case,

the conditions for the knowledge of the object are no longer identical with the conditions of the object themselves, to the extent that we see knowledge of the object in terms of our ability to make judgments about it. That is, whereas it is integral to the conditions of the object that there is a difference between the empirical and the transcendental, it is integral to the conditions of knowledge of the object that there is a structural similarity between the structure of the object (substance and properties), and the structure of judgment (subject and predicate ). (39)

But so far we have only seen Sartre’s rejection of the transcendental ego, which is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the move to transcendental empiricism; for, Sartre keeps the transcendental ego’s unifying function by locating it in consciousness itself. Later in chapters 3 and 4 SH will return to the grounds of Deleuze’s metaphysics.

For now we should note that Deleuze's philosophy is intimately engaged with the work of Kant and therefore must be understood in relation to the post-Kantian tradition. In the next chapter | we will tum to the philosophy of representation, specifically, the philosophies of Aristotle and Russell, in order to clarify the problems with which both Hegel and Deleuze will engage. In doing so, we will get a better idea of the issues prompting Hegel and Deleuze to make their respective moves away from Kant. (39-40)

Somers-Hall, Henry (2012) Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation. Dialectics of Negation and Difference. Albany: SUNY.