Pt2.Ch4.Sb1 Somers-Hall’s Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation. ‘Introduction.’ 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 2: Responses to Representation

Chapter 4: The Virtual and the Actual

Subdivision 1: Introduction

Brief Summary:

We will better see Deleuze’s metaphysics by examining how he attends to Bergson’s intuition, relation of science and metaphysics, and theory of multiplicities. Bergson’s multiplicity is based on metaphysical principles of difference, and because metaphysics and science are two sides of the same Absolute for Bergson, we will see how a metaphysics of difference finds its way into different scientific and mathematical calculi of difference. And Bergson’s intuition finds both the divergence and the intersection of tendencies, like the difference between, and the integration of, his two kinds of multiplicities.

Summary

 

In the previous chapter we examined Bergson’s critique of homogenous space and its application to time. Bergson proposes that extensity and duration are two ideal limits toward which the same dual matter/duration may tend as it expands and contracts. Bergson’s continuously integrated heterogeneous multiplicity has an order to it different from the order found in structures composed of atomic parts.

 

In this chapter we will focus on Deleuze’s attention to intuition, the relation of science and metaphysics, and the theory of multiplicities in Bergson, in order to better examine Deleuze’s ontology and some parts of his aesthetics. Bergson’s continuously integrated heterogeneous multiplicity operates according to a different logic to Aristotle’s and Russell's. Their logics are based on identity, negation, and opposition, but Bergson’s ‘logic of multiplicities’  is based on principles of difference. (91) Bergson also argues that the Absolute has two halves corresponding to science and metaphysics. Both fields depend on the other. Deleuze will apply Bergson’s metaphysics of multiplicity to the sciences. Deleuze is not doing science and mathematics as much as he is showing how Bergson’s insights can be seen in their workings. Each field has its own calculus of difference, with mathematics differential calculus itself being an application in one domain of calculi of difference.

For Deleuze, Bergson’s intuition involves both [1] a division of reality based on lines of different natures and [2] the intersection of different lines from various domains. Bergson’s two types of multiplicities have different natures but converge in that they are always intermixed.

 

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