Pt3.Ch6.Sb8 Somers-Hall’s Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation. ‘Conclusion’. summary

 
by Corry Shores
[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Deleuze Entry Directory]
[Henry Somers-Hall, Entry Directory]
[Hegel, Deleuze, and the Critique of Representation, Entry Directory]

[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 3: Beyond Representation

Chapter 6: Hegel and Deleuze on Ontology and the Calculus

Subdivision 8: Conclusion

Brief Summary:

Hegel’s and Deleuze’s interpretations of differential calculus indicate their different responses to classical representational systems in philosophy.

Summary

In this chapter, we examined Hegel’s and Deleuze’s interpretations of differential calculus. It told us about their different ontologies. In finite representation, the differential as infinitesimal is replaced with the notion of limit, which allows all the operations involved in differentiation to remain on the level of explicit representation. In infinite representation, the differential is thought of as vanishing, but it is representational of sublated contraries that cannot be thought together with finite thought/representation but rather only with infinite thought/representation. For a philosophy of difference, the differential is subrepresentational. The structure it expresses is not-representable, because it is made up of a multiplicity of incompossibilities, which are different in kind from their actualized determinations. “For the philosopher of difference, the differential does indeed vanish, but only by falling outside of representation. It therefore becomes subrepresentational, creating a fissure between the concepts of determination and structure.”  (186) We will now further examine Deleuze and Hegel’s alternatives to classical representational philosophies.

 

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