Somers-Hall, (1.12), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘1.12 Plato (59–69/71–83)’, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following is summary. All boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos and other distracting mistakes. Somers-Hall is abbreviated SH and Difference and Repetition as DR.]

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

Chapter 1. Difference in Itself

1.12 Plato (59–69/71–83)

Brief summary:

Plato has a method of classification that is obtained by jointly dividing general groupings into more specific ones while simultaneously having a (rough) definition for the things to be classified. Aristotle’s system of genus-species classification is similar, since he also divides general to specific. But inclusion for Aristotle is absolute, while for Plato it is relative. A candidate can be more or less faithful to the ideal model it is an instance of. Thus there are ‘imposters’ or ‘pretenders’ that can get mixed up with the good examples of a class of things. Similarly, Deleuze’s project of tracing phenomena to their origins in a field of difference (that is, his project of transcendental empiricism) is like Plato’s project of tracing things’ origins to transcendent ideals. However, Deleuze does not think that the origins lie in a separate world but rather that these origins are immanent yet go unnoticed since we normally fabricate artificial boundaries in the world of intensive variation, when in reality there are none.

 

Summary

The last part of Chapter 1 discusses Plato, in reference to Nietzsche’s call to overturn Platonism [DR 59/71] (SH 53). Plato is both an “important and ambivalent figure in Deleuze’s history of philosophy” (53). Plato thinks that “everything partakes in being,” (53) [and thus Deleuze would appreciate the fact that Plato seems to have a univocal conception of being.] However, Plato, like Aristotle, is at times concerned with the question of ‘what is it?’ [and for that reason Deleuze would perhaps not like how Plato places identity at the basis of his inquiry.] In fact, in certain cases in Plato we see things being defined by a method of division that breaks general classes into more specific ones, which would seem similar to Aristotle’s method of genus-species division. [The difference between Aristotle’s and Plato’s divisions that will be described is not entirely clear to me. The difference is somehow that for Aristotle it is a taxonomical division of classification, while for Plato perhaps the method of division is used to answer deeper philosophical questions. There are other distinctions that are made, but exactly what is meant here I have not figured out yet. Another difference is that the definition in Plato is given early on, before much of the division has taken place. I am not sure yet what that implies. Does it imply that the division already took place in an implicit way, and the subsequent actual divisions were to bring the implicit ones to light? Does it mean that Aristotle’s method does not begin first with the definition? In other words, we might in the end come to define man as a rational animal, but is it that we have no idea of that specification at the beginning? Instead, is it that we first just see a bunch of animals, and we see some differences that can divide groups, and we keep dividing, then finally we see that there is such a creature as the human whose specifying difference is that, unlike other animals, humans reason? I also having trouble with what might be implied in the next point, which is that there are many various things which fit the original definition. So in the Statesman, we begin with statesmanship defined as “knowledge of the collective rearing of human beings.” However, many other professions are included in this, for example, merchants, farmers, and bakers (I do not quite understand why bakers and these other would be included as having knowledge of collective rearing of human beings. Here is a relevant passage from the Statesman. “Like this: that merchants, farmers, millers and bakers, all of them, and gymnastic trainers too, and doctors as a class—all of these, as you well know, would loudly contend against the herdsmen concerned with things human whom we called statesmen that they care for human rearing, not merely for that of human beings in the herd, but for that of the rulers as well”. Maybe the idea is that bakers want people to be nourished and raised well, but I am not sure.) Perhaps we are supposed to note here that Plato’s method is one of trial and error, unlike Aristotle’s. But if so, I do not know what is the significance of that yet. Or perhaps the idea is that every specification will have its own difficult cases which call into question the integrity of the system. For example, do not many non-human animals reason? And is not much of human life non-rational? Are there not humans with disabilities that prevent them from reasoning? That still does not seem to be what is implied here. It gets less clear to me with the Deleuze quotation that follows:  “As Deleuze puts it, for Plato, ‘difference is not between species, between two determinations of a genus, but entirely on one side, within the chosen line of descent’ (DR 60/72)” (SH 54). So the chosen line here I suppose is the general concept of rearing human beings. Somehow this is not a difference between species, perhaps because it does not differentiate baker, farmer, etc., but I am not sure why. I also do not understand what is meant by it being ‘entirely on one side’. Perhaps the idea here is merely that the distinction that makes something a statesman was not found by differentiating it from other things but instead just by assuming it has certain inherent or essential traits, and whether or not they are shared or not-shared by others is a secondary matter. I will quote.]

At first glance, it appears as if Plato’s approach to this question mirrors that of Aristotle. For instance, in the Sophist, the visitor defines the nature of an angler by a progressive method of dividing classes into smaller and smaller groupings, distinguishing between acquisitive and productive arts, and within acquisitive arts between willing exchange and taking possession, and so on down to distinguishing between fishing with nets and spear fishing (Plato 1997c: 218a-221d). Deleuze notes, however, that we cannot see this procedure as operating in the same way as species and genera were determined for Aristotle. Aristotle criticises Plato’s method of division, for instance, by noting that ‘someone who states the definition as a result of the division does not state a deduction’ (Aristotle 1984c: 91b35). Aristotle’s point is that the determination of entities according to genera and species is a purely taxonomical procedure that allows us to classify entities of a similar kind. It seems that when we read a Platonic dialogue such as the Sophist, or the Statesman, a much more significant project is going on, however. If we look at the Statesman, for instance, the definition of statesmanship as ‘knowledge of the collective rearing of human beings’ (Plato 1997d: 267d) occurs quite early in the dialogue. Once we have this definition, however, we are still faced with | the real difficulty, since it appears that there are a large number of people who fulfil this description: ‘merchants, farmers, millers and bakers’ for instance (Plato 1997d: 267e). As Deleuze puts it, for Plato, ‘difference is not between species, between two determinations of a genus, but entirely on one side, within the chosen line of descent’ (DR 60/72).
(SH 53-54)

[The question is not, as it would be in Aristotle, what distinguishes each of the species of things? Instead,] “Plato’s question is rather, which candidate is truly the statesman?” (SH 54). [I am having trouble summarizing the main idea of this next paragraph. SH’s first point is that the myth story in the Statesman is not to illustrate his point to non-philosophical readers but rather it plays a more philosophical role. I am not sure what the difference is, but I suppose an illustrational usage of the story only retells the point in a less purely conceptual way, while a philosophical usage makes new points not previously given in a purely conceptual way. But I am not sure. This point does not seem to be what is important in this paragraph anyway. The next idea seems to be that the story tells us that the Gods serve as an ideal model for things in the world. And things in the world can more or less ‘participate in’ (perhaps ‘resemble’, ‘represent’, ‘express’ or something like that) the ideal model. Then we make a distinction between a faithful imitation and one that is distorted so that it really in fact appears more like the model. The example would be two ways of making a large statue. One way keeps all the proportions proper to those the original has. The problem however is that it will appear disproportioned, since from the ground the upper parts, being more distant, will appear smaller than they actually are. If for example it is a statue of a human-like figure, the head will seem too small even though it was made at the right proportion. The other way is to distort the upper parts of the statue, stretching them out, so that from the ground the statue on a whole looks properly proportioned. Thus if we flew up to the head in our example, it will look too tall, perhaps as if seen in a fun-house mirror, even though it looks proper from the ground. What is interesting here is that the one which appears disproportionate is the one that is truer to the model. So we see a preference for an ideal reality of things, even if they appear wrongly. While it is interesting, it is not yet clear to me how this applies to things other than visual models made in great size. How can a statesman actually resemble the ideal but appear not to, and how can an imposter appear to, but in reality not resemble the ideal? In the second case, I can think of deception. In the first case, I suppose it would be based on a misunderstanding of those perceiving the true statesman. Still I am not sure exactly.]

Plato’s question is rather, which candidate is truly the statesman? Whereas Plato is normally understood as using myth to allow nonphilosophical readers to understand the point of the dialogue, Deleuze gives it a more philosophical role. The Statesman introduces the fable of two cosmic eras, that of Cronos, and the present age of Zeus. Each of these gods allows ordered existence to carry on in the world by ensuring that the universe continues to revolve around its circle. These gods’ governance of the universe provides us with a model by which to assess which of the claimants is the true statesman. We can see in the god a metaphor for Plato’s theory of Ideas, the theory that what determines the nature of something temporal is its relation to an eternal supersensible entity. So actions are just in so far as they participate in, or resemble, the Idea of justice. The true statesman is therefore the one who participates in (or best represents in the temporal world) the eternal Idea of statesmanship, whereas the false claimant does not. Now, obviously a statesman cannot be a god, but there are two ways in which he can resemble one, which Plato outlines in the Sophist [the following up to citation is Plato]:

Visitor: One type of imitation I see is the art of likeness-making. That’s the one we have whenever someone produces an imitation by keeping to the proportions of length, breadth, and depth of his model, and also by keeping to the appropriate colours of its parts. Theaetetus: But don’t all imitators try to do that? Visitor: Not the ones who sculpt or draw very large works. If they reproduced the true proportions of their beautiful subjects, you see, the upper parts would appear smaller than they should, and the lower parts would appear larger, because we see the upper parts from further away and the lower parts from closer. (Plato 1997c: 235d-236a)

The true statesman resembles the Idea of the statesman in the first of these senses, as the form itself cannot be given in appearance, since it is not spatio-temporal. The pretender only resembles the appearance of the Idea, not the Idea itself. They are instead tied to the world of appearance. The problem, therefore, is to distinguish the candidates who bear a true likeness from those which merely appear to do so.
(SH 54)

[The next paragraph is also slightly difficult for me summarize. We saw how for Aristotle, something obtains a classification if it possess the differences that distinguish that class from others. In Plato, something obtains its classification depending on whether or not it expresses an ideal form for a class, and it can do so more or less depending on its fidelity to that form. What is unclear to me is how the ideal forms are distinguished if not by differences between them. The next point in this paragraph is that “the definition alone does not determine whether something partakes in the relevant form” (55). I know that we already made this point, but I still find it puzzling. So we have the definition for a statesman. It includes bakers, farmers, and so on. I am not sure here what we are concluding regarding that. I would have assumed we are concluding that the definition is imprecise. But in that case, were it made precise, then I would think it in fact would determine whether or not something partakes in its relevant form. So that cannot be the implication here. Part of the problem is trying to integrate the sculpture example with the statesman example. In the end, I am pretty sure we will want to draw the conclusion that the farmer, baker, etc. are imposters. Using the sculpture analogy, they appear like statesman (perhaps because they fulfill the definition, which is supposedly adequate to the concept even though it invites imposters) when in fact they really are not statesman. And perhaps somehow the statesman does not appear to be one when in fact he is, but I am not sure if we are to also take that meaning from the sculpture analogy too. At any rate, the way it seems to work is the following. We have many ideal forms. We have one for statesman, which can be defined as ‘a person with the knowledge of the collective rearing of human beings’. We also have one for baker, which could be defined as ‘one who bakes bread and other baked goods.’ Now, for ‘statesman,’ we have certain people who fulfill this definition very well, and others who fulfill it less so, like bakers. That does not mean bakers have less reality. Bakers better fulfill the model for the ideal baker, and perhaps house-wives who do a fair amount of baking also match this model, but less so than the professional bakers. I am not exactly sure how to distinguish this from something like a cross-classification in an Aristotelian sort of system. What seems to be important here is the more-or-lessness of something being in its class. In Aristotle’s system, something either is or is not included in a class. For Plato, many things may be included in a class, but more or less rightly so, and thus there is a lot of ambiguity built into Plato’s system. The next idea is very interesting. SH quotes Deleuze saying that the ideal form does not demand that things in the world either fulfill it or not; for, most things in fact do not fulfill it and there are many imposters. Rather, things in this world are what they are, and this ideal form cannot be represented in worldly things, even though it can be invoked by them. The next point is that Plato starts a genealogical project that later makes Aristotle’s notion of representation possible. I am not sure what is meant here. Perhaps Plato’s aim is genealogical since it wants to know families and sources of things. I do not understand why Aristotle’s notion of representation depends on it, however. Perhaps it is because Aristotle’s system says there are distinct essences that species can have and which define the members of that species, but I am not sure.]

For Aristotle, the essential nature of something was determined by a process of division much like that of Plato. For Plato himself, however, we have just seen that the definition alone does not determine whether something partakes in the relevant form. ‘The Idea is not yet the concept of an object which submits the world to the requirements of representation, but rather a brute presence which can be invoked in the world only in function of that which is not “representable” in things’ (DR 59/71). Deleuze therefore sees Plato as situated at a decisive moment in the history of philosophy, as he instigates the kind of genealogical project which will later make Aristotle’s notion of representation possible.
(55)

[The final paragraph in this section is quite heavy and a challenge to unpack. We will deal with a very difficult Deleuze quotation, in which he describes four aspects of Plato’s dialectic. It was not previously called dialectic, but I think this is merely Plato’s method of division, but perhaps I am wrong. Deleuze is describing Plato’s ‘procedure’, but these do not seem like four linearly applied steps in a methodology. Deleuze in fact calls them four ‘figures’, but I am not sure what that means. The first ‘figure’ is the selection of a difference. I think this would be asking such a question, ‘what is a statesman?’, having a certain implicit sense of it, and bringing out an explicit definition by means of division. The next ‘figure’ is “the installation of a mythic circle”. SH says that this is either the cosmological myth of the Statesman we noted above, or Plato’s doctrine of anamnesis, that is, the notion that we know the Ideas before birth and we in life remember them. I am not sure how this notion of anamnesis presents circularity exactly. Perhaps it is like circularly coming back to our pre-born state by means of memory. In the first case of the cosmology, we were dealing I think with the circular movement of the heavens and the perfection of this movement. I am still not exactly sure what to make of this, but perhaps Deleuze is merely saying that the first aspect is to select a difference and the second is to assume that there is an ideal form to which that difference corresponds. The third ‘figure’ is the establishment of a foundation. SH’s explanation is that the foundation is the ideal realm to which ours is a copy, and thus the world of becoming is grounded in the world of being. I am not certain about the fourth figure, namely, “the position of a question-problem complex,” but it seems to have been combined with his discussion of the third. He writes: “The foundation is then given by the relation of appearance to the realm of Ideas, allowing us to ask the question of descent.” So perhaps the question-problem complex is something like the following. The fact that we have a world of copies that only more or less participate in their ideal models means we always are left with the problem or the question of: which ones have more fidelity to that model? SH continues by noting the parallels and distinctions between Plato and Nietzsche. Plato was interested in the question of genealogy (which I think is the question of what are the realer origins or sources of our worldly copies, and which items form families of things which more or less participate in the same model.) Nietzsche was also interested in genealogy. Recall our previous discussion of the passages from Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, specifically the example of the birds of prey and the lambs they feast upon.  We saw that a ‘genealogical’ study of the moral notion of ‘evil’ takes us to the feelings of helplessness and weakness of the lambs. They are vulnerable to the birds, so they call them evil. Then inversely all things opposite to the birds are good, and thus sheeplike things are good in their eyes. However, the birds do not feel weak to the sheep, in fact, the sheep are delicious and supply them with empowering nutrition. So the birds think that the sheep are good, but also they do not regard inversely themselves as evil. We noted that the sheep use a ‘sedentary distribution’ meaning that in reality there is a field of differential intensive variations of struggling powers, and the sheep section out divisions in this continuously varying field. Maybe we can look at it in the following way, keeping with the sheep/birds example. There is a power relation that is basically a complex dynamic of chase/flee/hide/seek. We could say that there are sheep that hide and flee from the birds, which themselves chase and seek the sheep. But from a broader view, we would see an event of chasing-fleeing-hiding-seeking. I am not exactly sure how, but I suppose it could be by looking more at changes in states of affairs rather than at changes or conditions of individual entities within those states of affairs. Think for example of the classic sentence: the cat is on the mat. We have a cat, we have a mat, but we also have a state of affairs, the cat’s being on the mat. In the case of birds and sheep, we might look at the situation of there being birds and also there being sheep. We may also describe the situation as “The birds are eating the sheep”. However, our concern could lie more in the active interaction and the changes in states of affairs that they bring about. We might for example be concerned with the ‘eating sheep of the birds’ and then the ‘hating birds of the sheep’. This ‘eating’ and ‘hating’ can be seen as power variations in a field of interacting forces. That is the best I can do with making these ideas clear. At any rate, the birds supposedly take the broader ‘nomadic’ view, and they are just engaging in the activity without passing moral judgments which distinguish other entities from themselves as being bad. The sheep are their food. So the sheep are a part of the birds internally, in a sense, and the hunt is just the dynamic of that internalization. The sheep however, do not regard themselves as being internal to the birds. They therefore say the birds are external to them and that they are evil, since the power dynamic tends away from themselves. So the birds understand the world as nomadically distributed, since they do not draw these lines of distinction. I would like to think that the sheep also could take the nomadic distribution view. Doing so would involve regarding their interaction with the birds not as an opposition but rather as a dynamic by which they express their own powers. Sheep can survive the hunt, if they run and hide very well. So they can affirm their own power too. All species have survival skills sufficient to have preserved them up until now. And this does not even take into account the power of a species to evolve so that it has even greater survival power. Perhaps the problem comes when the sheep demonize and resent the other powers rather than contesting them, I suppose. At any rate, SH’s point here is that like Plato, Nietzsche also is concerned with a genealogy, but rather one that is interested the sedentary and nomadic distributions. Another similarity is that “they both involve tests of selection.” I am assuming the ‘they’ here refers to their genealogies. Plato’s selection is the selection of faithful copies, and also SH mentions a selection of real knowledge. This seems to be that we say some knowledge is not based on knowledge of the ideals. I am not sure what else it would be based on. Perhaps the idea here is that a person who does not know what is the ideal form for a statesman would erroneously select the baker as being one. But I am not sure. For Nietzsche, selection seems to be how we select which beings take the nomadic view. But I am not certain. SH’s exact wording is: “Nietzsche selects those entities whose existence is founded on a principle of becoming” (55). There are two other parallels. One is that they both rely on myth. SH mentions the demon, but I only recall a demon in Nietzsche’s myth, so I suppose Plato’s myth is of the Gods and the cosmic circles and ideal perfect models. I however am not entirely sure of the philosophical significance of the fact they both use myths. The next parallel is that both Nietzsche and Plato rely on “a relation between questions and problems”. I have not grasped this entirely. I guess I would want to know how it is that other philosophers do not rely on the relation between questions and problems.  It is a bit more evident in the context of the above Plato material. Perhaps at the basis of Plato’s ideas is that since it is question of whether or not something fits a concept, that implies there is an ideal to which things can more or less, but never entirely, correspond. How this is so for Nietzsche is not so apparent to me. Is it that Nietzsche also notices this discrepancy between ideals and appearances, but for his own reasons grants more reality to appearances? SH’s final point is that Deleuze’s project parallels Plato’s. Perhaps Nietzsche does not trace things’ origins to something exterior to them, especially not to some transcendent world of ideas. Deleuze is also not doing that exactly, but he is tracing the origins of things to something more fundamental than them, namely, to an original field of (intensive) difference. Also, Deleuze calls this transcendental empiricism, which may suggest that he is unlike Nietzsche who might be against the idea of transcendental origins.]

Deleuze presents Plato’s procedure as follows: ‘The four figures of the Platonic dialectic are therefore: the selection of a difference, the installation of a mythic circle, the establishment of a foundation, and the position of a question-problem complex’ (DR 66/79). We therefore begin by determining the definition through the method of division. The mythic circle to which Deleuze refers is either the myth of the Statesman, or more generally the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis, that we have knowledge of Ideas because we remember them from our existence prior to our birth. The foundation is then given by the relation of appearance to the realm of Ideas, allowing us to ask the question of descent. Plato therefore ultimately grounds the world of becoming on the world of being. We should note that there are a number of parallels between Plato and Nietzsche. For both, the question is one of genealogy (in Nietzsche’s case, whether something is based on a sedentary or nomadic distribution), and they both involve tests of selection. Plato selects genuine copies, and real knowledge which is based on being or the Ideas. Nietzsche selects those entities whose existence is founded on a principle of becoming. Both rely on myth (the demon) and a relation between questions and problems. Deleuze’s project therefore parallels Plato’s, with his account of superior empiricism, as determining the differential origin of perspective, mirroring Plato’s own project of tracing appearances to their Ideal origins. Rather than an investigation in search of a primal identity (the Ideas), Deleuze is attempting to trace phenomena to their origin in a field of difference.
(55)

 

Citations from:

Somers-Hall, Henry. Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2013.

Or if otherwise noted:

DR:
[Deleuze] Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994/London: Continuum, 2004.

 

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1962), Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.