Somers-Hall, (Ch.2), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself ’, 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

Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself

 

Very, very brief summary:

Chapter 2 of DR examines the role of repetition in the three syntheses of time and of the psyche. A) The three syntheses of time. The first time synthesis is of habitual contraction, which synthesizes the living present. The second is of the memory, which synthesizes the pure past. The third is of the pure form of time, and it synthesizes the future. This third synthesis is ‘time out of joint’, which takes two forms: time 1) as formal and pre-successive, as with Kant’s a priori intuition of time, 2) as passively synthesized by the eternal return. When we affirm the eternal returnability of the present, we anticipate not the same states of affairs in the future but rather that, like now, the future will be composed of differential intensity. It impregnates the present with the future, which liberates us from the past. B) The three psychic synthesis. The first is the compulsion to repeat, which is a habitual synthesis. The second is the virtual object, which recalls a past experience that never happened, but which satisfies a current need. The third is the death drive, which for Freud tends backward toward a prior inorganic state but for Deleuze tends forward toward a future self-variation.

Very brief summary:

Chapter 2 examines repetition in the three syntheses of time and of the psyche. The first synthesis is of the contraction of habit and of the living present. Often one experience will follow another. We then anticipate the second when experiencing the first. In these habitual contractions we constitute the living present as an experience of “waiting.” The second synthesis is of memory or of the pure past. All present experience is from the beginning integrated in with all other past experiences in the pure past. The past then determines the character of the present, while the present at the same time alters that character. We can experience the past-in-the-present either in expansion as individual parts of the past come to mind or in contraction when we express past moments all in one habitual action, like performing something we rehearsed many times. The third synthesis is of the pure form of time as the eternal return or of the future. Time experienced as a regular and unitized motion of success is “in joint”. It can be out of joint in two ways: 1) when it is not successive, as with Kant’s a priori intuition of time. 2) when it is not constituted actively by a transcendental ego, as with Kant, but rather passively or automatically by the eternal return. This happens when we affirm the present as eternally returnable. It liberates us from the past by impregnating the future in the present. (By the way, we see this structure with Hamlet, only not in an affirmative form. He is stuck in the past, and lingers in an uneventful present, with the past and present relating to an anticipated but delayed future). What is affirmed as returnable is not the current states of affairs but rather the world as composed of differential intensities, like it presently is. This brings the future into the present, and thus is the synthesis of the future. Deleuze sees repetition and time involved also in Freud’s three psychic syntheses. The first synthesis is the compulsion to repeat. This compulsion contracts traumatizing excitations into the psychic system, which manages them in accordance with the pleasure principle. It is thus also a synthesis of habitual contraction and of the present. The second synthesis is of the virtual object. We might substitute something we need with a virtual object that recalls a satisfying experience in the past, like sucking the fingers while waiting for the mother’s breast. But since this substitute was never a real source of satisfaction in the past, it is a pure past. Thus it is a synthesis of memory and of the past. The third synthesis is of the death drive. For Freud, the compulsion to repeat strives to bring the organism back toward a previous inorganic state, and is thus a variation on the death drive. For Deleuze, however, this death is not a movement to a past inorganic state but rather toward a future mutation. It is identity in its variability. As such, it is the synthesis of the pure form of time as the eternal return and of the future.

Brief summary: 
Chapter 2 looks at the role of repetition in time synthesis and in Freud’s model of the psyche, and also it looks at how time synthesis can be seen as passively constructive of subjects rather than actively conducted by a pregiven subject. Deleuze discusses Freud’s and the time syntheses using Kant’s three syntheses of time: the sense intuition constitutes the moving present of experience, while the imagination constitutes the memorial past, all while the understanding conceptually prefigures all futures of experience. Deleuze’s first synthesis of time is of habit and the living present. We find patterns of correspondence between events that are frequently coupled in succession. Then when we experience the first, we anticipate the second, which is contracted with the first even before we experience it. In this way we experience time in the form of waiting, which is the living present. The second synthesis of time is of memory or the past. All present moments from the beginning are also registered in the memorial past. They are expressed at some degree of expansion or contraction. It expands when we imagine it in sustained recollection, and it is contracted when many past moments express themselves at once in our habitual behavior, like when performing something we rehearsed many times. The third synthesis is of the pure or empty form of time, which is the synthesis of the future. Time is in joint when it is seen as following a mechanically regular circular motion that can be measured by means of units when it enters into fixed ratios with other regular movements. This enables an extension of successive moments. It is out of joint when it is not successive. This is the case for Kant’s a priori intuition of time, which is time in its structure (in its pure form) prior to the experience of actual successions. For Kant, the unity of the formal transcendental “I” is needed to unify all the temporally various moments of experience. But for Deleuze, it is not needed, since the synthesis of the world and of the self comes about by means of a passive synthesis. That synthesis is the eternal return. When we affirm the present, we are affirming a situation of intensive difference, and what repeats is not the same states of affairs but rather another such situation of intensive difference, unique all its own. Zarathustra first is stuck in the past, since he is fixated on revenge. But when he affirms each moment as eternally returnable, he is freed from the past. Hamlet, however, since he is stuck in the past (he never decides on the past command to commit murder) remains in the present (in his present indecisively), with the past and present relating to the future (of the coming murder). Zarathustra has this same structure, but it is affirmative. He is liberated from the past, and sees each present as more vital since it is pregnant with the future. So for Deleuze, the eternal return synthesizes time by bringing the past, present, and future into relation, since the eternal return impregnates the present with the future in liberation of the past. As such, the eternal return auto-synthetically synthesizes time, and unlike with Kant, it does not require an active transcendental ego. We then see the three syntheses in Freud. Freud thinks our psyche is a system that minimizes damage by managing destabilization excitations. The pleasure principle is what does this managing. But sometimes the excitations are so powerful that they cannot be managed by the pleasure principle. On account of such traumas, there is then an excess of excitations that spill outside or remain outside the system. The compulsion to repeat habitually contracts them into the system. This is the first synthesis of psychic habitual contraction. The disruptions can lead to destabilizing the psyche in a way that can cause it to mutate. So since the compulsion to repeat wants to maintain that stability, it wants to move the organism back closer to a non-organic material state. As such, it is a variation of the death drive. Freud’s second synthesis is of the virtual object. A child may suck the fingers as a virtual object for sucking the absent mother’s breast. This is a pure past that is brought into the present, since there never really was a time that the fingers gave milk. The third synthesis is the death drive. For Freud it is a personal loss. But for Deleuze, it is the flexibility of self-identity that allows for evolution, adaptation, and self-creation.

 

Summary

(2.1 Introduction) Chapter 2 has two themes. 1) Repetition seems to require two conditions which are impossible together: the repeated thing needs somehow to be the same, or else it is something new entirely and not something repeated, while also, it needs somehow to be different from prior instances, since otherwise it is a continuation and not a repetition of the prior thing. So how is repetition possible? 2) How can the world be constituted without a unified subject performing the synthetic unification of the parts of the world? (2.2 Background: Kant’s Three Syntheses of Time) For Kant, the unity of a subject is the basis for the synthetic unification of the world we cognize. Sensibility receives the manifold of intuition. Imagination retains chucks of it from recently passed moments and arranges them coherently. It does this constructive arranging on the basis of the unities of concepts in the understanding. These unifications allow us to make representational subject-predicate judgments. Also, since the parts are given at different moments, the a-temporal unity of the subject is the basis for them all to come together in one act of cognition. (2.3 Deleuze’s First Synthesis of Time: Hume) Deleuze has three time syntheses that follow Kant’s three levels of synthesis, starting with sense intuition. The first synthesis is the synthesis of habit and the present. We undergo a series of experiences, A, B, C, D, etc. But certain patterns in the series form pairings in our mind. So we see smoke, then we look down and see fire. We see this often, such that when we see smoke, we anticipate seeing fire. This creates an experience of duration. When we see the smoke, it contracts implicitly the future experience of fire into it. So the first synthesis of habit constitutes the experience of the living present. It is the experience of time as “waiting”. A self is any entity or activity that contracts anything whatsoever. So a heart contracts blood, and it is always “waiting” for more blood. It is thus a self, and we have many such selves inside us. All of which are waiting and thus have their own temporality. (2.4 Deleuze’s Second Synthesis: Bergson) Deleuze’s second time synthesis is of memory or the past. The present moment is replaced by a new one. But that means firstly the present needs to make room for the second. But that can only happen if there is a place in the past into which it is moving. But this means that the present somehow almost from the beginning and in its actual act of passing is in the past. For Bergson, this is so, because the past and present form one large entity with no discrete parts. When we remember something, we expand some layer of the past. When we are not expanding memories to be seen by our mind’s eye, we are expressing them implicitly in our habitualized behaviors, which contract all prior experience. This is evident for example when we perform something that we rehearsed many times before, and thus the performance is the sum of all those rehearsals. Or afterward we might sit back and recall one such rehearsal. The past is inserted into the present and helps determine it, just as the present determines modifications in the whole of consciousness. We cannot control these things. But we can control which parts to expand and when to expand them. This mixture of freedom and determinacy Deleuze calls Destiny. (2.5 The Third Synthesis 1: The Pure Form of Time) The third synthesis is the pure/empty form of time and the synthesis of the future. Time that is “in joint” is like the steady motion of a wheel around an axle. Ratios between such regular circular motions enable the flow of time to be unitized and measured. But time can also come out of joint. One sense of this is the experience of time without the experience of successive moments. Kant’s pure a prior intuition of time gives us this pure form of non-successive temporality, and is thus time out of joint. (2.6 The Third Synthesis 2: Two Different Paralogisms) We further understand time out of joint in the context of Kant’s cogito argument. For Kant, the “I think” accompanies all representations. But it does not alone determine us, like Descartes argues. Kant notes that there still needs to be some determination. Our “I” for Kant is formally just the glue that unifies all the variations we experience of the world and of ourselves through time. But it is just a unity, and it does not itself make any determinations of who we are. This requires we experience ourselves in the flow of time. We never actually experience our “I” or fundamental formal self. At any rate, for Kant, this transcendental, formal self actively synthesizes all empirically given intuitions. But Deleuze thinks that the unities of our world and of ourselves arise from a passive synthesis not conducted by a pre-given active subjectivity. (2.7 The Third Synthesis 3: Hamlet and the Symbol of the Third Synthesis) Deleuze uses Hamlet and Zarathustra to further elaborate the notion of time out of joint and how the third synthesis synthesizes the future. Hamlet is initially indecisive, so we do not know whether or not Hamlet’s actions conform to law, and thus time is out of joint. Also, Hamlet is stuck in the past when he was charged with his murderous task, which makes him live in a suspended present. Both this past and present gain their significance in relation to the anticipated future when he will commit murder. Zarathustra, also is stuck in the past, since he is concerned with revenge. But when he instead can fully affirm each present moment, he is freed from the past and sees each present moment as anticipatable as repeating eternally in the future. In a way like this, to break from time in joint is to see the future in the present, and in this way the future is synthesized. (2.8 The Third Synthesis 4: The Esoteric Doctrine of the Eternal Return) For Kant, time is a form of intuition, and is thus different in kind from the understanding. Kant could have further developed this insight by looking at how time and the subject synthesize passively or “auto-synthetically” rather than somehow be governed by the understanding and a transcendental subject. However, he instead holds to a formal subject that performs the active synthesis of time. Deleuze instead thinks time can be synthesized without the help of a transcendental ego. It is instead synthesized by the pure empty form of time understood as the eternal return, which is responsible both for the newness of each moment (as a return of intensive difference) while also it is responsible for the synthesis of time (since it anticipates a future as an affirmation of the present). (2.9 Freud) Freud is interested in the repetitions of past traumas in our actions and mental life. They result from a repressed experienced. As such, they cannot be represented, but only repeated. The psychic system for Freud manages excitations that threaten the stability of the system. When excitations are minimized or maintained, this leads to pleasure, in accordance with the pleasure principle or principle of homeostasis. When it cannot manage the excitation, there is displeasure. The system might defer pleasure now in exchange for pleasure in the future, in accordance with the reality principle. But since past traumatic events are unpleasant, their repetition cannot be explained by the pleasure principle. (2.10 Freud’s First Synthesis) Sometimes we have so strong of a threatening excess of excitation (a trauma) that in order to minimize its destructive influence, we habitually contract it and distribute it into our psychic system. This is the compulsion to repeat and the libido. The compulsion to repeat comes prior to the pleasure principle, since it merely contracts the excitations into the system, while the pleasure principle is what secondarily manages those contracted excitations. But these disruptive excitations also cause a system to mutate and evolve. Because the compulsion to repeat wants to return the system back to an earlier stage, which is closer to our inorganic origins, it is a variation of the death drive. (2.11 Freud’s Second Synthesis) To manage the trauma of the absent mother and the lack of milk, the child can realize the breast will come in the future, and in the meantime suck on their fingers. It serves then as a virtual object that provides excitations that lessen their inner distress. The fingers refer to a past experience of the breast. But since the fingers never actually gave milk like the breast did, it is a pure past. (2.12 Freud’s Third Synthesis: The Death Drive) For Freud, the death drive fuels the compulsion to repeat, since it is the tendency toward our inorganic material origins. As such, it is a material repetition. Deleuze however sees the compulsion to repeat in the creation of the virtual object. It is the repetition of a pure past, and as such is a spiritual repetition. Also, death for Freud is a personal loss, where for Deleuze death is more the variation of self-identity involved in evolution, adaptation, and self-creation.




Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (Ch.1), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Chapter 1. Difference in Itself’, 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

Chapter 1. Difference in Itself

 

Very, very brief summary:

Chapter 1 of DR critically examines representational systems. They are unable to describe the fundamental world of intensive variation where determinate essential distinctions do not hold. Aristotle’s representational system of genus-species classification also is not even consistent, as it requires that the fundamental category of being be univocally defined while everything else under it equivocally defined. There are four solutions to the problems of representational systems such as Aristotle’s: 1) The univocity being in Duns Scotus, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. 2) The infinite representation of Hegel’s and Leibniz’s systems. 3) The perspectivism of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. And 4) The partial participations in Plato’s system of division. Of these solutions, Spinoza’s and Nietzsche’s are the most successful.

Very brief summary:
The first chapter of DR is about the inability of representational systems to be self-consistent and/or to describe the fundamental intensive layer of reality, which is unrepresentable. A system is representational if it is based on the subject-predicate structure of judgment that allows for distinctions of the type “this is not that”. Aristotle’s representational system defines things using subject-predication on the basis of the genus-species structure (a man is an animal that thinks). One problem is the highest genus, being, cannot be defined using this structure, since no genus is higher than it. Aristotle’s solution is an equivocal conception of being, where it has various senses related to each other through their relation to a focal meaning of being. But this makes his system inconsistent, since everything else must be defined univocally. There are four sorts of possible solutions to the problems of representational systems. 1) Univocity. Scotus says that our finite being is a different degree than God’s infinite being. Spinoza has one being or substance, but it is internally differentiated modally. Nietzsche sees the world univocally as being a field of dynamically related intensive power variations that only secondarily and artificially is divided into a world of distinct subjects. 2) Infinite representation. Hegel’s dialectic is an infinite movement which generates the categories of the understanding, and is thus infinite representation. However, it is based on clear-cut oppositions which our complicated and ambiguous world does not conform to. Leibniz’ monads have a representational subject-predicate form, but since they have an infinity of inter-relational predicates, it is infinite representation. Leibniz however still has the opposition difference between our world and the other possible ones. 3) Perspectivism. Merleau-Ponty teaches us that really all things are merely perspectives, and we artificially posit whole things that are opposable to others. But he centralizes the body as the origin of all our perspectives and is thus using identity. 4) Plato’s Partial Participations. Plato sees the world as being made of things which never classify cleanly, since none are fully faithful to ideal forms. However, Deleuze notes that the origin of this system is still a representational world of distinct forms rather than the immanent world of intensive variation.


Brief summary: 
The world is fundamentally sub-representational. It is a field of intensive differences. Only secondarily do we divide it up into determinate things using the representational subject-predicate structure of judgment that enables us to say ‘this is an x” and thus also “this is not that’. But Deleuze notes how such representations cannot tell us about the more fundamental unrepresentable level of the world. Aristotle’s system of classification is one way that we use representational thinking to divide the world. We divide genuses into species that differ in kind according to an essential difference, and we define any species by designating first its genus then its specifying difference (man is an animal that thinks). At the lowest level the divisions terminate with individuals that differ not in kind but in number and in accidental traits. At the highest level is being, which cannot fit the structure required by the system, since it cannot have a genus above it. Aristotle’s solution is to say that there is one focal concept of being, and it equivocally takes a number of different but related senses. This introduces inconsistency into his system, since the fundamental category is defined equivocally, but all the rest by necessity are defined univocally.  Duns Scotus’ solution is to use a univocal definition of being. He says that the difference between our finite perfection and the infinite perfection of God is a matter of intensive degrees of difference. But in the end, Scotus claims that the intensive difference between God and humanity is so great as to qualify as difference in kind, and thus it is not a fully univocal being. Spinoza, however, has a more univocal being. For him, there is one being that is internally differentiated into intensive modal variations. On the one hand these modes serve to differentiate and determine being, which is required for being to have any sense at all. However, the modes do not in reality (but only in our imagination) actually constitute distinct individuals but are rather expressions of one substance. Thus it is a univocal sense of being. Nietzsche as well has a univocal sense of being. For him, it is a mistake to see there being different subjects in the world each with moral values and obligations to other subjects. Rather, there is a field of dynamically varying intensive power relations that express as much power as they can. It is only when a weak party wants to externalize blame for their weakness that they arbitrarily carve up the world into victims and perpetrators. Seeing just a field of power relations is the nomadic view, while arbitrarily carving up that field is the sedentary view. When we take the sedentary view, we might say that one moral actor could have acted better, thus that we ourselves could have lived a better life. We would not then affirm the eternal returnability of our lives. However, if we take the nomadic view, then we think that expressions of power relations were always at their fullest, and thus nothing is wrong or missing in our lives. Hence we could affirm its eternal returnability. In this way, being is univocal (since it is one field of relations) and affirmative. The other way to avoid the problems of Aristotle’s representational system is to use infinite representation. Hegel for example sees the dialectic as an infinite movement which generates all other things. The dialectic also generates the categories of our understanding, and we use concepts and terms to represent the dialectic, and since also it is an infinite movement, it is an infinite representation. However, Hegel’s dialectic still has problems of representation. For example, it still has identities and also its notion of opposition is too crude for application in the real world where things are more ambiguous. Leibniz also uses infinite representation. For him there are an infinity of basic small parts of the world, called monads. Since these monads are subjects that are defined by a set of predicates, they are understood representationally. But since a) all monads are in relation to each other, b) also all those relations are expressed as predicates, and c) there are an infinity of such relations, the predicates of each monad are infinite. And thus this is infinite representation. But Leibniz still uses an oppositional notion of difference, since our existing world stands opposed to the inconsistent ones that God did not select. Phenomenology at first seems to present a world that is not made of opposing objects. We are never given things fully as whole objects in perception. As such, our world is made merely of phenomenal differences without opposing objects. However, phenomenology also tells us that we nonetheless posit the objects as whole things. Merleau-Ponty recognizes that fundamentally however our world is no more than a perspective. But since he places the body at the origin of those perspectives, his system is still based on a fixed identity, and thus it still is representational. Lastly, Plato’s method of division seems to avoid the problems of representation in Aristotle’s similar system of division. For Plato, things are not divided precisely, since inclusion under a type of thing is always a matter of being more or less like the ideal form for that thing. As a result, there are often imposters that get included with the better examples. The world then for Plato is one where there cannot be clear distinctions between things, since it is not always clear under which category they belong, and they can belong very well to one and just marginally well to another. However, Deleuze’s problem is that Plato traces the origin to a realm of ideas where the distinctions are clear-cut, rather than to an immanent world of intensive difference where such clear distinctions between things do not hold at this most basic level.

Summary

(1.1 Introduction) We live in a world of difference, but none of it in itself is overtly differentiated. To do this, we might designate different parts representationally by saying “this is an x” and using the subject-predicate structure of judgment. However, the grounds of representation that may explain whence and how representation comes about is sub-representational and thus cannot be represented. This deeper, unrepresentable sort of difference Deleuze wants to explore. (1.2 Aristotle’s Conception of Difference) Aristotle has a concept of difference that is bound up with this genus-species classification system. A genus is like a category, and it is divided into species, which share the general trait of the genus, but they have a specifying difference that distinguishes them within that genus. Thus difference in kind between the species is Aristotle’s notion of difference. It is an essential difference, rather than an accidental one. A genus can be a species within a higher genus, and a species can be a genus to lower species. The divisions terminate at the level of individuals, which do not differ in kind but rather they differ only in number and on account of accidental differences. (1.3 Aristotle’s Conception of Being) There is a problem in Aristotle’s system with the highest genus, being. Since there is no higher genus, it cannot be defined as being part of a group of other species sharing the same genus but differing on account of some essential distinction. Aristotle needs this concept of difference but he cannot have a higher genus. His solution is to say that there is one focal concept of being, but there are a number of senses of being that are different from one another. These different senses are like paronymous meanings, which are morphologically related but not identical, as for example ‘grammarian’ and ‘grammar’. But this solution introduces an inconsistency in the system. All species lower than being get their sense only from univocal meanings, which allow clear distinctions between species. However, the highest and most fundamental category only gets its sense by means equivocal meanings. (1.4 Duns Scotus) Medieval theologians follow Aristotle’s system, but they want to place God above being. They do this by understanding being equivocally through analogy. There is the being of our finite world, on the basis of which, we might by means of analogy understand what God’s infinite being would be like. Duns Scotus argues that this solution does not work. The only way we would be able to know that finite and infinite being are analogical is if we already knew what infinite being is like, when in fact we do not. So our own finite perfection cannot serve as the basis for knowing God’s infinite perfection. But for Scotus, the problem in these attempts that use analogy is that they assume that the finite and the infinite are different in kind, when really they are different in degree. This is an intensive understanding of the sense of being, and it allows for a univocal understanding of being. This also means that God is not higher than being, since being/perfection is not a property but rather a mode of substances. Since this is heretical, Scotus claims that since the difference in degree between God and humanity is so great, that indeed there is a difference in kind between God and humanity. Deleuze would instead prefer a more univocal sense of intensive variation. (1.5 Spinoza) Spinoza also has a univocal sense of being. For him, there is just one substance. But it is internally differentiated essentially, through its attributes, and it is further self-differentiated through intensive modal degrees of each attribute. Substance for Spinoza is not like a category that can be divided up into the individuals of the world. However, all the modes express substance modally. So even though the world may seem to be composed of many substances, there is really only one that is expressed through many intensive modal variations of it. (1.6 Nietzsche) Nietzsche also has a univocal understanding of being. We understand being as power. And the world is not fundamentally composed of distinguishable subjects. This is a fabrication created by the weak who want to externalize blame for their weakness. Instead, there are just competing forces that express themselves to their fullest. This is a nomadic view of the world, since it sees there being just a play of dynamic differential relations and not substantial things doing the actions. It is also affirmative, since in these relations the power is affirmed as much as it can be. The sedentary view instead sections-off parts of the field of dynamic differential relations and designates subjects with moral values. The more one such partition dominates another, the more it is said to be immoral. Since this has a this-and-not-that structure, and since it thinks that power should be self-limiting, it is based on negation, and it is secondary to the more original field of differential power relations (1.7 The Eternal Return) We see Nietzsche’s univocity of being in nomadic distributions further expressed in his notion of the eternal return. If we section-off the world in a sedentary way that generates moral subjects, then we might say that such a subject, ourselves especially, could have made more moral choices. In that case, we would not want to live our lives exactly the same way eternally, since we could have lived it better. However, were we to take the nomadic view, where being is understood as a dynamic of intensive power variations, then we would say that nothing could have been better, and thus we would affirm the eternal returnability of our lives. (1.8 Infinite Representation) We just saw how the univocal understanding of Being can remedy the problem of Aristotle’s system. Deleuze says another way is an infinite representation. A finite one uses limits to determine things. Infinite representation sees all things as existing moments of an infinite concept that encompasses everything. (1.9 Hegel) Aristotle’s system is finite representation, since it fixes everything in a stable system definitional limits. Hegel’s dialectic is an infinite movement. And since it generates the categories that we use in representational thinking, it is thus infinite representation. But there are still problems with it. 1) The source of the dialectic movement is not representable. However, Hegel represents it with concepts and terms. 2) Hegel’s infinite has a pattern-instance structure that is similar to Aristotle’s genus-species structure. Thus, Hegel does not get rid of a central identity. 3) Hegel’s basic structure of opposition is too crude to apply to the real world where there is much more ambiguity, overlap, mixing, etc. (1.10 Leibniz) Leibniz also has an infinite representational system. For Leibniz, the world is made of an infinity of parts called monads. Each has predicates which define it. Thus the world conforms to the subject-predicate structure of representation. However, each monad is related to the infinity of other ones. And for each such relation it has a predicate expressing that relation. Thus each monad has an infinity of predicates, and therefore it is infinite representation. Since in Leibniz’s world there are so many coexisting differences, we might think that he is operating using a non-oppositional notion of difference. However, he also thinks that this world stands opposed to other inconsistent worlds which were not chosen by God to be. So his system does have oppositional difference. (1.11 Phenomenology) Phenomenology offers a possible way to see the world as being composed of non-oppositional differences. Our knowledge of things in the world is always partial, since our perceptions are limited by our spatial and temporal perspectives. It would seem then that we only see the world in a fragmentary way, where there is a field of phenomenal differences, but no different things with their own determinate limits. However, phenomenology also tells us that we posit the fragmented things as whole things, thereby placing them into oppositional relations with other posited things. Merleau-Ponty recognizes this, and his phenomenology might also be based not on identity; however, because our body is for him always the center of perception, his system is based on a fixed identity. (1.12 Plato) Plato’s method of division might also seem at first to improve upon Aristotle’s system and to regard the world as composed of non-oppositional differences. For Plato, we can classify by dividing general groupings into more specific ones while maintaining a rough definition for the things we are trying to classify. But the divisions are not always so clear-cut. Inclusion into a grouping is relative, depending on how well the specimen is faithful to the ideal model for the thing we are trying to define and classify. Thus we can have less faithful imposters or pretenders getting mixed up with the more faithful examples. Deleuze’s problem with this system is that instead of tracing the origins to an immanent field of intensive difference, Plato instead traces them to a separate world of clear-cut Ideas.

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (0: DR’s Intro), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘0 Introduction: Repetition and Difference’, 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]
[Henry Somers-Hall’s Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Entry Directory]

 

[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

0 Introduction: Repetition and Difference

 

Very brief summary:
In the Introduction to DR, Deleuze clarifies how true repetition is not generality, and thus it is not the repetition of  artificially equalized things, like the replications of scientific experiments and the mechanically rigid application of moral laws as if each ethical situation were identical. Rather, it can be the reiteration of things with the same conceptual determinations but with non-conceptual differences, like Kant’s incongruent counterparts, words, and atoms, and also it can be the repetition of inconsistent moral commands, like Kierkegaard’s notion of God’s variable moral law.


Brief summary: 
Repetition is normally conceived as the repetition of identical things. But this is generality and not repetition. Scientific experimentation treats different situations as identical. It homogenizes them by arbitrarily selecting quantified parameters. But this generalization conceals the fundamental individuality of each instance.  Moral law, like the categorical imperative, calls for the same actions in similar situations. But this mechanically rigid application is too much like how natural law, which is a generalization, is thought to apply to diverse similar situations that in fact are not reducible to each other. Kierkegaard however conceives of a higher moral authority (God), whose commands are inconsistent, as with Abraham being commanded to kill his son. This is true repetition, since it is a reiteration of following the moral command without that law or action being the same each time. Representation, however, is not true repetition, since what repeats is thought to be identical. An idea is thought to have a comprehension (its purely conceptual determinations) and an extension (the things that have these determinations). True repetition needs there to be different instances (different things in extension) but to be repetitive, they need to be treatable as reiterations (have the same comprehension). However, according to Leibniz’ identity of indiscernibles, when two things have the same conceptual determinations (the same comprehension) they must be the same thing (the same extension). Kant’s incongruent counterparts shows that this is not always to be true. We can have conceptually identical things, like two same sized 3-4-5 triangles, but with one having the short side on the left and the other on the right. They are conceptual identical but are still distinguishable. In the first chapter Deleuze will further investigate this non-conceptual notion of difference.

Summary

(0.1 Introduction) Normally repetition is understood in terms of generality and law. But repetition is not generality. So we are not dealing with repetition in scientific experiment, moral law, and psychological habit, which work with generalities. (0.2 Science and Repetition) Scientific experimentation is not really repeating situations. Its methods artificially select parameters, and it converts all unique qualitative variations into symbolized numerical quantities with the intent of equalizing all experimental cases. But this blinds us to the differences that distinguish each instance. Also, natural laws derived from experimentation only hypothesize sameness (‘given the same circumstances…’).  (0.3 Kant’s Moral Law ) Moral laws tell us to do the same thing for the same situations. Thus they might at first appear to be instances of repetition. But because we must apply moral laws in a mechanical and pre-determined way, we are thinking of them too much like natural laws, which likewise we suppose to be non-deviable. And so, it suffers from the same problem as natural laws, namely, that it only hypothetically supposes that each situation can be seen as equivalent, when in fact they in fundamental ways are not. (0.4 Kierkegaard) God commands Abraham to kill his son. Kant thinks that Abraham should not have complied, since the highest imperative is the categorical imperative, which says you cannot murder. Kierkegaard thinks that there is a higher absolute (namely, God) with greater moral authority than ethical universals. This absolute does not command the same actions over and over, but rather the commands are heterogeneous and inconsistent. Here, then, we have repetition but not of the same action or law. (0.5 Extension and Comprehension) Representation is generality, since it repeats the same things, and thus it is not true repetition. For example, representational memory re-presents former objects and recognition compares present ones with mental representations. Such representations have a comprehension, which is the conceptual description that delineates the essential attributes of the thing, and the extension, which is the variety of things (or the thing) that the representation includes. For example, the comprehension of ‘triangle’ includes such conceptual determinations as ‘three lines,’ ‘three angles,’ etc; and the extension includes all the many sorts of triangles there are. The more determinations we add in the comprehension, the more restrictive the concept gets, which makes the extension shrink. When an idea refers to just one thing in extension, then its comprehension has expanded infinitely. Now, to have real repetition, we might need a series of instances of things that have the same concept. But according to Leibniz’ identity of indiscernibles, two things that have the same properties (and thus are conceptually indiscernible) are in fact identical. This would seem to make true repetition impossible, since if the instances shared the same concept, they will collapse into one another. One instance of things that are conceptually indiscernible but not collapsable are atoms, which differ only in spatio-temporal determinations. Another instance is words, which can be the same in different contexts, each time with the same definition and thus the same conceptual determinations, but also each time with different contextual colorings making them all unique. (0.6 Incongruent Counterparts) Kant’s incongruent counterparts provide another example of conceptually identical repetitions of things that are in fact not identical. Imagine we have a 3-4-5 scalene triangle. We can produce another one of the same size, where the relations between the parts are identical (with the 3-side connected to the 4 and 5, and so on) but construct it such that the 3-side is placed on the right while the first triangle has it on the left. Conceptually they are identical. But they are distinguishable on the basis of non-conceptual determinations, namely, relative spatial relations. (0.7 Conclusion) In chapter 1, Deleuze will investigate the principle of difference in a way that does not see it as being conceptual. But the investigation will not end merely by discovering its non-conceptuality.

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (SH’s Intro), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Introduction’, 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]
[Henry Somers-Hall’s Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Entry Directory]

 

[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

Introduction 

 

Very brief summary:
SH introduces DR. He will focus on the metaphysics of difference, while helping the reader through the challenges DR presents. DR’s structure: 1) First, it formulates a new understanding of difference that conceives it as being more fundamental than identity, and on the basis of this notion, we may reconceptualize repetition. 2) Then, it shows that this new notion is needed for understanding the more fundamental layers of reality (intensity, problems, Ideas), since the older philosophical means which use judgment and representation are inadequate. 3) Finally, it paves ways for this new sort of philosophical thinking. We also note that SH’s text is a handy guide to consult while reading DR, since it summarizes the philosophical argumentation and also provides useful supplements, like a glossary and further reading suggestions.

Brief summary: 
Before summarizing DR part by part, SH introduces the book in a more general way. His guide will focus primarily on the theme of the metaphysics of difference. Deleuze is critical of metaphysics that regard identity as being prior to difference. There are many challenges to following Deleuze’s philosophical presentation, like difficult terminology and an unclear structure to the text, but SH will mitigate these issues as best as possible while keeping to a summarizational mode. In SH’s reading, DR’s basic structure is that it begins with a new understanding of the concepts of repetition and difference, on the basis of which Deleuze provides a novel way to understand the world without representation or judgment. The introduction explains how repetition is based on a non-conceptual difference rather than on law. Chapter 1 shows how the traditional logic of difference (x is different from y), which forms the basis for representation and judgment, cannot give a complete description of the world. Chapter 2 looks at experience and argues that the fundamental source of the constituting syntheses of our world of experience are not the fixed structure of judgment and the unity of the self, as Kant would have it, but rather they are found on a level of pure intensity. Chapter 3 is critical of the traditional understanding of thinking, since it prevents us from examining this intensive level of reality. Chapter 4 is about Ideas and how differential calculus is able to deal with unrepresentable values or relations. In chapter 5 Deleuze looks at the relation between Ideas and intensity to argue that Ideas should not replace judgment, since Ideas should be more than just ways we understand the world. SH’s book should be read alongside DR, but it can be read on its own as well. And readers can make use of many helpful supplements at the end.

Summary

(Intro sect.1) SH will focus on the theme of the metaphysics of difference in DR. Deleuze is critical of metaphysics that regard identity as being prior to difference. (Intro sect.2) SH notes that working through DR presents a number of challenges, namely, Deleuze uses difficult terminology, he refers to many various other thinkers, and the structure of DR is not very clear. SH’s guide to DR will present the text in an accessible way by mitigating these problems as best as is possible while maintaining the guide’s summarizational mode. (Intro sect.3) SH thinks DR’s basic structure begins with a new understanding of the concepts of repetition and difference, and on the basis of that new understanding, Deleuze then provides a novel way to understand the world without representation or judgment. More specifically, SH sees DR as taking the following structure. In the introduction, Deleuze relates the concepts of repetition and difference by saying that repetition is not to be understood in terms of law but rather repetition should be grasped in terms of a non-conceptual understanding of difference. Chapter 1 gives a logical and metaphysical analysis of our relationship to the world. The orthodox logic of difference which says that x is different from y is inadequate for telling us about the difference that is within and at work in the world. This traditional logic of difference also operates in our judgments that attribute predicates to objects and also to representations. Yet it can only give a partial description of the world. Chapter 2 is concerned with what makes experience possible. For Kant, there is a subject-predicate structure to judgment. A subject (in the sense of a self, I, thinking intellect, etc.) synthesizes the manifold of variations in the world into concrete structures by using that structure of judgment. But Deleuze digs deeper into Kant’s model and finds that in fact Kant’s syntheses are based on temporal syntheses that do not have the structure of judgment. Also, Kant thinks that the unity of the self and the structure of judgment account for the coherent synthesis of time, but Deleuze shows that really it is the other way around. There is instead a deeper play of intensity at work in the syntheses that are constituting us and the world. In Chapter 3, Deleuze looks at how this deeper intensity is invisible when we use traditional concepts regarding how thought transpires. Chapter 4 discusses differential calculus ideas to find a way to grasp how it is that the world is fundamentally intensive. Doing so requires dealing with facets of reality that are not representable conceptually using representations and judgments. The calculus succeeds at this its way of handling unrepresentable yet still calculable values or relations: “while the calculus is a definite conceptual structure, it is a conceptual structure with a determinate reference beyond the conceptual realm” (SH 5). Other domains can also understand the world without reducing it to judgment, for example, physics, biology, and sociology have in some cases done this. In Chapter 5 Deleuze discusses the relation between Ideas and intensity. For Deleuze, Ideas should not replace judgment by being no more than ways we understand the world. SH will touch upon these and some other important related themes and also the alternate philosophical tradition that Deleuze thinks we need for this project. (Intro sect. 4) SH ends his introduction by saying that his guide is best read alongside Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, even though it could also be read alone. SH also provides many helpful supplements at the end. [The glossary is useful while reading the text, as certain terms might get confused, like differenciation and differentiation. Also, the recommended readings for the specific parts of DR might be helpful as well while reading, so perhaps the reader can check that supplement while working through the main text.]




Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (Pt.2), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Study Aids’, 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]
[Henry Somers-Hall’s Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Entry Directory]

 

[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 2
Study Aids

 

 

Brief summary: 

After his summarization of DR in section 1, SH follows with another, brief section of study aids for those who would like to work more with DR. There is a very useful glossary with 35 important terms. He suggests a  number of commentaries on DR, mentioning the particular usefulness of each. As well he gives recommendations for further reading of philosophical texts Deleuze refers too, going section by section. And finally he provides excellent tips for writing more successfully about Deleuze and DR.

 

Glossary

 

SH provides a glossary of 35 important terms from DR. Here are a few notable ones [the following is quotation]:

Difference: Difference is represented in terms of negation (x differs from y if x is not y). Difference and Repetition presents the project of discovering | another kind of affirmative difference that constitutes representational difference. (0.7)

Differenciation: the process whereby the pre-individual distinct-obscure determinations of the Idea become incarnated in actual individuals. (4.12, 5.5)

Differentiation: A mathematical procedure for determining the tangent of a curve. Also, the process of determining the pre-individual elements that constitute a particular individual. (4.2)
(SH 191-192)

Illusion, transcendental: For Kant, a transcendental illusion is an object that is not given in experience, but must nonetheless be posited in order for reason to systematise our knowledge. It leads us into error if we follow thought’s natural tendency and assume that it can be known, rather than just thought. For Deleuze, the main transcendental illusion we suffer from is that for something to be determined is for it to have the structure of a representation, thus ruling out the possibility of non-conceptual difference. (3.4, 3.7, 4.1, 4.2, 5.2, 5.5)
(SH 192)

Intensity: In terms of thermodynamics, this refers to an intensive property, such as temperature or pressure that allows work to be performed. In Deleuze’s terms, it is a non-metric field of differences that differs in kind when divided. (5.4)
(SH 193)

Multiplicity: A variety. This can either be an actual multiplicity, which is made up of a set of elements subsumed under a unity (the one and the many), or a virtual multiplicity, where the unity is constituted by the elements themselves. (5.4)
(SH 193)

Passive Synthesis: A process whereby elements are drawn together and organised that constitutes, rather than presupposes, a self. (2.2)
(SH 193)

Representation: A way of characterising the world, relying on the concepts of identity, analogy, opposition and resemblance, that attempts to guarantee the subordination of difference to identity. (0.5, 1.1, 3.4)
(SH 193)

Further Reading

SH provides a list of five commentaries on DR, plus he references selections from philosophical texts directly relevant to discussions of specific sections in the summary. SH writes:

The variety of thinkers Deleuze refers to in Difference and Repetition is overwhelming. The aim of this section is to give some of the key reference points Deleuze relies on in the various sections, as an aid to further reading. The list is not comprehensive by any means, and largely tracks the reading of Difference and Repetition given in this book. Similarly, I have only listed texts available in English. The vast majority of these texts are thought provoking pieces in their own right, however, and I would advise the reader to spend time reading them beyond the bounds of their relevance to Difference and Repetition. I have also listed some other texts on Deleuze that might be of use in approaching Difference and Repetition. While there is much excellent scholarship on Deleuze’s philosophy, here I want to focus on those texts which concern themselves principally with Difference and Repetition itself.
(194)

Tips for Writing about Deleuze

SH’s final study aid are his tips for writing about Deleuze. He warns of problems that can arise with Deleuze’s terminology in DR. He also says that there is enough difference between DR and Deleuze’s coauthored works with Guattari that one must justify one’s choice to use Deleuze’s writings from both periods. He recommends trying to be clear and provide explanations for quotations of Deleuze. He also recommends keeping a structure to one’s own writings, since Deleuze’s writing itself is directed to many different thinkers. Finally, “6) Remember that we are all contractions of elements and passive syntheses: make sure you eat a balanced diet while writing your essays” (SH 199).

 

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (Prefaces), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘The Two Prefaces: After Difference and Repetition (xv–xxii/xiii–xx)’, 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]
[Henry Somers-Hall’s Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Entry Directory]

 

[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 5. The Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensiblence

 

The Two Prefaces:
After Difference and Repetition (xv–xxii/xiii–xx)

 

 

Brief summary: 

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition has two prefaces. We learn from them that Deleuze was attempting to revolutionize philosophical thinking by liberating it from the constrictions placed on it by its conventional subordination of difference to identity. DR does not succeed entirely, since his notions of intensity and simulacra are still too closely tied to former conceptual structures. However, the third chapter acts as a guide for finding a new way to think philosophically, which Deleuze later accomplishes with Guattari in their rethinking of the concept of multiplicity.

Summary

Deleuze passes on the advice to read prefaces last, and hence SH will discuss the prefaces of DR now at the end of his summary. SH notes that the first preface was written in 1986, eighteen years after DR’s French publication, which contained what was to become the second preface. SH will discuss how Deleuze’s view of DR changed after it was published.

In the first preface (the one written 18 years later), Deleuze distinguishes philosophical works that are historical from ones that are philosophical in their own right. Deleuze’s prior works were historical, and DR is his first attempt at doing original philosophy. Yet we saw how DR is filled with the history of philosophy. Nonetheless, ideas from this history of philosophy are utilized creatively and originally and combined as a collage. Deleuze also thinks that DR is an attempt at trying to do philosophy in a new way (188). Deleuze claims that philosophers in the old style subordinate difference to identity or to the Same, to the Similar, to the Opposed, or to the Analogous (SH 188, quoting DR xv/xiii). SH then wonders, does DR really supply a new mode of philosophical expression? (SH 189).

SH gather’s from his own and from Deleuze’s critical reflections on the text that it is more a work of philosophical history than one of philosophy itself. [I do not quite understand what it is about Deleuze’s philosophy in DR that keeps to the old style of subordinating difference to identity and so on. Let me quote it first. As you will see, it is a richly insightful and beautiful passage:]

In a preface written in 1990 to Jean-Clet Martin’s book on Deleuze’s thought, Deleuze writes, ‘it seems to me that I have totally abandoned the notion of simulacrum, which is all but worthless’ (TRM 362). What is indicative in this comment is a rejection of the more positive project of Difference and Repetition. The simulacrum is a key moment in Deleuze’s efforts to overturn Platonism, and with it, the model of judgement, but in the process, Deleuze develops a mirror image of Plato’s own philosophy, even if, as with Lewis Carroll’s looking glass, ‘everything is contrary and inverted on the surface, but “different” in depth’ (DR 51/62). Thus, at the very moment when, in Difference and Repetition, Deleuze appears to break with classical philosophy, he finds himself operating within those same structures [the following up to citation is Deleuze quotation]:

For my part, when I was no longer content with the history of philosophy, my book Difference and Repetition still aspired nonetheless toward a sort of classical height and even toward an archaic depth. The theory of intensity which I was drafting was marked by depth, false or true; intensity was presented as stemming from the depths (and this does not mean that I have any less affection for certain other pages of this book, in particular those concerning weariness and contemplation). (TRM 65)

Deleuze’s reflection here clarifies his later attitude to Difference and Repetition. While it cleared the ground for the new task of philosophy, Difference and Repetition is still a work in the ‘old style’ which at the time he thought he had left behind. As such, Difference and Repetition itself is a text which Deleuze might assign to the history of philosophy. Perhaps | rather than seeing Difference and Repetition as the beginning of a new phase in Deleuze’s development, it might be better to see Difference and Repetition as the last (at least until his late book on Leibniz) of his great works on the history of philosophy, and a work itself of the history of philosophy. It is in his later collaborations with Félix Guattari that Deleuze draws out the implications of Difference and Repetition, in order to attempt to develop a philosophy that thinks in terms of ‘multiplicities for themselves’ (TRM 362) rather than ‘difference in itself’. There, Deleuze replaces the logic of genealogical enquiry and selection with a thinking in terms of the rhizome and horizontal connections. As he puts it in conversation with Claire Parnet: ‘In my earlier books, I tried to describe a certain exercise of thought; but describing it was not yet exercising thought in that way . . . With Félix, all that became possible, even if we failed’ (D 16–17/13). Not everyone follows Deleuze in moving beyond Difference and Repetition however, and we can also note that its hybrid nature, as a text in the ‘old style’ that opens onto the later work, is also its strength. Difference and Repetition provides a point of transition, but also a point of engagement for those who wish to critique Deleuze, and for those who wish to deploy his own critique within the debates between more traditional philosophical approaches.
(SH 188-189)

[I am not certain, but perhaps the problem with DR is the following. Intensity explicates into extensity, but in that way it is to be thought of as being on two levels at once, and thus there is an identity between both instances. Regarding the simulacra, I do not recall any discussion about it in our summaries. The point seems to be that Deleuze’s notion of simulacra still resembles Plato’s too much. Another idea seems to be that Deleuze’s work with Guattari is continuous with DR but in some ways breaks from it. I am not certain, but the difference seems to be that the notions of multiplicity that D&G discuss do not fall victim to the classical philosophical thinking in DR, and also that DR’s third chapter on the Image of Thought paves the way to thinking these multiplicities. By the way, Terence Blake has an excellent post and article regarding Deleuze being more a philosopher of multiplicity than one of difference.]

 

 

 

 

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

TRM:

Deleuze, Gilles. Two Regimes of Madness: Texts and Interviews 1975–1995, ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Ames Hodges and Mike Taormina, New York: Semiotext(e), 2007.

 

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (5.6), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘5.6 The Other (256–61/319–25, 281–2/351–2)’, 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]
[Henry Somers-Hall’s Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Entry Directory]

 

[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 5. The Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensiblence

 

5.6 The Other (256–61/319–25, 281–2/351–2)

 

 

Brief summary: 

For Deleuze, the individual is not the self, ego, subject, or “I.” Rather, the individual is bound up in generative processes that create the conditions for these other structures to arise. So, couched within your self, that is, within the self that you recognize as being you, is an indeterminate, pre-subjective process that is variable and structured only by difference itself. And perhaps this variational dynamic causes you to mutate, despite your beliefs that you are still the same person throughout your life. Now note that it is our faculties that recognize our representational self (the ego or “I”). But they cannot recognize our sub-representational individual. This is because our faculties can only work with representations, but our deeper individual cannot be represented. However, our faculties can be aware of this problem. But their solution does not succeed. They seek a notion of something un-representable which can be the basis for representation. Now consider that the only way our faculties have to deal with the world is limited by their spatial and temporal perspectives. Nonetheless, they regard the fragmented world of perception as being composed of complete objects. They do this by supposing that were every other perspective given, then the object in its completeness would become directly apparent. Since this omni-perspectival view is not possible for any one subjectivity, it belongs to no one and is thus the Other. And yet, this Other is the grounds for us to see the world as being made coherently with complete objects, and it is also the basis for objectively finding common grounds and for settling disagreements. Thus it is seen as the basis for representation. However, this Other as it is understood in this way is not really un-representable, which it needs to be in order to account for representation’s origins. For, it is only unrepresentable because humans happen to have perspectival limitations. But, it is still potentially representable by an intellect lacking these limitations, and thus it is not fundamentally un-representable. Deleuze then says that since philosophical thinking takes us to the pre-subjective structures of reality, it is a solitary and solipsistic exercise.

Summary

 

We have been discussing individuation and differenciation. We now ask, “where do we locate the individual?” (186). SH then writes:

We have already seen in our analysis of Feuerbach that the ‘I’ is a structure of the species (a claim implicit in Descartes’ attempt to replace the Aristotelian definition of man with the ‘I think’) (3.2).
(SH 186)

[I could not find this idea regarding Feuerbach at least put this way from a quick check through section 3.2. I will return to it later if we need it. The idea it seems we need to have in mind is that the I is a sort of species or has the problematic features of species. Thus,] “As species are a transcendental illusion that emerge after the individual, the ‘I’ cannot be the seat of the individual” (186). [The next idea seems to be that we have a self which is the product of our faculties working together and recognizing ourself as an I. The faculties recognize representations, but we are not fundamentally a representation. So this recognized self is not our deeper individual.]

Similarly, the Self – when it is defined as Deleuze does here as ‘the properly psychic organism, with its distinctive points represented by the diverse faculties which enter into the comprehension of the I’ (DR 257/320) – cannot be identified with the individual, as in this case we are dealing with a representation of the psychic system. In both cases, therefore, we are dealing with a representation of the individual, rather than the individual themselves.
(186)

[We should not look for the individual in the representable extensive world. Rather, we should seek it in the fields of intensity and the Ideas related to them.]

Rather than these structures, which are defined in terms of universal properties and extensions, we find the individual in the field of intensity that gives rise to these representational structures. It is the field of intensity, in relation to the Idea that is expressed within it, that forms the basis for the individual: ‘These Ideas, however, are expressed in individuating factors, in the implicated world of intensive quantities which constitute the universal concrete individuality of the thinker or the system of the dissolved Self’ (DR 259/322).
(SH 186)

Deleuze ends chapter 5 with the topic of the Other. [Recall from section 1.11 Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the forgetfulness of our perspective in how we regard objects in their wholeness. Phenomenological analyses of givenness tell us that we never are given an object in its wholeness, because we are always limited by a spatio-temporal perspective. We can only see one side of it at a certain moment of its appearing. We assume that that those other parts are there and are apparent to the rest of the world. SH says now that in so doing we are thinking of the world as an Other. This causes us to deprioritize the importance of our own perspective, making the extensive object with its properties be what is essential and our own perspective inessential. Now also recall one of Merleau-Ponty’s ideas about depth, from section 5.3. Our field of vision is basically 2-dimensional. We can see height and width directly. But the dimension of depth extending away from us is not perceived so directly. We infer it from visual clues, like the relative size of objects. We also can judge depth by changing our points of visual focus. However, we can treat depth as being like the width of our own vision, but seen perpendicular to our line of sight as if from another supposed viewer standing adjacent to us. In that way, we posit an Other directly seeing the depth that we only view indirectly. Thus in these ways, the Other is what allows us to be given a world of extended objects with properties. And since it sets up a universal sort of “perspective”, it allows us to have common ground to make “objective” determinations so to have facts in common and to settle disagreements about the world.]

At the close of Chapter 5, Deleuze introduces the last philosophical theme of Difference and Repetition: the Other. As we saw in Chapter 1 (1.11), Deleuze takes up Merleau-Ponty’s account of the forgetfulness of our perspective. Now, one of the key moments in this account was the presence in the world of the Other. It was the Other that gave us an infinite number of possible perspectives of the object, thus leading us to | take the object, as a given extensive object with properties, as essential, and our own perspective as inessential. Similarly, it was the Other that made us fail to recognise the intensive quality of depth. Rather than seeing depth as the ground for the other dimensions, the presence of the Other allows us to see it ‘as a possible length’ (DR 281/352), i.e., what is depth for us is simply length from another point of view. Thus, it is the Other that presents us with the field of extended objects and properties, and allows us to develop the language to express ‘our commonalities as well as our disagreements with the other’ (DR 261/324).
(186-187)

Thus, “The Other is therefore a precondition for representation” (187). SH now asks, “but how does our understanding of the Other develop?” [I have trouble following the next ideas. I will go part-by-part. I will do so under the assumption that the Other is a fabrication, and we are explaining how we come upon this notion. I am not at all sure that this assumption is correct.] “Deleuze’s claim is that once we note that both the I and the Self are bound up with extensity, representation needs to explain how there can still be a development of the psychic system itself” (187). [Perhaps the thinking here is the following. We saw how the I and the Self are bound up with extensity. I am not sure why representation itself needs to be what is giving an explanation. I am also not exactly sure why we need an explanation of the development of the psychic system. Maybe the idea is this. One view says there is a preexisting I that underlies the workings of the psychic systems. But when we regard the I more as the product of those workings, or at least simply as an illusion, then we no longer have it as a basis in our account. In the following however I might be wrong that the Other is a fabrication, as it might instead be a part of what Deleuze regards as fundamental, namely intensity and Ideas.] “This process of individuation cannot be attributed to either the self or the I, as these are both extensive or qualitative moments. Rather, the process of individuation is attributed to something seemingly outside of the system of the psyche: to the Other” (187). [Perhaps the idea here is the following. SH wrote before that “the Self – when it is defined as Deleuze does here as ‘the properly psychic organism, with its distinctive points represented by the diverse faculties which enter into the comprehension of the I’ (DR 257/320) – cannot be identified with the individual, as in this case we are dealing with a representation of the psychic system.” Perhaps the situation is the following. We have the psychic organism. It has distinctive points (although I am not sure what those are. Perhaps they are certain unique things in its structure or dynamics). The faculties of this system fabricate an I or Self by somehow representing those points. Now, since that I is extensive and representational, it cannot be responsible for the process of individuation which brought about the psychic system. And perhaps for some reason, nothing else within the psychic system can be said to be the basis for the individuation which brought that system about. Therefore, something outside that system is responsible for it, namely, the Other.] “While the self is seen as something given (the Cartesian cogito), the Other cannot be reduced to a set of properties” (187). [I am not sure why the Other cannot be reduced to a set of properties. Perhaps it is because only given things can be reduced to properties, but since the Other is not given, it cannot be. But I do not know why only givens can have properties. Perhaps the idea is that the Other is too vague, abstract, or universal to take properties, but I really do not know.] “Rather, ‘the Other cannot be separated from the expressivity which constitutes it’ (DR 260/323). When we look at, to use Deleuze’s example, a terrified face, we see this face as expressing a world that is terrifying for the subject. Just as extensity differs in kind from intensity, the terrified face differs in kind from the terrifying world it expresses” (187). [So instead of being reduced to a set of properties, it must instead be seen as inseparable from the expressivity which constitutes it. I wonder if the idea is like the following. Consider again the perspective ideas we dealt with before. We never see every spatial and temporal facet of the object. But we posit an Other which can. Yet that Other never appears to us directly, since we are spatially and temporally limited. But, that Other is given to us implicitly and indirectly, since any one phenomenon indirectly makes us aware of phenomena related to it and that phenomenally co-constitute it. The particular way that a carpet looks to us tells us also about the lighting and objects obstructing that light, even before we turn our gaze to these objects related to the appearance of the carpet. I am not sure why the face and the other are different in kind. Maybe it is because the face is givable but the world, or the Other, is not.] “As such, the Other presents an analogue for the process of individuation” (187). [I may not be following this. The analogy maybe is, just as the face is different in kind from the Other while yet being expressive of it, so too is the extensive explication of intensity different in kind from the intensity and Idea responsible for that explication, and yet the explication is expressive of that intensity.] “There is a key difference, however. Whereas the intensive is in principle inaccessible to representation, the world expressed in the face of the Other is understood by the psyche as only de facto inaccessible. It is merely the same world viewed from another perspective. Rather than providing an understanding of individuation, the Other allows representation to occlude the process of individuation, and thereby establish a world of pre-existing qualities and extensities” (187). [I have trouble here too. The idea might be the following. A true understanding of the process of individuation that generates the psychic system would need to be inaccessible to that system. This is because the system has at its disposal only representations. But the process of individuation cannot be represented. Now, the psychic system posits an Other as the source of its individuation, and that Other, as it should be, is not accessible to the psychic system. However, that inaccessibility is not because it is really fundamentally different in kind or is truly inaccessible. Rather, it is inaccessible only because the psychic system is perspectivally limited. Were it not limited, that Other would be accessible. Therefore, the Other is not truly inaccessible and hence is potentially representable and thus is not the basis for the process of individuation.]

It’s worth noting at this point that Deleuze is here talking about the Other as a structure within the psyche itself, rather than a particular individual, and in fact, Deleuze leaves space for the possibility of a genuine encounter with others (see DR 139/176 on the encounter with Socrates, for instance). Nonetheless, the role of the philosopher is still one of the renunciation of the ‘everybody knows’, and with it, the Other [the following up to citation is Deleuze quotation]: |

departing from the subjects which give effect to the Other-structure, we return as far as this structure in itself, thus apprehending the Other as No-one, then continue further, following the bend in sufficient reason until we reach those regions where the Other-structure no longer functions, far from the objects and subjects that it conditions, where singularities are free to be deployed or distributed within pure Ideas, and individuating factors to be distributed in pure intensity. In this sense, it is indeed true that the thinker is necessarily solitary and solipsistic. (DR 282/352)
(SH 187-188)

[It seems the idea in the quotation is the following. As with the face example, an actual Other as another person tells us about the Other as being the world seen as if from all perspectives (and is thus No-one). But our inquiries probe into the structures of the world, taking us to the intensive sub-representational level of intensive difference and Ideas. Since our thought takes us away from subjects (other people) and deep into the underlying structures of ourselves, our world, and its objects, when we are thinking in this way, we are solitary and solipsistic.]

 

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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