Terence Blake’s ‘WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? (2): the time of the question’

 

by Corry Shores

 

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Terence Blake

 

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? (2): the time of the question

 

In this post Blake discusses passages at the beginning of Deleuze & Guattari’s What is Philosophy? I found the part on the notions of midnight and being between states to be particularly interesting:

“It’s a question that one poses in a discreet agitation, at midnight, when one no longer has anything to ask for”.

At midnight, at the witching hour, when transformations are possible, when becomings are unleashed, the question can be posed as a means of transforming oneself even further. One page later Deleuze and Guattari will refer to this moment as the hour “entre chien et loup”, literally between dog and wolf, and translated as “twilight” (2, English translation) This is perfectly correct, but it obscures the relation to “midnight” on page 1. The exact time of day in the chronological sense is not the issue, but it is a matter of the moment where we find ourselves in the middle of things (mid-night), between states. For example, between the domesticated state of the dog, and the wild state of the wolf.

(Terence Blake)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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