Peirce (CP1.314-1.316) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol1/Bk3/Ch2/A/§9, "The Communicability of Feelings", summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

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[The following is summary. Boldface and bracketed commentary are mine. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my typos.]

 

 

Summary of

 

Charles Sanders Peirce

 

Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce

 

Volume 1: Principles of Philosophy

 

Book 3: Phenomenology

 

Chapter 2: The Categories in Detail

 

A: Firstness

 

§9: The Communicability of Feelings [1.314-1.316]

 

 

Brief summary:

If your and my inner experiences of the same things were drastically dissimilar, we would not be able to communicate with each other intelligibly about them. However, they are in fact similar between humans. We can see this because two feelings from different sense modalities that are similar for us will be similar for others. For example, for most people the experience of hearing the blare of a trumpet will be similar to that of seeing the color scarlet. We can state to one another that these feelings from different senses are similar, so we can then know that our experiences of each feeling must be analogous. Furthermore, we can know that our sense experiences are analogous to those of other animals. For example, we can see from their behavior that one of their senses is analogous to one of ours with respect to the roles they play in each of our lives. For instance, a dog’s sense of smell is analogous to a human’s sense of sight with regard to the primary roles they play in information gathering. We also by interacting with animals and by observing their behavior can see that even though we seem to react differently to certain sensible things, we do seem to sense the same things and to have similar sensory experiences of them. Although science has not been able to demonstrate this, certain artistic sorts of minds have come to understand it, and they are correct. Lastly, the fact that this is an anthropomorphic view of the world around us (and especially of animals) is not a problem, because indeed in some fundamental sense the world is like the human mind. Science has shown for example that the world must be like human reason, on account of the fact that our human knowledge of the physical world has been so successful in predicting its behavior and instrumentalizing it for human use.

 

 

 

Summary

 

1.314

[Our feelings are communicable, because they are sufficiently common between us. We might not be able to get inside another person’s mind to know how they are experiencing something, but we can know our experiences are similar. For, other people will report similarities between experiences of different senses that hold for us as well, like how many people will report that the sensation of hearing a trumpet’s blare is similar to seeing the scarlet red. Even many animals sense the world in a similar way, even if they react differently, and so we can communicate feelings with animals sympathetically in our interactions with them.]

 

[Peirce addresses the issue of whether or not feelings are similar enough between individuals to be communcable. He thinks that in fact they are, on account of the communicability of analogies of different sorts. One sort is the analogy between different sensory modalities. We saw in the prior sections 1.312 and 1.313 the example of the blind man wondering if a trumpet’s blare is like the color scarlet. Peirce says that he also recognizes this analogy between the two feelings. So while we might not know what it is like to be in another person’s head while they hear a trumpet blaring or seeing the color red, we can know that for them the two are similar, which indicates that our experiences of each are also similar. Peirce then goes further to say that even the feelings animals have are similar enough to ours to be communicable. Here the matter of analogy is not between the different sense modalities of an individual. Rather, it is somewhat more vague and a matter of observing animal behavior. For one thing, we can see that a dog’s sense of smell gives it important information, while for us our vision plays more of that role of primary information gatherer. Thus the dog’s sense of smell is in that way analogous to our vision. And normally, by again observing the dog’s behavior, we can tell that it is smelling something that we can smell too. It might be very faint for us but very easy to detect for them. And the dog might be very interested in the smell while it might disgust us. But even with these differences being apparent, we can see that the human’s and the animal’s experiences are analogous in that both are having some sort of a smell experience of something. To try to elaborate Peirce’s notion further, suppose that there is a particular smell that always disgusts us and that always interests the dog, and suppose there is another smell – Peirce gives the example of a rose’s perfume – that interests us but that does not interest the dog. Perhaps these consistencies in correspondence indicate to us that our smelling experiences are analogous even though we react differently to the common smell we are sensing].

Philosophers, who very properly call all things into question, have asked whether we have any reason to suppose that red looks to one eye as it does to another. I answer that slight differences there may be, but [consider the blind man imagining] red to resemble the blare of a trumpet. He had collected that notion from hearing ordinary people converse together about colors, and since I was not born to be one of those whom he had heard converse, the fact that I can see a certain analogy, shows me not only that my feeling of redness is something like the feelings of the persons whom he had heard talk, but also his feeling of a trumpet’s blare was very much like mine. I am confident that a bull and I feel much alike at the sight of a red rag. As for the senses of my dog, I must confess that they seem very unlike my own, but when I reflect to how small a degree he thinks of visual images, and of how smells | play a part in his thoughts and imaginations analogous to the part played by sights in mine, I cease to be surprised that the perfume of roses or of orange flowers does not attract his attention at all and that the effluvia that interest him so much, when at all perceptible to me, are simply unpleasant. He does not think of smells as sources of pleasure and disgust but as sources of information, just as I do not think of blue as a nauseating color, nor of red as a maddening one. I know very well that my dog’s musical feelings are quite similar to mine though they agitate him more than they do me. He has the same emotions of affection as I, though they are far more moving in his case. You would never persuade me that my horse and I do not sympathize, or that the canary bird that takes such delight in joking with me does not feel with me and I with him; and this instinctive confidence of mine that it is so, is to my mind evidence that it really is so. My metaphysical friend who asks whether we can ever enter into one another’s feelings – and one particular sceptic whom I have in mind is a most exceptionally sympathetic person, whose doubts are born of her intense interest in her friends – might just as well ask me whether I am sure that red looked to me yesterday as it does today and that memory is not playing me false. I know experimentally that sensations do vary slightly even from hour to hour; but in the main the evidence is ample that they are common to all beings whose senses are sufficiently developed.

(Peirce 157-158)

 

 

1.315

[Science may not have been able to make this discovery yet, but artists have, and they are correct.]

 

[I am not sure of this next idea, but it seems to be that although what Peirce is saying might not be scientific, it is in fact an insight that goes beyond what science has been capable of finding.]

 

I hear you say: “All that is not fact; it is poetry.” Nonsense! Bad poetry is false, I grant; but nothing is truer than true poetry. And let me tell the scientific men that the artists are much finer and more accurate observers than they are, except of the special minutiae that the scientific man is looking for.

(159)

 

 

1.316

[Science has demonstrated that the world is somehow analogous to human reason, as our way of understanding it seems to be accurate. This is an anthropomorphic view. Peirce’s idea that animals experience the world like we do is likewise an anthropomorphic view and likewise should not be seen as a flaw.]

 

[I am not sure of the next idea, but it seems to be the following. Peirce addresses the criticism that he is making too much of an anthropomorphic claim. I am not sure why the communicability of the senses between humans would be problematic in that way, so I think this must be referring to the idea that we can conclude animals experience the world like we do. But I am not sure if he is also making some claim about the world itself, like how in the prior sections he was attributing a psychic element to the physical things in the world. At any rate, he defends his anthropomorphism in the following way. He notes that it already exists in the sciences. For, they assume that the world is of such a structure that it lends itself to human understanding and is thus in some sense analogous to human reason. And the success of the sciences in aiding human life seems to attest to the accuracy of this assumption. Peirce therefore thinks that his own anthropomorphism which sees animals (and maybe inert things) as experiencing the world similarly to how we do is therefore justified.]

I hear you say: “This smacks too much of an anthropomorphic conception.” I reply that every scientific explanation of a natural phenomenon is a hypothesis that there is something in nature to which the human reason is analogous; and that it really is so all the successes of science in its applications to human convenience are witnesses. They proclaim that truth over the length and breadth of the modern world. In the light of the successes of science to my mind there is a degree of baseness in denying our birthright as children of God and in | shamefacedly slinking away from anthropomorphic conceptions of the universe.

(158-159)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peirce, C.S. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol 1: Principles of Philosophy.  In Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce [Two Volumes in One], Vols. 1 and 2. Edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1965 [1931].

 

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Deleuze's Philosophy of Dance, I: Spinozistic Affection Waves and the Bodily Expression of Iggy Pop's Body without Organs

by Corry Shores
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Deleuze's Philosophy of Dance

Part I

Spinozistic Affection Waves

and the Bodily Expression of

Iggy Pop's Body without Organs

To my knowledge, Deleuze does not articulate his philosophical ideas regarding dance [but my knowledge is severely limited.] This entry is the first in a series about Deleuze's implicit philosophy of dance. My inspiration is dancer Richard Stadler. In another entry I will say more about him and his works. For now I invite him to contribute his expertise. I will outline some general observations about Deleuze's Spinozistic notion of expression. I regard it as a criteria for artistic expression. Then I discuss Spinoza's continuous variations of intensive affections. I will try to assimilate them to the "waves of intensity" that bring-about a Body without Organs (BwO). My hope is that Richard can help us answer the question: Does the BwO dance?

We begin with Spinoza. All of reality is expression.

What is doing that expression we may call God or substance. [This God is not the anthropomorphic God of religion. He is God as a rational idea. He is what is most perfect. Hence he is infinite and whole.] So God is essentially all of reality, and he expresses himself through an infinity of qualities. Consider first that things around us extend in space. So one way we can conceive of the fundamental substance is as something that extends. We call this attribute Extension. Also consider that we have ideas for the things around us. Perhaps there is a table sitting before us that extends from end-to-end. We also have an idea of that table. So another way that we may conceive God or substance is in terms of the world of ideas. We call this attribute Thought.

But, God is infinite. So there are infinitely more ways that we can conceive of God. He expresses himself in all these infinite attributes. But we only have access to two: Thought and Extension.

By means of a complex argument, we can know that there is this infinity of other properties to God. [For more, see this entry and this one.] But we do not know explicitly what they are. So when we for example see the table, we see God explicitly manifesting himself in the realm of Thought and Extension. But we also know that implicitly he expresses himself in all the other attributes that we cannot know explicitly. So in other words, there are two sides to expression. There is explicit expression and implicit expression. The implicit expression is no less there. We know that it is fully there. But it is just implied. When we later discuss the BwO, we will see that it is not fully expressive, because it does not express itself explicitly.

Everything in substance has more-or-less power to survive. And when bodies and objects make contact with each other, they can increase or decrease each other's power. Deleuze has us imagine we are sitting in the dark. Someone walks in and turns-on the lights. Consider these possibilities:

1) We were meditating in the dark. When the lights came on, our concentration was broken. This decreases our power. Or,

2) We were looking for our glasses in the dark. When the lights came on, we saw them. This increases our power.

In either case we were affected. What is important to note is that when we speak of affections, we are not talking about them as having different characters, as if we might say: this color affected me in a red way, and that rock affected me in a hard way. Rather, our affections are matters of degree. They are more-or-less, depending on how much they increase or decrease our power. We saw also that in the case of the light-switch, the change in power happened instantly. But Deleuze elsewhere describes such affections as happening through continuous variations. He says we never cease passing from one degree of power or perfection to another "however miniscule the difference, and this kind of melodic line of continuous variation will define affect (affectus)... [même minuscule, et c’est cette espèce de ligne mélodique de la variation continue qui va définir l’affect (affectus)...] ["Cours Vincennes: 24/01/1978"]

So how can these changes be both continuous and discrete? Consider when we swing a ball on a rope.

If we were to cut the string at any point, it would fly off at a right angle to the string. So it is always tending some different direction depending on its position. And the ball moves through an infinity of points. So there are an infinity of discrete different tendencies the ball passes through. Although the circle is a simple example, we may determine the tendency of the ball by finding the ratio of two numerical values that have diminished to the infinitely small [that is, by applying differential calculus.] Because these values are so diminished, they are nothing in comparison to the larger extensive values. They are inextensive values. However, the ratio of one value to another produces a finite value. [I suggest Leibniz' illuminating demonstration.] In this case it tells us the angle that the ball is tending.

We can consider then our affections as being curves or waves. They wave up or down, depending on whether they increase or decrease our power. But the question is not how high or how low the wave is. The question is, how strong is its tendency to change at any one instant? Do the changes in our power increase quickly at one time, slowly at others? In other words, are there variations in the rates of change? If these speed-changes happened in a predictable way, we would become adapted to them. Hence for the affection waves to have the most intensity, they must be unpredictable. We see then the role of chance.

Deleuze calls these tendencies instantaneous affections. They are like what physicists call instantaneous velocities.

The more these tendencies are changing unpredictably, the more deformed the motion will be.

So we are continually being affected. These affections increase or decrease our power. They increase or decrease at a certain rate. That rate itself can increase or decrease. The changes happen at different speeds. But those speeds change. Hence there are accelerations and decelerations. The more pronounced and unpredictable those speed changes, the more intense the affection. So one instant of affection is not more intense because it increases our power more. An instant of affection is intense if there is a large unpredictable change between its tendency or impulsion and the following instant's tendency or impulsion. In other words, the more deformation in the rates of change, the more intense the affection.

Now, we are interested in bodily expression. And I have selected Iggy Pop as my illustration. Here he explains how he developed the art of giving people intense affections.

In Deleuze's book on painter Francis Bacon, he writes about waves of intensity. Like Spinoza's affection waves, these waves are involved in the sensations we give each other, and their amplitude varies. So the intensity waves are greater or less in amplitude. But their amplitude does not determine their level of intensity. The waves are intense when their variations are irregular. While painting, Francis Bacon would deform his figure. We cannot recognize it, but we know it is something, and it is visually powerful. So it affects us profoundly, but we do not know exactly what we are looking at. It affects us to different degrees at different phases of our experiencing it, as our senses and minds struggle to agree on what we see. The irregular rhythm of affection disorganizes our bodies. Let's consider for example Bacon's Figure at a Washbasin, 1976 [click on image for enlargement].

Gaze at the body. As our eyes move around the deformed figure, perhaps our stomachs turn with dizziness at faster or slower speeds depending on where we look and how fast our eyes move. So already we have one affection wave that we feel. The irregularities in the speed are already a source of intensity. The speed of affection is one thing. But the variations in speed are internal differences. The wave's speed differs from itself as we look about the white man. So the more pronounced and unpredictable these internal differences are, the more intensity. Thus intensity is a matter of difference, and differences in difference. Or we could say variations in variation, or changes of change. The way that the man affects us changes. But that changing changes, just as a car accelerates and decelerates. The distances we travel change with the speed. So speed is one level of change. But we accelerate and decelerate. That changes the first level of change (speed). So that means not only do our distances-traveled change (with the speed), also, these changes themselves change (with accelerations and decelerations).

We might consider now more of Iggy Pop's bodily expressions. Clearly deformations of movement are involved. But that is a superficial observation. What we are looking-for are changes in the speeds of the affection-waves that he sends us.

Speaking for myself, the irregularities in the speed of affection were evident. And Pop communicated bodily intensity to me. It could be that it is on account of irregular speed changes.

Bacon painted. Pop moved. One is a permanent image. The other is motion changing over time. One important common feature is the spasm. Deleuze writes that such bodies exert themselves with a very intense effort. It is as if the body wants to escape itself through some specific orifice that breaks-open on its surface. These intense spasmodic bodies are affected at such irregular patterns that they no longer work organically as they normally would. The organs that had a specific role fall into chaotic functioning with the other organs. But what defines an organ is its functioning. So when the functioning becomes radically irregular and disjointed, then the body technically loses its organic parts. It becomes a Body without Organs. But like we said, the body tries to escape itself spasmodically. And it does so by escaping through an organ that erupts at the surface. The location for this new organ depends on waves of disorganization flowing through the body, and where they happen to find an escape. More concretely, this could be the mouth. When we vomit, our mouth becomes an anus, so to speak. If the forces of the body find their exit in the mouth, than the temporary organ for spasmodic escape will form there.

We will observe the following things in this next clip. We see firstly the rip in Pop's chest, as though his body were bursting-out from the inside. Also we will notice the speed changes. At the end is something interesting. We see how Pop places the microphone-wire in his mouth. Clearly this organ's functioning has been made irregular.

I draw our attention also to the spasmodic speed changes that Pop exhibits here at the song's close.

For these reason, we might find Iggy Pop to exhibit traits of a Body without Organs.

Deleuze also writes that BwOs can exchange their intensive waves with each other. This brings about a "conjunction of flows" that is a "continuum of intensities." So the BwO is always in a collectivity. It is in a totality of BwOs who exchange their intensive waves. [For citations and further explanations, see this entry on the BwO.] Notice in the following clip how Pop seems to merge his bodily intensities into the crowd. To my ears he seems to be telling the woman to kiss his blood. Apparently a hole has ruptured in his skin. We might stretch our imagination to see this as illustrating the exchange of intensities between BwOs.

But unlike Iggy Pop the rock singer, a true BwO is not able to communicate using language. They would speak only sounds and gibberish. [For more on the BwO's schizophrenic speech, see this entry.] And even if we only looked at Pop's body, we would see that he is not "saying" anything explicit to us. This is not expression. For, expression requires both implicit intensities and explicit extensities, as we learned from Spinoza. So I will address some questions for Richard's expertise:

1) Is Pop dancing? Are there other "deformative" performers like him?

2) In dance, is there something being "said"? We compare dance as we know it with random spasmodic motions which are exhibitions of implicit internal intensities. It would seem that one could for example tell a story, or express some recognizable emotion using dance. Or perhaps even a dancer could communicate concepts.

Knowing these things will take us to the next step in analyzing Deleuze's philosophy of dance.

On Blood and Lymph: Spinoza's Letter 32, summary

by Corry Shores
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[The following summarizes the first part of the letter. After which, I include the text of the letter in full.]

Spinoza responds to Oldenburg's inquiry into his "grounds of our belief that each part of Nature accords with the whole and coheres with other parts" (192b).

Spinoza responds that he is incapable of knowing exactly how it is so, for that requires knowing "the whole of Nature and all its parts." However, he will account for why he holds this belief.

By coherence of parts, Spinoza means "that the laws or nature of one part adapts itself to the laws or nature of another part in such wise that there is the least possible opposition between them" (192d). He considers

things as parts of a whole to the extent that their natures adapt themselves to one another so that they are in the closest possible agreement. In so far as they are different from one another, to that extent each one forms in our mind a separate idea and is therefore considered as a whole, not a part. (192-193)

Spinoza offers for an example "the motions of particles of lymph, chyle, etc." They

adapt themselves to one another in accordance with size and shape so as to be fully in agreement with one another and to form all together one single fluid, to that extent only are the chyle, lymph, etc. regarded as parts of the blood. But in so far as we conceive the particles of lymph as different from the particles of chyle in respect of shape and motion, to that extent we regard them each as a whole, not a part. (193a)

Spinoza then has us imagine a tiny worm swimming in our blood, which is a) capable of distinguishing the blood particles (chyle, lymph, etc.) and b) able to observe how "each particle, on colliding with another, either rebounds or communicates some degree of its motion, and so forth" (193b). This worm exists in our blood just as we do in "our part of the universe:" it regards each part of the blood as a whole rather than as a part, and it could not possibly know how the blood's overall nature controls its parts and compels them to mutually adapt to each other "as the overall nature of the blood requires, so as to agree with one another in a definite way." (193bc)

If no external force "communicates new motions to the blood," then the blood would remain as it is and "its particles would undergo no changes other than those which can be conceived as resulting from the existing relation between the motion of the blood and of the lymph, chyle, etc. Thus the blood would always have to be regarded as a whole, and not a part." (193c)

However, there are in fact numerous causes that modify the blood so that the it undergoes motions and changes not caused by its inherent parts. These new motions result "not solely from the reciprocal relation of its particles but from the relation between the motion of the blood on the one hand and external causes on the other. From this perspective the blood is accounted as a part, not as a whole" (194a).

We should consider all the bodies of Nature this way, "for all bodies are surrounded by others and are reciprocally determined to exist and to act in a fixed and determinate way, the same ratio of motion to rest being preserved in them taken all together, that is, in the universe as a whole" (194a.b).

Thus all modified bodies "must be considered as a part of the whole universe, and as agreeing with the whole and cohering with the other parts" (194b).

But unlike blood, the universe is not limited; it is absolutely infinite, so its infinite potency controls its parts in infinite ways, thereby compelling them to undergo infinite variations. Yet, we must conceive each part as intimately bound up with the whole of substance. (194c)

So the human body is a part of Nature, so too the human mind, because Nature bears an infinite power of thinking that contains "the whole of Nature ideally, and whose thoughts proceed in the same manner as does Nature, which is in fact the object of its thought" (194-195).

The human mind has this same power of thinking: it does not understand the whole of nature, because the human mind is finite, so it apprehends the human body only. But the human body is a part of infinite substance, so the human mind is part of "an infinite intellect." (195b)

The letter's text:

LETTER XV. (XXXII.)

SPINOZA TO OLDENBURG.

[Spinoza writes to his friend concerning the reasons which lead us to believe, that "every part of nature agrees with the whole, and is associated with all other parts." He also makes a few remarks about Huyghens.]

Distinguished Sir,—For the encouragement to pursue my speculations given me by yourself and the distinguished R. Boyle, I return you my best thanks. I proceed as far as my slender abilities will allow me, with full confidence in your aid and kindness. When you ask me my opinion on the question raised concerning our knowledge of the means, whereby each part of nature agrees with its whole, and the manner in which it is associated with the remaining parts, I presume you are asking for the reasons which induce us to believe, that each part of nature agrees with its whole, and is associated with the remaining parts. For as to the means whereby the parts are really associated, and each part agrees with its whole, I told you in my former letter that I am in ignorance. To answer such a question, we should have to know the whole of nature and its several parts. I will therefore endeavour to show the reason, which led me to make the statement; but I will premise that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or deformed, ordered or confused.

By the association of parts, then, I merely mean that the laws or nature of one part adapt themselves to the laws or nature of another part, so as to cause the least possible inconsistency. As to the whole and the parts, I mean that a given number of things are parts of a whole, in so far as the nature of each of them is adapted to the nature of the rest, so that they all, as far as possible, agree together. On the other hand, in so far as they do not agree, each of them forms, in our mind, a separate idea, and is to that

p. 291

extent considered as a whole, not as a part. For instance, when the parts of lymph, chyle, &c., combine, according to the proportion of the figure and size of each, so as to evidently unite, and form one fluid, the chyle, lymph, &c., considered under this aspect, are part of the blood; but, in so far as we consider the particles of lymph as differing in figure and size from the particles of chyle, we shall consider each of the two as a whole, not as a part.

Let us imagine, with your permission, a little worm, living in the blood, able to distinguish by sight the particles of blood, lymph, &c., and to reflect on the manner in which each particle, on meeting with another particle, either is repulsed, or communicates a portion of its own motion. This little worm would live in the blood, in the same way as we live in a part of the universe, and would consider each particle of blood, not as a part, but as a whole. He would be unable to determine, how all the parts are modified by the general nature of blood, and are compelled by it to adapt themselves, so as to stand in a fixed relation to one another. For, if we imagine that there are no causes external to the blood, which could communicate fresh movements to it, nor any space beyond the blood, nor any bodies whereto the particles of blood could communicate their motion, it is certain that the blood would always remain in the same state, and its particles would undergo no modifications, save those which may be conceived as arising from the relations of motion existing between the lymph, the chyle, &c. The blood would then always have to be considered as a whole, not as a part. But, as there exist, as a matter of fact, very many causes which modify, in a given manner, the nature of the blood, and are, in turn, modified thereby, it follows that other motions and other relations arise in the blood, springing not from the mutual relations of its parts only, but from the mutual relations between the blood as a whole and external causes. Thus the blood comes to be regarded as a part, not as a whole. So much for the whole and the part.

All natural bodies can and ought to be considered in the same way as we have here considered the blood, for all bodies are surrounded by others, and are mutually determined to exist and operate in a fixed and definite proportion,

p. 292

while the relations between motion and rest in the sum total of them, that is, in the whole universe, remain unchanged. Hence it follows that each body, in so far as it exists as modified in a particular manner, must be considered as a part of the whole universe, as agreeing with the whole, and associated with the remaining parts. As the nature of the universe is not limited, like the nature of blood, but is absolutely infinite, its parts are by this nature of infinite power infinitely modified, and compelled to undergo infinite variations. But, in respect to substance, I conceive that each part has a more close union with its whole. For, as I said in my first letter 1 (addressed to you while I was still at Rhijnsburg), substance being infinite in its nature, 2 it follows, as I endeavoured to show, that each part belongs to the nature of substance, and, without it, can neither be nor be conceived.

You see, therefore, how and why I think that the human body is a part of nature. As regards the human mind, I believe that it also is a part of nature; for I maintain that there exists in nature an infinite power of thinking, which, in so far as it is infinite, contains subjectively the whole of nature, and its thoughts proceed in the same manner as nature—that is, in the sphere of ideas. 3 Further, I take the human mind to be identical with this said power, not in so far as it is infinite, and perceives the whole of nature, but in so far as it is finite, and perceives only the human body; in this manner, I maintain that the human mind is a part of an infinite understanding.

variations. But, in respect to substance, I conceive that each part has a more close union with its whole. For, as I said in my first letter 1 (addressed to you while I was still at Rhijnsburg), substance being infinite in its nature, 2 it follows, as I endeavoured to show, that each part belongs to the nature of substance, and, without it, can neither be nor be conceived.

You see, therefore, how and why I think that the human body is a part of nature. As regards the human mind, I believe that it also is a part of nature; for I maintain that there exists in nature an infinite power of thinking, which, in so far as it is infinite, contains subjectively the whole of nature, and its thoughts proceed in the same manner as nature—that is, in the sphere of ideas. 3 Further, I take the human mind to be identical with this said power, not in so far as it is infinite, and perceives the whole of nature, but in so far as it is finite, and perceives only the human body; in this manner, I maintain that the human mind is a part of an infinite understanding.

But to explain, and accurately prove, all these and kindred questions, would take too long; and I do not think you expect as much of me at present. I am afraid that I may have mistaken your meaning, and given an answer to a different question from that which you asked. Please inform me on this point.

p. 293

You write in your last letter, that I hinted that nearly all the Cartesian laws of motion are false. What I said was, if I remember rightly, that Huyghens thinks so; I myself do not impeach any of the laws except the sixth, concerning which I think Huyghens is also in error. I asked you at the same time to communicate to me the experiment made according to that hypothesis in your Royal Society; as you have not replied, I infer that you are not at liberty to do so. The above-mentioned Huyghens is entirely occupied in polishing lenses. He has fitted up for the purpose a handsome workshop, in which he can also construct moulds. What will be the result I know not, nor, to speak the truth, do I greatly care. Experience has sufficiently taught me, that the free hand is better and more sure than any machine for polishing spherical moulds. I can tell you nothing certain as yet about the success of the clocks or the date of Huyghens' journey to France.

---

Footnotes

292:1 Letter II.

292:2 Ethics, I. viii.

292:3 I have given what seems to be the meaning of this passage. The text is very obscure: "Nempe quia statuo dare etiam in natura potentiam infinitam cogitandi, quæ, quatenus infinita, in se continet totam naturam objective et cujus cogitationes procedunt ac natura ejus, nimirum idearum." M. Saisset in his French translation says here, "In this place I rather interpret than translate Spinoza, as his thought does not seem to me completely expressed."—[Tr.]

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Summary based on:

Spinoza. The Letters. Transl Samuel Shirley. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1995.

Text reproduction from R. H. M. Elwes translation, available online at:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/phi/spinoza/corr/corr12.htm

Deleuze’s Uncommon Interpretation of Kant’s ‘Common Sense’

by Corry Shores
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When discussing Kant’s notion of common sense, Deleuze adds an unconventional meaning, the common exercise of the faculties, which might at first seem unfounded in Kant’s text. The following will explore the paragraphs in the Critique of Judgment which provide for Deleuze’s interesting construal of Kant’s common sense.

In §20, Kant distinguishes common sense from common understanding. Judgments of taste may be made according to either a subjective or objective determination. In subjective judgments of sensory taste, one still presumes that this judgment holds universally, but does not come to that conclusion by means of concepts. To presume that one’s judgments of sensory taste hold universally for all people requires the principle of common sense, which means that one holds that all people subjectively sense something in such a similar manner as to come to the same judgment about it. In contrast, when one makes a judgment of taste by means of concepts that leads one to believe that the judgment holds universally and necessarily, then the judgment was made according to a principle of common understanding (122b).

We can know that a judgment or mental state is common sense (shared universally) when it is communicable, which occurs even in cases of sensuous comprehensions. Objects are given to us sensuously in pieces, in a series of apprehensions, and the imagination synthesizes this manifold and unifies it with a concept in the understanding. This harmonious exercise of the faculties has a pleasant feeling that although subjective is universally communicable, because the same object activating the same faculties in all people should produce the same feeling, and this is Kant’s common sense (§21 122-123).

So because the common sense that is universal among all people is grounded individually in everyone’s harmonious facultative exercises, Deleuze connects these two sorts of common sense under the same term, and writes “Our supposition of a ‘communicability of feeling’ (without intervention of a concept) is therefore based on the idea of a subjective accord of the faculties, in so far as this accord itself forms a common sense (CJ paras 39,40)” (Deleuze 49).

Deleuze, Gilles. Kant’s Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties. Transl. Hugh Tomlinson & Barbara Habberjam. London: The Athlone Press, 1984.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Transls. & Eds. Paul Guyer & Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000

Kant’s Beauty of Color, Sound, and Form

by Corry Shores
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Normally a sensuous experience of color or sound cannot be considered beautiful, because only universally communicable non-subjective judgments may deem something as beautiful. However, they can be judged beautiful if they are considered pure: colors and sounds are vibrations or pulses whose effect is not merely their immediate impression on our eyes and ears, but as well results from our synthesizing the play of impressions into a representation of the sound or color. Because such a representation can be universally communicated, sounds and colors in this pure form may be deemed beautiful (§14 108-109).

Because in order for these representations to be pure there cannot be any disturbances or interruptions of other sensations: “all simple colors, insofar as they are pure, are held then beautiful; those that are mixed do not have this advantage” (109c).

But what is essential in all the arts is ‘drawing,’ which provides form. “All form of the objects of the senses (of the outer as well as, mediately, the inner) is either shape or play: in the latter case, either play of shapes (in space, mime, and dance), or mere play of sensations (in time).” Even though the charm of colors may be added, it remains the drawing or form that is essential in judging something as beautiful (110b).

(page numbers from: Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Transls. & Eds. Paul Guyer & Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.)

Communicating Kant’s Free Play

by Corry Shores
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“Taste is the faculty for judging an object or a kind of representation through a satisfaction or dissatisfaction without any interest. The object of such a satisfaction is called beautiful” (Critique of the Power of Judgment §5).

When an object or a representation gives us pleasure, our faculty of taste judges it as beautiful. This satisfaction derived from the beautiful cannot be one that bears personal interest in the object, because when one deems something beautiful, one presumes that the object is satisfying – and hence beautiful – for everyone (§6). Thus someone would not say, “‘This object. . .is beautiful for me.’ For he must not call it beautiful if it pleases merely him” (§7). We consider the beauty-judgment of an object to have universal validity, because we believe that no one else would think otherwise (§8).

But Kant wonders if first we feel the pleasure, then afterwards we judge the object as beautiful; or if instead, first we make the judgment before feeling the pleasure.

According to Kant, it could not be that the pleasure precedes the judgment of beauty. This judgment presupposes that it holds for all people, and thus we may communicate to others the shared satisfaction we would all have when apprehending the object. But if first we have just pleasure, then that is only valid for ourselves, and hence we would not initially have grounds to infer that the pleasure would be held by everyone else.

“Thus it is the universal capacity for the communication of the state of mind in the given representation which, as the subjective condition of the judgment of taste, must serve as its ground and have the pleasure in the object as a consequence” (§9).

Hence, although we might find the object agreeable because it pleases us subjectively, that is, aesthetically, we do not then follow-up this pleasure by judging that it holds for everyone else. Rather, an object we deem beautiful strikes us firstly as being universally pleasant, with ourselves naturally among those who would find it so. Yet,

“Nothing, however, can be universally communicated except cognition and representation so far as it belongs to cognition” (§9).

This is because only cognition is objective, while our feelings of pleasure are subjective.

So to say that something is beautiful is to say that the object would please anybody. But this pleasantness refers not to the object but to the subjective experience of cognizing the object. So when we consider such a judgment, our faculties are not at that moment encountering the beautiful pleasant object: there is no sensation, merely cognition. Thus:

“The powers of cognition that are set into play by this representation are hereby in a free play, since no determinate concept restricts them to a particular rule of cognition” (§9).

If we say, “roses are beautiful,” we are not thereby having some rose as a determinate and immediate representation. Instead, our powers of representation are free to play-around in cognizing the terms of the judgment. (“Thus the state of mind in this representation must be that of a feeling of the free play of the powers of representation in a given representation for a cognition in general” (§9).) Kant continues:

“Now there belongs to a representation by which an object is given, in order for there to be cognition of it in general, imagination for the composition of the manifold of intuition, and understanding for the unity of the concept that unifies the representations” (§9).

We apprehend things in parts, in a manifold. Imagination links the parts together into a unity that will match with a single concept in the understanding.

“This state of a free play of the faculties of cognition with a representation through which an object is given must be able to be universally communicated, because cognition, as a determination of the object with which given representations (in whatever subject it may be) should agree, is the only kind of representation that is valid for everyone.”

So this free play of the imagination to bring together intuitions for the sake of conceptualizing the judgment of the beautiful object must be communicable to everyone else, because for the judgment to be universally valid, the same cognitive process must be possible for anyone else.

This free play which brings about the representation of the object which is judged universally pleasing is the grounds to derive pleasure from that representation, because communicating our states of mind “carries a pleasure with it,” a fact that is demonstrated by “the natural tendency of human beings to sociability” (§9).

But, we may only subjectively relate the judgment of something’s beauty to the experience of its beauty, “thus that subjective unity of the relation can make itself known only through sensation” (§9). The faculties of imagination and cognition must be in “unison” with the whole cogitation that considers the beautiful object, and this harmony between the faculties of cognition and the whole process of cognition produces the sensation of pleasure. So when we know that our ability to consider a beautiful object, which is performed by faculties all human share universally, and the process of considering that object are together harmonious, then we know that this process would be harmonious for everyone else (because the object is not considered subjectively and the faculties are shared universally), and thus we know that anyone else who considers this object would likewise feel the pleasure of the “well-proportioned disposition” of facultative harmony (§9).

For Deleuze, communication happens not when an experience of an object is universally valid, because communication requires difference. When we see a Francis Bacon painting, our faculties are unable to synthesize it into a representation, hence there is no universality to either the object or to the experience of it. However, the creation of this artwork required an internal and external collision of order and chaos, and it produces in the viewer such a collision when sensing it, because the viewer both tries to organize her impressions while also being unable to. Communication can only happen when there is irreducible difference and heterogeneity mixed with our universally held tendencies to homogeneously organize something that suggests order.