Breeur (1.6) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.1.6, “The Involuntary Imposter”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

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[The following is a paragraph by paragraph summary of Breeur’s text. Boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my mistakes. The book can be purchased here.]

 

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Roland Breeur

[Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page]

 

Lies – Imposture – Stupidity

 

Part 1

Lies and Stupidity

 

Ch.1

The Last Judgment

 

1.6

“The Involuntary Imposter”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(1.6.1) “the lie is structurally based on the ambiguity inherent in facts” (see section 1.2. The ambiguity: on the one hand, facts are things that have happened or are happening, thus they are necessary. But we also believe we can change them, and we use our imagination and freedom to dream up and act upon alternatives. Given that facts can be made alternate by means of the imagination,)  “A liar exploits this duplicity by playing with the distinction between truth and fiction” (26). (As we saw in section 1.5,) by means of the liar’s “practice, the distinction between dissimulation and simulation becomes blurred and the imagination is set adrift; it is no longer fed by anything and circles around a void” (26). Breeur now will examine how “this duplicitous exploitation of facts can inadvertently turn someone into an imposter,” along with addressing other related topics (26). (1.6.2) Normally the destruction that occurs to oneself through lying happens, we think, as a result of their duplicitous intentions. But sometimes a person can inadvertently be turned into a swindler or imposter on account of facts developing in ways they did not foresee. (One way we see this is if political circumstances shift to change our perceptions of authorities:) “Today’s leaders are the traitors to tomorrow’s authorities” (26). Breeur will now illustrate a non-political sort of revolution like this using a gekigas (manga comic) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. (1.6.3) Tatsumi’s story is about a photographer documenting the aftermath of the bomb in Hiroshima. He encounters an imprint of human figures on a wall. It appears it is the image of a son massaging his mother’s back just as the bomb takes them both.

The photographer takes a picture of this image, and it becomes famous, symbolizing devotion, love, and peace despite the savagery of the bomb. It was even rendered into a statue, and the photographer traveled with it around the world in the “Never Again” campaign to promote peace. (1.6.4) But as it turns out, the mother’s real son is still alive. In fact, “the boy printed on the wall was his friend, whom he had asked to kill his mother. Without knowing it, the reporter had turned a murder into a symbol of devotion and love” (27). With that now being known, the photographer becomes an imposter: “His photo, the content of which grow out into a symbol for all the orphans of the atomic bomb, is ‘false’ – not in the sense of being Photoshopped or being a ‘deep fake’ but in the sense that it has led to a misinterpretation of the facts in many parts of the world”. (This news is given even before a public appearance with the statue, so the photographer knowingly presents himself to the public falsely.) Thus now the photographer has become a person who has deceived the world, and the criminal son even tries blackmailing the photographer, threatening to expose him as a fraud. (1.6.5) Thus facts, although seemingly secure things for us to ground our claims upon, in fact can “take paths ‘behind our backs’ ” that deceive or derail our good intentions” (27). Yet,  “it is precisely this ambiguity that gives meaning to facts and the truth” (perhaps because this ambiguity is what allows a fact to be either good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, on our side or against us.) This also means that “The boundary between what is true and what is not is therefore constantly shifting” (27). We try work with the changing nature of facts so that we always stay true to them, despite their unpredictable changes, and often they change values faster than we can keep up with them, “a bit like a doctor who finds a cure for his patient who has just died” (27). (1.6.6) With new media, we have lost even the idea of dissimulation. There are two ways this can be exploited: “By openly lying or by blowing up any distinction between the true and the false” (28). Putin, for instance, openly lies, which he does “in order to embarrass and openly challenge those for whom truth still has or is some value” (28). He will lie not to get power but to demonstrate his power by showing he can state an obvious falsehood and no one can stop him from acting on that untruth: “When he told the West that there were no Russians in the Ukraine, he did not want to convince us. Above all, he wanted to claim that he had the power to humiliate the Western democracies and their media” (28). His aim was also to undermined the public’s “confidence in the value of truth and sincerity” (perhaps by showing that falsehood and insincerity are signs of greatest power) (28). “Most of all, he made us feel that our truths did not have the power possessed by his lies” (28). (1.6.7)This is double-thinking, the practice of holding two contradictory beliefs in mind while accepting them both at the same time. “When double-thinking, you claim two  at the same time with the same aplomb. In other words, you don’t even bother to dissimulate one for the benefit of the other.” We see this with Orwellian Doublespeak: “Like the slogans that appear in the novel on the front of the Ministry of Truth: ‘War is peace,’ ‘freedom is slavery,’ ‘ignorance is power.’ This paralyzing juxtaposition is the biotope of so-called ‘alternative facts’” (29). (1.6.8) This juxtaposition of opposing statements, when both are stated as true, is paralyzing. In the past, the ambiguous link that the untrue kept with the true was played upon either for cheating without lying (the Jesuits) or to “condemned any form of deception as an expression of mendacity” (Jansenists) (29). Yet, truth seems no longer relevant these days. But with this all being so, we might wonder, how would it be possible for fraudsters to persuade and deceive (if truth is no longer at issue)? Breeur says that in fact, they do not even do so, because there is no longer the need to hide something true. (So when a claim and its challenge are both equally given, there is no deceit; there is only confusion or disregard about the truth.) “How can potential fraudsters still persuade and deceive? The answer is simple: They don’t! The ability to | convince someone of something false presupposes the ability to conceal something true. But now there is nothing to hide, because the true and the false are equally explicitly and simultaneously posited or ‘posted.’ So there is nothing that can call into question the interpretation of a fact, because that question itself is already circulating along with the fact itself” (29). (1.6.9) Today, we feel “deceived and cheated – by car makers, politicians, the media, etc.” But we no longer feel like in these cases the truth is being concealed from us. Rather, every version/interpretation of the facts is floating out there. (We just are losing the means to discern which one to trust). “You’ll find an explanation for everything everywhere and a version of a fact that refutes its official interpretation” (30). This is something obscene for us.

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

1.6.1

[Turning to the Imposter]

 

1.6.2

[Intentional and Unintentional Imposture]

 

1.6.3

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 1: Taking the Photo]

 

1.6.4

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 2: The Real Truth behind the Image (Involuntary Imposture)]

 

1.6.5

[The Shifting Valencies of Facts and Truth]

 

1.6.6

[New Media and Lying: Putin and Lying as Demonstrations of Power]

 

1.6.7

[Double-Thinking and Double-Speaking]

 

1.6.8

[Loss of Truth and Deception]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

1.6.1

[Turning to the Imposter]

 

[“the lie is structurally based on the ambiguity inherent in facts” (see section 1.2. The ambiguity: on the one hand, facts are things that have happened or are happening, thus they are necessary. But we also believe we can change them, and we use our imagination and freedom to dream up and act upon alternatives. Given that facts can be made alternate by means of the imagination,)  “A liar exploits this duplicity by playing with the distinction between truth and fiction” (26). (As we saw in section 1.5,) by means of the liar’s “practice, the distinction between dissimulation and simulation becomes blurred and the imagination is set adrift; it is no longer fed by anything and circles around a void” (26). Breeur now will examine how “this duplicitous exploitation of facts can inadvertently turn someone into an imposter,” along with addressing other related topics (26).]

 

[ditto]

Until now, I have tried to show how the lie is structurally based on the ambiguity inherent in facts. A liar exploits this duplicity by playing with the distinction between truth and fiction. But this is playing with fire. In his or her practice, the distinction between dissimulation and simulation becomes blurred and the imagination is set adrift; it is no longer fed by anything and circles around a void. In what follows, I would like to examine to what extent this duplicitous exploitation of facts can inadvertently turn someone into an imposter. The urge to control the ambiguity probably explains our love of the truth. Claiming that truth has a sense or meaning is therefore only one possible way of supervising the limit between the true and the false and of controlling or, if necessary, manipulating possible shifts. I will conclude this chapter with a suggestion for our situation today. Through new developments in the (“social”) media, the “man in action’’ has found a better way to deal with the distinction between the true and the false: Just blow it up.

(26)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.2

[Intentional and Unintentional Imposture]

 

[Normally the destruction that occurs to oneself through lying happens, we think, as a result of their duplicitous intentions. But sometimes a person can inadvertently be turned into a swindler or imposter on account of facts developing in ways they did not foresee. (One way we see this is if political circumstances shift to change our perceptions of authorities:) “Today’s leaders are the traitors to tomorrow’s authorities” (26). Breeur will now illustrate a non-political sort of revolution like this using a gekigas (manga comic) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.]

 

[ditto]

The previous discussion of the liar’s fate, namely the situation where someone is overtaken by his or her own lies and simulations and loses all contact with and feel for the facts, was based on the assumption that the liar’s intention is at the origin of the duplicity: He or she has exploited the ambiguity inherent to facts and fell under the spell of the pure possibilities at the expense of the truth. But facts can of themselves, through internal reorganizations, impose new possibilities and destroy existing interpretations. Situations are often so complex and intricate because of public or historical circumstances that, despite any and all good intentions, someone can still end up in a position that turns him into a swindler or an impostor. Political revolutions illustrate this fact. Today’s leaders are the traitors to tomorrow’s authorities. However, a good example of such a revolution in a not exclusively political sense can be found in the following example from a collection of gekigas (a gekiga is a comic strip for adults, a.k.a. a “manga”) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

(26)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.3

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 1: Taking the Photo]

 

[Tatsumi’s story is about a photographer documenting the aftermath of the bomb in Hiroshima. He encounters an imprint of human figures on a wall. It appears it is the image of a son massaging his mother’s back just as the bomb takes them both.

The photographer takes a picture of this image, and it becomes famous, symbolizing devotion, love, and peace despite the savagery of the bomb. It was even rendered into a statue, and the photographer traveled with it around the world in the “Never Again” campaign to promote peace.]

 

[ditto]

During World War II, just after the explosion of the atomic bomb, a certain Sato, at that time working for the Japanese Ministry of War, was sent by his superiors to Hiroshima. He was supposed to record the damage caused by the bomb dropped on August 6, 1945. Completely upset and armed with his camera, he made his way through the rubble and painfully crossed what was left of the city. In the middle of all the debris, he discovered two shadows printed by the flash of the bomb on the wall of a house. At the very moment that the bomb exploded, a son apparently kindheartedly and graciously was massaging his mother’s shoulders. The photograph that the reporter was able to take of this scene will become famous: A symbol of devotion, love, and peace. A statue will even be produced that will travel around the world to contribute to the “Never Again’’ campaign.

(27)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.4

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 2: The Real Truth behind the Image (Involuntary Imposture)]

 

[But as it turns out, the mother’s real son is still alive. In fact, “the boy printed on the wall was his friend, whom he had asked to kill his mother. Without knowing it, the reporter had turned a murder into a symbol of devotion and love” (27). With that now being known, the photographer becomes an imposter: “His photo, the content of which grow out into a symbol for all the orphans of the atomic bomb, is ‘false’ – not in the sense of being Photoshopped or being a ‘deep fake’ but in the sense that it has led to a misinterpretation of the facts in many parts of the world”. (This news is given even before a public appearance with the statue, so the photographer knowingly presents himself to the public falsely.) Thus now the photographer has become a person who has deceived the world, and the criminal son even tries blackmailing the photographer, threatening to expose him as a fraud.]

 

[ditto]

But the story – like all the stories in Tatsumi’s book – gets darker. The next day, the grey wall section seems to have been destroyed. The real son is still alive. As it happened, the boy printed on the wall was his friend, whom he had asked to kill his mother. Without knowing it, the reporter had turned a murder into a symbol of devotion and love. Moreover, since the confession made to him by this unworthy son, he himself has been transformed into an imposter: His photo, the content of which grow out into a symbol for all the orphans of the atomic bomb, is “false” – not in the sense of being Photoshopped or being a “deep fake” but in the sense that it has led to a misinterpretation of the facts in many parts of the world. Of the true meaning of this scene projected on the wall, there is only one witness left, the son. And he’s trying to blackmail (and intimidate) the celebrated reporter.

(27)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.5

[The Shifting Valencies of Facts and Truth]

 

[Thus facts, although seemingly secure things for us to ground our claims upon, in fact can “take paths ‘behind our backs’ ” that deceive or derail our good intentions” (27). Yet,  “it is precisely this ambiguity that gives meaning to facts and the truth” (perhaps because this ambiguity is what allows a fact to be either good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, on our side or against us.) This also means that “The boundary between what is true and what is not is therefore constantly shifting” (27). We try work with the changing nature of facts so that we always stay true to them, despite their unpredictable changes, and often they change values faster than we can keep up with them, “a bit like a doctor who finds a cure for his patient who has just died” (27).]

 

[ditto]

What is specific about “facts” is that they can take paths “behind our backs” that deceive or derail our good intentions. But at the same time, it is precisely this ambiguity that gives meaning to facts and the truth. The boundary between what is true and what is not is therefore constantly shifting. Hence our frantic efforts to get this shift under control. We then claim | the truth, often with a lot of fuss, but it is too late – a bit like a doctor who finds a cure for his patient who has just died.

(27-28)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.6

[New Media and Lying: Putin and Lying as Demonstrations of Power]

 

[With new media, we have lost even the idea of dissimulation. There are two ways this can be exploited: “By openly lying or by blowing up any distinction between the true and the false” (28). Putin, for instance, openly lies, which he does “in order to embarrass and openly challenge those for whom truth still has or is some value” (28). He will lie not to get power but to demonstrate his power by showing he can state an obvious falsehood and no one can stop him from acting on that untruth: “When he told the West that there were no Russians in the Ukraine, he did not want to convince us. Above all, he wanted to claim that he had the power to humiliate the Western democracies and their media” (28). His aim was also to undermined the public’s “confidence in the value of truth and sincerity” (perhaps by showing that falsehood and insincerity are signs of greatest power) (28). “Most of all, he made us feel that our truths did not have the power possessed by his lies” (28).]

 

[ditto]

Lies, I said, derive their power from the ambiguities present in the facts. Today, the nature of this ambiguity itself has changed considerably under the influence of the new media. Through these media, the very idea of dissimulation seems to disappear (everything is present at the same time). And this can be exploited in two ways: By openly lying or by blowing up any distinction between the true and the false. Putin’s political practice is a good example of the first. He lies in order to embarrass and openly challenge those for whom truth still has or is some value. Machiavelli thought that lies were justified in order to gain power, but for Putin, the possession of power is his justification for lying. When he told the West that there were no Russians in the Ukraine, he did not want to convince us. Above all, he wanted to claim that he had the power to humiliate the Western democracies and their media. The public display of his lies was not intended to be believed, but to undermine people’s confidence in the value of truth and sincerity, for he was well aware that we knew that what he was saying were lies. Most of all, he made us feel that our truths did not have the power possessed by his lies.²⁴

(28)

21 Europe has still not been convinced to intervene. See Timothy Snyder, The Road to Uefreedom: Russia, Europe, America (London: The Bodley Head 2018), p. 159 sq.

(28)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.7

[Double-Thinking and Double-Speaking]

 

[This is double-thinking, the practice of holding two contradictory beliefs in mind while accepting them both at the same time. “When double-thinking, you claim two  at the same time with the same aplomb. In other words, you don’t even bother to dissimulate one for the benefit of the other.” We see this with Orwellian Doublespeak: “Like the slogans that appear in the novel on the front of the Ministry of Truth: ‘War is peace,’ ‘freedom is slavery,’ ‘ignorance is power.’ This paralyzing juxtaposition is the biotope of so-called ‘alternative facts’” (29).]

 

[ditto]

Isn’t this the practice of double-thinking to which Orwell refers in his now, again, so popular novel 1984? Myriam Revault d’Allones concludes her book on La faiblesse du vrai (“the weakness of truth’’) with the following striking description: “Pourvoir du ‘doublepenser’ – pouvoir garder simultanément a l’esprit simultanément deux énoncés contradictoires et les accepter tous les deux” (“Double-thinking – being able to keep two contradictory statements in mind simultaneously and accept them both’’).²⁵ When double-thinking, you claim two  at the same time with the same aplomb. In other words, you don’t even bother to dissimulate one for the benefit of the other. Like the slogans that appear in the novel on the front of the Ministry of Truth: “War is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is power.” This paralyzing juxtaposition is the biotope of so-called “alternative facts.”

(29)

25 Myriam Revault d’Allones, La faiblesse du vrai (Paris: Seuil, 2018), pp. 128-129.

(29)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.8

[Loss of Truth and Deception]

 

[This juxtaposition of opposing statements, when both are stated as true, is paralyzing. In the past, the ambiguous link that the untrue kept with the true was played upon either for cheating without lying (the Jesuits) or to “condemned any form of deception as an expression of mendacity” (Jansenists) (29). Yet, truth seems no longer relevant these days. But with this all being so, we might wonder, how would it be possible for fraudsters to persuade and deceive (if truth is no longer at issue)? Breeur says that in fact, they do not even do so, because there is no longer the need to hide something true. (So when a claim and its challenge are both equally given, there is no deceit; there is only confusion or disregard about the truth.) “How can potential fraudsters still persuade and deceive? The answer is simple: They don’t! The ability to | convince someone of something false presupposes the ability to conceal something true. But now there is nothing to hide, because the true and the false are equally explicitly and simultaneously posited or ‘posted.’ So there is nothing that can call into question the interpretation of a fact, because that question itself is already circulating along with the fact itself” (29).]

 

[ditto]

The subject that is submitted to such a discourse, as Revault d’Allones aptly writes, “est englué dans la juxtaposition paralysante de deux positions contraires, il est littéralement pétrifié faute de duplicité, d’équivoque, d’ambiguïté” (“is stuck in the paralyzing juxtaposition of two opposing positions, it is literally petrified for lack of duplicity, equivocation, ambiguity”).²⁶ The Jesuits manipulated the ambiguity to cheat without lying. The Jansenists condemned any form of deception as an expression of mendacity. But both played with the link that the untrue kept with the true. Today that link itself is irrelevant. “Does the truth matter anymore?”²⁷ But then you may ask further: How can potential fraudsters still persuade and deceive? The answer is simple: They don’t! The ability to | convince someone of something false presupposes the ability to conceal something true. But now there is nothing to hide, because the true and the false are equally explicitly and simultaneously posited or “posted.” So there is nothing that can call into question the interpretation of a fact, because that question itself is already circulating along with the fact itself.

(29-30)

26 Revault d’Allones, La faiblesse du vrai, p. 130.

27 Cf. Viner (2016).

(29)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.9

[Our Being Cheated without Deception]

 

[Today, we feel “deceived and cheated – by car makers, politicians, the media, etc.” But we no longer feel like in these cases the truth is being concealed from us. Rather, every version/interpretation of the facts is floating out there. (We just are losing the means to discern which one to trust). “You’ll find an explanation for everything everywhere and a version of a fact that refutes its official interpretation” (30). This is something obscene for us.]

 

[ditto]

I also said, faithful to Diderot’s adage (“c’est surtout lorsque tout est faux qu’on aime le vrai”, it is in circumstances where everything seems false that we love the truth)²⁸, that our interest in the truth is primarily if not entirely a response to feeling deceived. The driving force of that interest, at least since Descartes (“malin genie”), was doubt, suspicion, and mistrust. Today, everyone feels deceived and cheated – by car makers, politicians, the media, etc. But that feeling is no longer based on the suspicion that (a/the) “truth” is being concealed. Perhaps (a/the) “truth’’ is itself false. After all, no one can really feel deceived by anything anymore because nothing is concealed or hidden anymore. You’ll find an explanation for everything everywhere and a version of a fact that refutes its official interpretation. This brutal, simultaneous omnipresence has something of the obscene. The political scene takes advantage of this obscenity, like the liars of duplicity. Ambiguity is the driving force of humor – the obscene that of sarcasm and cynicism.

(30)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Breeur, Roland. Lies – Imposture – Stupidity. Vilnius: Jonas ir Jakubas, 2019.

The book can be purchased here.

 

Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page.

.

 

 

.

Smith (5.0) Essays on Deleuze, Ch.5.0, “[Introductory material]”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

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

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Deleuze, entry Directory]

[Daniel Smith, entry directory]

[Smith’s Essays on Deleuze, entry directory]

[Smith’s Essays on Deleuze, Ch.5 entry directory]

 

[The following is a paragraph by paragraph summary of Smith’s text. Boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my mistakes.]

 

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Daniel Smith

[Smith’s academia.edu page]

 

Essays on Deleuze

 

Ch.5

Pre- and Post-Kantianism

Logic and Existence: Deleuze on the Conditions of the Real

 

5.0

“[Introductory material]”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(5.0.1) At the core of Deleuze’s interest in the rationalists, Leibniz especially, is the philosophical problem of using thought to distinguish the possible from the real. For, nothing would change among the predicates involved in the conception of something were it to exist instead of not exist (or not-exist instead of exist). (5.0.2) Smith will give a cinematic thematization of the material he presents in the text by characterizing its parts as if they were something like parts of a film. (5.0.3) The basic principles of logic, especially the three classic ones – Identity, Non-Contradiction, and Excluded Middle – tell us what is unthinkable and thus impossible. Under Deleuze’s formulations, the Principle of Identity is expressible as “A is A” or “A thing is what it is”; the Principle of Non-Contradiction is (unconventionally) formulated by Deleuze as “A is not non-A,” or “A thing is not what it is not”; and the Principle of Excluded Middle: “‘either A or not-A,’ that is, between A or not-A, there is no middle term’.”  They therefore offer some guidance regarding what is possible. Deleuze will conduct an investigation into the history of philosophy to see if these three laws especially had been reconceived to allow us to think beyond the possible to the real or existant itself. (5.0.4) Smith will follow how Deleuze tells a story in the history of philosophy that is about how philosophers of different times or sorts have reconceived the three classical principles of logic in order to think the real and existant itself and not merely the possible; the Principle of Identity: Pre-Kantian Rationalists, especially Leibniz; the Principle of Non-Contradiction: German Idealists, especially Hegel; and the Principle of Excluded Middle: “existentialists.” Lastly, Smith will explain Deleuze’s critique of these solutions and discuss the one Deleuze proposes instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

5.0.1

[Deleuze’s Philosophical Question: How Can Thought Think the Real and Not Just the Possible?]

 

5.0.2

[Smith’s Cinematic Thematization]

 

5.0.3

[Deleuze’s Particular Formulations for the Three Classic Principles of Logic]

 

5.0.4

[Previewing the Text]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

5.0.1

[Deleuze’s Philosophical Question: How Can Thought Think the Real and Not Just the Possible?]

 

[At the core of Deleuze’s interest in the rationalists, Leibniz especially, is the philosophical problem of using thought to distinguish the possible from the real. For, nothing would change among the predicates involved in the conception of something were it to exist instead of not exist (or not-exist instead of exist).]

 

[ditto] [Deleuze discusses this issue especially in his course of 1983.05.17, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.] As Smith explains so well, if we only have our thinking to rely upon, we cannot make a distinction, conceptually speaking, between the concept of a thing were it to exist and the concept of that same thing were it not to exist. [Deleuze says something similar to Smith’s 100 dollars and unicorn illustrations and Kant comment in Course 1983.05.17, Part 1: “Pourquoi est-ce que la pensée en tant que pensée ne dispose d’aucun moyen pour distinguer le possible et le réel ? C’est évident - ou : le possible et l’existant -, c’est évident si vous y réfléchissez. Considérez un concept quelconque, ou une représentation quelconque : représentation soit d’un bœuf, soit d’une chimère, soit d’un triangle. Cette représentation ou ce concept, c’est ce que la pensée pense. Rien n’est changé, que l’objet de la représentation existe ou n’existe pas. Tout est changé pour nous, rien n’est changé pour la pensée, c’est-à-dire : rien n’est changé dans la représentation. C’est ce que Kant disait déjà dans une page célèbre de la Critique de la raison pure. Vous vous faites la représentation de 100 francs - il disait, lui, pour des raisons de nationalité, 100 thalers. Vous vous représentez 100 francs : que ces 100 francs existent, bien plus, que vous les ayez ou que vous ne les ayez pas, c’est très important pour vous ; du point de vue de la représentation, rien n’est changé. Vous vous faites un concept de chimère, animal fabuleux. Qu’il y ait ou qu’il n’y ait pas des chimères, ça change beaucoup ; ça change rien du point de vue du concept, du point de vue de la représentation.” (00:07:17-00:09.32).] Let us work with Smith’s example of the unicorn. We have the idea of the unicorn. And we note that it does not exist. Suppose now that genetic scientists produce a unicorn (or suppose millions of years from now one evolves.) Would the existence of the unicorn change any of its conceptualizable properties? It would seem not. (It would still seem to be a horse with a horn. The fact that it does not presently exist does not change what defines it. It either could exist or it could not. Either way, a unicorn is still conceived as a horse with a horn pointing straight forward from its head.) Thus existence does not seem to be a predicate at least when it comes to predicates that we assign when conceiving concepts or ideas, especially in terms of their essential or defining features. This is because, as Smith explains, “The position of the real is outside the concept; the existing thing is external to the concept.”  [Again, note Deleuze’s Course 1983.05.17, Part 1: “Ce qu’on a toujours traduit, en philosophie, en disant que l’existant, c’était extérieur à la représentation. L’existant, c’est la position de l’objet hors du concept. (00:09:35-00:09.44).]

Here is a philosophical problem that lies at the core of Deleuze’s interest in the rationalists, and particularly Leibniz.¹ By itself, thought has no means of distinguishing between the possible and the real. I can have a concept of 100 dollars in my mind, and while it may be important to me practically whether or not I actually have 100 dollars in my pocket, the existence of 100 dollars in reality changes nothing from the point of view of the concept: that is, from the viewpoint of pure thought. The position of the real is outside the concept; the existing thing is external to the concept. (This was Kant’s argument against the ontological argument: existence is not a predicate; from the viewpoint of the concept, an existing God is no more perfect than a non-existing God.) Even though I know that unicorns do not exist, I can still form a concept or a representation of a unicorn, or define the essence of a unicorn.

(72)

1. This paper was originally presented at the conference “Deleuze and Rationalism,” which took place on 16–17 March 2007 at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University, London.

(377)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.0.2

[Smith’s Cinematic Thematization]

 

[Smith will give a cinematic thematization of the material he presents in the text by characterizing its parts as if they were something like parts of a film.]

 

In this paragraph, Smith explains different philosophical ways to approach this problem, and he describes and defends his cinematic thematization of the material. He firstly reformulates the philosophical problem Deleuze is working on here, namely: how can thought leave its domain of the possible and instead think the real itself (the existant)? He says “Pre-Kantians like Leibniz approached this problem in terms of the distinction between truths of essence (“A triangle has three sides”) and truths of existence (“Caesar crossed the Rubicon”), while post-Kantians like Maimon approached the problem in terms of the distinction between the conditions of possible experience and the conditions of real experience.” (I do not have textual substantiation for these claims, at the moment.) Smith next says that he will approach the problem from a “semi-cinematic perspective,” and he grounds this in a comment Deleuze makes regarding Godard making a film about philosophical texts. [Overall, what Smith is doing here is explaining why he will thematize the presentation of his text as if it were something like a film script. As we will see, it makes the text more playful and charming. It is not entirely obvious if it adds anything substantial to the philosophical material he presents, but it enlivens the text and makes it even more fun and exciting to read.]

For Deleuze, this is one of the fundamental problems of a theory of thought: How can thought leave this meager sphere of the possible in order to think the real: that is, to think existence itself, to think existing things. Pre-Kantians like Leibniz approached this problem in terms of the distinction between truths of essence (“A triangle has three sides”) and truths of existence (“Caesar crossed the Rubicon”), while post-Kantians like Maimon approached the problem in terms of the distinction between the conditions of possible experience and the conditions of real experience. I would like to approach this logical problem from a semi-cinematic perspective. “Theoretically,” Deleuze once mused, “Jean-Luc Godard would be capable of filming Kant’s Critique or Spinoza’s Ethics” (DI 141). In the 1990s, Godard did a multi-part film entitled Histoire(s) du cinéma; following Deleuze’s suggestion, I am imagining Godard undertaking a similar project entitled Histoire(s) de la philosophie. I have no idea, of course, what Godard might have done in such a film, but none the less I am presenting the first part of this essay as a possible scenario for a single sequence of that multi-part film, which has as its title Logic and Existence, which I am borrowing from a well-known book by Jean Hyppolite.²

(72)

2. Jean Hyppolite, Logic and Existence [1952], trans. Leonard Lawlor and Amit Sen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997). This book completes the project Hyppolite began with Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit,” trans. Samuel Cherniak and John Heckman (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1979), and examines the relation between the phenomenology and the logic. Deleuze wrote an important review of the book in 1954, “Jean Hyppolite’s Logic and Existence,” which is included as appendix to the English translation (191–5). (377)

[DI: Gilles Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, ed. Sylvère Lotinger, trans. Michael Taormina (New York: Semiotext(e), 2004).]

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.0.3

[Deleuze’s Particular Formulations for the Three Classic Principles of Logic]

 

[The basic principles of logic, especially the three classic ones – Identity, Non-Contradiction, and Excluded Middle – tell us what is unthinkable and thus impossible. Under Deleuze’s formulations, the Principle of Identity is expressible as “A is A” or “A thing is what it is”; the Principle of Non-Contradiction is (unconventionally) formulated by Deleuze as “A is not non-A,” or “A thing is not what it is not”; and the Principle of Excluded Middle: “‘either A or not-A,’ that is, between A or not-A, there is no middle term’.”  They therefore offer some guidance regarding what is possible. Deleuze will conduct an investigation into the history of philosophy to see if these three laws especially had been reconceived to allow us to think beyond the possible to the real or existant itself.]

 

Smith next notes that we might turn to the principles of logic in order pursue this question of how can thought thing the real and existant? He then proceeds through the three classical principles of logic, identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle. Smith will give verbal formulations for each of them. The Principle of Identity says that “A is A” or “A thing is what it is.” Smith notes that the next two can be seen as specifications of this principle [but in what way they are specifications is not explained yet]. The Principle of Non-Contradiction can be seen as saying that “A is not non-A,” or “A thing is not what it is not”  [At this point, it is important that we take some care. To all appearances, Smith is closely following Deleuze’s course lecture of 1983.05.17 that we have and will continue to quote from. In this lecture, Deleuze verbally formulates the three classic principles of logic in a way that Smith also does here. But what I find problematic is Deleuze’s formulation of the Principle of Non-Contradiction. “A is not non-A” is not, as far as I know, the conventional way to formulate this principle, even going back to its early appearance in Aristotle. Normally we understand the Principle of Non-Contradiction as being verbally formulated as “It is not that A and not-A.” (See especially Graham Priest, Doubt Truth to be a Liar, 8-9). Deleuze’s and Smith’s formulation is much closer to the Principle of Double Negation (“A if and only if not not-A”) on account of the verb ‘to be’ normally functioning more like the biconditional operator. I have not discovered the source for Deleuze’s seeming confusion about how to formulate the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Given his later focus on Hegel when discussing non-contradiction, we might think that he is getting this formulation from Hegel. However, that is not how it seems to me at the moment. For instance, in Hegel’s Science of Logic, he gives a positive and negative formulation for the Principle of Identity: “the essential category of identity is enunciated in the proposition: everything is identical with itself, A = A. Or negatively: A cannot at the same time be A and not A” (Hegel, Science of Logic, 409). The negative formulation here is close to the normal formulation of the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Hegel later writes, “The other expression of the law of identity: A cannot at the same time be A and not-A, has a negative form; it is called the law of contradiction” (ibid., 416). Yet, Hegel does not next explain what the negative form of this expression is, which would presumably formulate precisely the Principle of Non-Contradiction. So he does not say here that it would be “A is not not-A,” as far as I can tell. I find this issue highly problematic for making more precise determinations of Deleuze’s logic. In other words, we cannot easily say, on the basis of what Deleuze says here, whether he rejects or accepts the Principle of Non-Contradiction. He will seemingly state that he accepts it, but what he would apparently be accepting rather is the Principle of Double Negation.] And the Principle of Excluded Middle is verbally formulable as: “‘either A or not-A,’ that is, between A or not-A, there is no middle term’.” These three laws tell us what is unthinkable, which thereby tells us what is impossible [presuming that anything unthinkable is impossible]. So, were something to break the Principle of Identity, then it would not be what it is. Were it to break the Principle of Non-Contradiction, then it would be what it is not. [This seems to me to be more a matter of breaking the Principle of Identity than of Non-Contradiction. But Deleuze is seemingly working with the Principle of Double Negation here instead of the Principle of Non-Contradiction. Hence, perhaps, this odd claim.] And finally, something breaks the Principle of Excluded Middle if it is “both what it is and what it is not.” [This seems to be what is more conventionally understood as breaking the Principle of Non-Contradiction. To break Excluded Middle, I think it would be something more like, “To be neither what it is nor what it is not.”] Deleuze’s question will be: “Is there any way in which these three classical principles can be used to exit the sphere of logic and penetrate existence itself?” [Again, see Course 1983.05.17, Part 1, at audio times (00:11:50-16:46): mais c’est très important de comprendre ça, c’est pour ça qu’il y a un problème de la pensée. Je dirais : le problème éternel de le pensée, ç’a été : moi, pensée, comment est-ce que je vais arriver à penser le réel et l’existant ? comment est-ce que je vais sortir de ma sphère des possibles ? comment penser autre chose que l’essence ? Je dirais presque, c’est à partir de là, bon... D’où... d’où, il me semble, la distinction de deux types de principes. La pensée par elle-même pense le possible. Au nom de quoi ? Au nom de certains principes qu’on appellera des principes logiques. Les principes logiques sont des principes qui fixent ce qui est possible et ce qui ne l’est pas ; qui déterminent ce qui est possible et ce qui n’est pas possible. Et ces principes logiques, je dirais : ce sont les principes des essences ou du possible, puisqu’ils discernent, ils distinguent le possible du non-possible ou de l’impossible, ces principes sont au nombre de trois dans la logique classique. → L’un, c’est le principe d’identité, A est A. Et puis deux petits principes qui semblent être comme des spécifications du grand principe d’identité, A est A, c’est-à-dire la chose est ce qu’elle est. → Second principe, dit de non-contradiction : A n’est pas non-A, la chose n’est pas ce qu’elle n’est pas. → Et puis troisième principe, dit du tiers-exclu : la chose est A ou non-A. Ou si vous préférez : entre A et non-A, il n’y a pas de tiers, d’où l’expression « principe du tiers exclu », A ou non-A. Ça m’intéresse déjà, parce que ces trois principes de pure logique, → l’un est un principe de position ou d’affirmation (A est A), → le second est un principe de négation (A n’est pas non-A), → le troisième est un principe d’alternative ou de disjonction (A ou non-A). Je sais donc ce qui est impossible, c’est-à-dire impensable. Ce qui est impossible ou impensable, c’est quelque chose qui ne serait pas ce qu’elle est (donc elle contredirait à l’identité), qui serait ce qu’elle n’est pas (elle contredirait à la non-contradiction), et qui serait à la fois ce qu’elle est et ce qu’elle n’est pas (elle contredirait au tiers exclu). Tout va bien. Sous ces trois principes, je pense les essences, le monde des essences ou le monde du possible, mais je retombe toujours là-dessus : comment penser quelque chose de réel ?]

Here’s the first shot: a radiant sphere hovering in the middle of nowhere. Nothing is written on it, but we know it is the sphere of logic. The film begins here | for an obvious reason: if thought, on its own, is only capable of thinking the possible, it does so on the basis of what can be called logical principles. Classical logic famously identified three such principles. These are the principle of identity (which says that “A is A,” or “A thing is what it is”), and then two smaller principles which seem to be specifications of the principle of identity: the principle of non-contradiction (which says that “A is not non-A,” or “A thing is not what it is not”) and the principle of the excluded middle (which says “either A or not-A,” that is, between A or not-A, there is no middle term). Taken together, these three principles determine what is impossible—that is to say, what is unthinkable without contradiction: something that would not be what it is (which would contradict the principle of identity); something that would be what it is not (which would contradict the principle of non-contradiction); and something that would be both what it is and what it is not (which would contradict the principle of the excluded middle). This sphere of logic would seem to enclose us within the domain of the possible, or what classical philosophy called the domain of essences. But this opening shot sets up the problem with a visual image: Is there any way in which these three classical principles can be used to exit the sphere of logic and penetrate existence itself?

(72-73)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.0.4

[Previewing the Text]

 

[Smith will follow how Deleuze tells a story in the history of philosophy that is about how philosophers of different times or sorts have reconceived the three classical principles of logic in order to think the real and existant itself and not merely the possible; the Principle of Identity: Pre-Kantian Rationalists, especially Leibniz; the Principle of Non-Contradiction: German Idealists, especially Hegel; and the Principle of Excluded Middle: “existentialists.” Lastly, Smith will explain Deleuze’s critique of these solutions and discuss the one Deleuze proposes instead.]

 

Smith next outlines how the text will proceed. First he looks at how pre-Kantian rationalists, especially Leibniz, reconceive the Principle of Identity and extend it to the whole of existence. Secondly, he examines how German Idealists, especially Hegel, do this with the Principle of Non-Contradiction. And thirdly he looks at how “existentialist” sorts of philosopher do this with the Principle of Excluded Middle. He lastly will explain why Deleuze thinks they all fail and how he offers his own response to the problem.

The response to this question will take us through three scenes, which correspond to three broad sequences in the history of philosophy, three attempts to resolve this problem using one of these logical principles. Scene one focuses on the pre-Kantians, the rationalists; its star is Leibniz, since it was he who attempted to extend the principle of identity to the whole of existence. Scene two focuses on the post-Kantians, primarily the German Idealists; its story culminates in Hegel, since it was he who attempted to extend the principle of non-contradiction to the whole of existence. Scene three, finally, looks at that loosely related group of thinkers that often tend to be called, precisely, “existentialists,” since it is they who attempted to extend the principle of the excluded middle to existence. The screenplay reaches its climax with Deleuze: at the end, it briefly examines the reasons why Deleuze is at once fascinated with all three of these philosophical attempts to “think existence,” but none the less thinks they fail, and why he ultimately charts out his own response to the problem. The ending, alas, is somewhat truncated, since the production went over budget, which meant that entire scenes wound up being consigned to the editing room floor.

(73)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

 

Smith, Daniel. “Logic and Existence: Deleuze on the Conditions of the Real.” In Essays on Deleuze, 72–85. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2012.

 

(or simply:)

 

Smith, Daniel. Essays on Deleuze. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2012.

https://www.academia.edu/20805798/Essays_on_Deleuze

 

Note that an earlier version of this chapter text (which is nearly but not precisely identical) is found in:

 

Smith, Daniel. “Logic and Existence: Deleuze on the ‘Conditions of the Real.’” Chiasmi International 13 (2011): 361–77.

 

Smith’s Academia.edu page

 

 

Other sources, if otherwise noted:

 

Deleuze, Gilles. Course 1983.05.17, Part 1. Online recording at Bibliothèque nationale de France/Gallica; recording and transcript at La voix de Gilles Deleuze en ligne, Université Paris 8 (No transcriber is named); transcript at Web Deleuze (Transcription by François Zourabichvili. The Voix transcript is identical to Web Deleuze, which is perhaps the original source, and thus the Voix one perhaps is also transcribed by Zourabichvili). Paris, 1983. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k128342x ; http://www2.univ-paris8.fr/deleuze/article.php3?id_article=236 ; https://www.webdeleuze.com/textes/204.

 

Deleuze, Gilles. Course 1983.05.17, Part 2. Online recording at Bibliothèque nationale de France/Gallica; recording and transcript at La voix de Gilles Deleuze en ligne, Université Paris 8 (No transcriber is named); transcript at Web Deleuze (Transcription by François Zourabichvili. The Voix transcript is identical to Web Deleuze, which is perhaps the original source, and thus the Voix one perhaps is also transcribed by Zourabichvili). Paris, 1983. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k128342x ; http://www2.univ-paris8.fr/deleuze/article.php3?id_article=250 ; https://www.webdeleuze.com/textes/204.

 

Deleuze, Gilles. Course 1983.05.17, Part 3. Online recording at Bibliothèque nationale de France/Gallica; recording and transcript at La voix de Gilles Deleuze en ligne, Université Paris 8 (No transcriber is named); transcript at Web Deleuze (Transcription by François Zourabichvili. The Voix transcript is identical to Web Deleuze, which is perhaps the original source, and thus the Voix one perhaps is also transcribed by Zourabichvili). Paris, 1983. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k128342x ; http://www2.univ-paris8.fr/deleuze/article.php3?id_article=251 ; https://www.webdeleuze.com/textes/204.

 

Hegel, G. W. F. Science of Logic. Translated by A. V. Miller. Oxford/ New York: Routledge, 2002.

 

Priest, Graham. Doubt Truth to Be a Liar. Oxford: Oxford University, 2006.

.

 

Somers-Hall, (2.10), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘2.10 Freud’s First Synthesis (96–8/119–22, 111–14/136–40)’, 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 2. Repetition for Itself

2.10 Freud’s First Synthesis (96–8/119–22, 111–14/136–40)

Very brief summary:

The first synthesis is habitual contraction. For Freud, an organic system habitually contracts surplus, stability-threatening external excitations into itself so that the pleasure principle can effectively neutralize them by incorporating them safely into the system’s workings. The first synthesis in Freud, then, is passive, since it is a mechanism operating independently of an active ego that seeks pleasure. It is also an expression of the death drive. This is because the compulsion to repeat wants to preserve the system by keeping it in its current state of homeostasis. But all the while, it is naturally evolving away from its current state. Thus it is tending backward in evolution, toward its inorganic, non-living origins.

Brief summary:
In Freud’s model, an organic system has a relatively ordered dynamics, which can be disrupted by an excess of external excitations. One way it deals with this threatening excess is to habitually contract it into the system, which then has its ways of minimizing its destructive influence. [For example, if we suffer a trauma, we have an excess of disruptive excitation in our systems. Then we relive it for example repeatedly in our dreams, which use associations to distribute it relatively safely throughout the rest of our psyche]. This tendency to incorporate the surplus energy habitually is the compulsion to repeat and as well the libido. The pleasure principle is the tendency of the system to take that already contacted surplus energy and to manage it. The more it can be minimized or kept under control, the more pleasure we feel. However, the more it disrupts the system, the more unpleasure we experience. Thus the pleasure principle must be understood as distinct from the compulsion to repeat, since they are performing different actions. This can explain why it is we repeat traumas even though they are unpleasant; for, the compulsion to repeat them does not operate according to the pleasure principle. It is merely a mechanical feature of the organic system, and it is like the first passive synthesis of contracted habit. The contraction habit is a self-preservation drive, but it is a variation on the death drive. This is because the compulsion to repeat is an expression of a movement away from evolution toward the creature’s inorganic evolutionary origins.

 

Summary

Deleuze claims that Freud’s concern in Beyond the Pleasure Principle is not examining the exceptions to the pleasure principle but rather in determining “the conditions under which pleasure effectively becomes a principle” (SH 85, qtg DR 96/120). We previously discussed an organizing principle of the psyche in Freud’s account, which tries to maintain stasis of excitation [and prior to that we saw Kant’s transcendental ego as providing the unity of experience and thought.] Deleuze thinks that “prior to the organising principle of the ego” there is already a “biopsychical life” that is “a field of individuation in which differences in intensity are distributed here and there [Ça et là] in the form of excitations” (85 qtg DR 96/119). These levels of excitation will vary over time, and pleasure would be understood as a process operating in this system (85). Deleuze equates the here and there [ça et là] with Freud’s id [Ça]. Although this equation is problematic, it also helps us pose this sections key question, namely, “how does pleasure cease to be a process in order to become a principle that organises the life of the unconscious?” (85). [I do not completely grasp what SH says next. Perhaps the ideas are like this. If we assumed there was a subject, we can say that the subject gives value to pleasure, and on the basis of this value, the subject organizes their psychic life and behavior. But if we remove that subject, then there is nothing to give value to pleasure in the first place, and thus there would be no reason to pursue it. So if, like Freud and Deleuze, we remove that pre-given subject, we need to explain how a psychic system comes to organize itself in such a way that it maximizes pleasure, when that pleasure is of no greater value than displeasure. Let me quote.]

Now, in spite of the problematic nature of the argument, it does seem like a reasonable equation, and it allows us to raise the key question of this section, which is, how does pleasure cease to be a process in order to become a principle that organises the life of the unconscious? An answer such as ‘pleasure is pleasing’ is tautologous, and misses the point. If we try, as Freud has, to give an account of pleasure that does not already presuppose the existence of a subject who values it, then we have to be able to account for how this value gets attached to this particular biological process in the first place. That is, how a (value neutral) process becomes a principle of organisation and action.
(85)

When we receive an excitation, our consciousness recognizes that something happened, and it is stored into memory.  Freud claims that “it is not possible within a given system for something both to enter consciousness and also to leave a memory trace’ (Freud 2003a: 64)” (SH 85d). SH explains that

The reason for this is that if traces of excitation remained in consciousness, then they would prevent the system from registering | new excitations. We therefore need to see the processes of memory and consciousness as operating within two parallel systems, much as habit and memory were different in kind in the first account of the three syntheses.
(85-86)

SH continues “We can begin with the most primitive form of life, an ‘undifferentiated vesicle of irritable matter’ (Freud 2003a: 65)” (SH 86) [but I do not understand what such a being would be. Would a single celled organism be such a thing? If so, is it not internally differentiated? If not, what simpler life-form is there?] As this creature is affected by external stimuli, “its nature changes so that it is able to transmit them without its elements changing” which for Freud is the origin of consciousness (86). [I am not sure what it would mean to transmit the shocks without changing its nature. I suppose it is something like nervous signals and reflexes, but I am only guessing. I also do not understand very well the next part. The idea is that as these simple organisms evolve, they channel the excessive excitations to the inorganic, namely, the to skull. I do not understand that, since I would think the signals go to the brain and not the skull, and thus not to something inorganic. And, in even higher creatures the stimulations are further processed by separating out the perceptual aspects, which are the particular senses. It is still unclear for me. Is the idea that simpler organisms just have a simple kind of signal that means physical impact, and thus only have touch, and higher organisms have more senses?] “As the system evolves, it develops protection against excessive stimulation from the outside by partially reverting to the inorganic (the skull), and, in higher creatures, by separating off the perceptual aspects further (the development of particular senses)” (86). This model allows Freud to explain many of psychoanalysis’ most important findings. Also, excitations can come from within. Now, shocks from the outside can be reduced by a barrier [I am not sure what that is. I do not know if the barrier is something we discussed already, like repression (which does not seem like a barrier since it is dealing with the trauma from an external shock that already entered the system and did its damage), or if it is a new idea, like a sort of desensitization or something like closing the eyes when light is too bright.] But there are no such barriers for internal traumas. So, “Traumas which affect the organism from the inside therefore have a far greater role within the economy of the organism than those which affect it from the outside” (86). Also, projection occurs when the organism interprets an internal trauma as originating from the outside (86).

In Freud’s account, we have trauma when there is surplus excitation that cannot be incorporated into the system. The organism might manage by channeling that energy into the system, thereby destabilizing it and creating unpleasure. This is a case where the pleasure principle does not explain the psyche’s workings. One example is war trauma. [The idea seems to be that the patient relives the traumatic experience, since its energy cannot be eliminated, so it is recycled. But because it is rechanneled into the system, that is a way to master it.]

In cases of trauma or pain, Freud claims, rather than seeking to maintain the lowest possible level of psychic energy, the organism may attempt to stabilise the psychic system by suspending the pleasure principle, and instead annex the free flowing energy into the system of the psyche. This means that the pleasure principle does not always govern the operations of the psyche. This process of annexing energy from the outside can explain some of the situations where it appears as if the pleasure principle has been contravened. In the case of severe trauma, the system experiences unpleasure in order to retain its overall integrity. War trauma, for instance, would be a retrospective attempt to master the phenomena in question, that is, to assert control over them. Now, in the case of war trauma, this attempt to master and bind energy within the system leads | to the repetition of past experiences which lead to unpleasure on the part of the subject. Freud therefore claims that such compulsions to repeat simply cannot be understood according to the pleasure principle. (86-87).

In order for the pleasure principle to operate, there needs to be a way for excess energy to be systematically channeled rather than randomly jumping about (87). [I will quote this part, since I am not sure I got it right.]

Prior to the application of the pleasure principle, there needs to be some process of binding or annexation of excitation so that excitations can have ‘systematic resolution’, rather than arbitrarily traversing the life of the organism. So some kind of integration or organisation is necessary for us to be able to relate pleasure to a principle. Freud himself makes this point as follows [The following up to citation is Freud quotation]:

As the drive-impulses all act on our unconscious systems, it is scarcely a new departure to assert that they follow the primary process, and it is also no very great step to identify the primary psychic process with Breuer’s ‘free-flowing’ cathexis, and the secondary one with his ‘annexed’ or ‘tonic’ cathexis. This would then mean that it was the task of the higher echelons of the psychic apparatus to annex excitations originating from the drives and reaching it via the primary process. Any failure of this annexion process would bring about a dysfunction analogous to traumatic neurosis. Only when the annexion has taken place would the pleasure principle (or, once the latter has been duly modified, the reality principle) be able to assert its dominion unhindered. In the meantime, however, the psychic apparatus’s other task of controlling or annexing the excitation would be very much to the fore – not, it is true, in opposition to the pleasure principle, but independently of it, and to some extent quite heedless of it. (Freud 2003a: 74–5)

The pleasure principle therefore rests on the integration of excitations that are originally unbound.
(SH 87)

SH then notes some parallels with the first synthesis of time. Recall how “a contraction of impressions led to the constitution of a subject” (87). Here the free flowing energy is contracted into the system, which is productive of the subject. [I am not sure I understand the point SH here makes about signs, so I will quote:]

Deleuze’s point is also that as the self is constituted by the integration or contraction of excitations, it simply is these excitations. This gives us the reason why Deleuze calls these contracting egos ‘narcissistic’. What they relate to is, in a sense, themselves, or an image of themselves, in the form of the excitations | that they bind. The movement of binding therefore finds satisfaction in a narcissistic relation to its own image. In this sense, the fact that the egos constituted by the binding process are narcissistic parallels the way in which the selves that were contracted habits in the first synthesis of time related not to objects, but to signs. So just as a heartbeat appears as a sign in our world that doesn’t resemble the movement of the heart itself, the binding of excitations constitutes egos that do not relate directly to objects, but to images of themselves.

(87-88)

[I am not sure about the next point, but the reasoning seems to be like the following. The psychic system habitually contracts surplus energy into its workings. On this basis pleasure is possible, since this brings more balance to the system, even though in another sense it is somewhat disruptive to it.] “It is not the case that pleasure gives rise to habit, therefore, in the sense that we might talk of repeating something enjoyable, but rather it is the existence of habits that leads to pleasure” (89). [The next point seems to be something like the following. Freud’s model places a basic mechanical operation as the basis for pleasure. In this sense, it is a passive synthesis, since it is not an ego who favors pleasure and on that basis organizes the surplus excitations.]

In the discussion of habit, Deleuze claimed that habit was only conceived of as reproduction when it was incorporated into a mathematicised ‘temporal space’ by the imagination. Similarly here, it is only by relating pleasure to the past and the future and by instituting the pleasure principle that we are able to see pleasure as operating prior to habit. That is, by talking about ‘pleasure in general’, we introduce the ‘idea of pleasure’. Once pleasure is no longer related to a passive synthesis, but is seen as organised in relation to a principle, we have an active synthesis that relates to an ego. The result of this is that the pleasure principle will now be seen as primary, since without some kind of external organising principle, it is impossible to explain how indifferent processes can form a coherent system, and how individual excitations can be related to one another (how habits are formed). One final thing to note is that binding and the pleasure principle relate to different objects. Binding operates on free excitations in order to enable the pleasure principle to relate them together into a system.
(88)

[The final point made above is that we need to distinguish two different things: 1) the passively synthetic binding operation that incorporates the surplus energy into the system, and 2) the pleasure principle, which aims to reduce the quantity of energy within the system. The pleasure principle only deals with the surplus energy once it has been incorporated into the system, and thus it is not the pleasure principle which is responsible for those contractions in the first place. But it is not entirely clear to me at this point what the pleasure principle does with the surplus energy that has been incorporated. At any rate, the compulsion to repeat is the binding operation, which is also for Freud the death drive. We later learn why.]

There are therefore two principles operative within the psyche. The first is to increase pleasure within the psychic apparatus by reducing the quantity of energy within it. This is the pleasure principle. The second is a principle that attempts to convert unbound energy into bound energy by mastering excitations. This is the compulsion to repeat, which will become the death drive. Freud’s claim is that it is only once excitations have been annexed by the psyche that the pleasure principle can become operative.
(88)

So, Freud grounds the compulsion to repeat in the organism’s basic, original structure. This means the compulsion can be analyzed as a “basic function of life itself” (88d), perhaps in the sense of a mechanical operation of the organism that is not fundamentality tied to higher order cognitions or to an active ego. [The next part is a bit complicated. It would be convenient to simplify it. Perhaps we can say the following. (But please check the quotation that follows to get the complete account.) Were the organism to allow its system to further become disorganized by surplus excitations, it would be more able to evolve as a creature, since it would be mutating or self-varying. But since it wants to minimize disruption, it is tending toward a prior state in its evolution. (Yet, it is not clear to me why staying in the same stage is understood as going backward a step. Perhaps this is because its forward movement is already set in motion.) The next point is that evolution is the development from the inorganic to the organic. Thus the tendency to find stasis through repetition, that is, through the habitual contractive incorporation of surplus energy into the system, is the death drive. For, it is the drive to go toward the inorganic evolutionary origins. Thus we have two drives, the drive to repeat, which preserves the organism, and the death drive, which wants the organism to become more inorganic. Since their aims are different, they are not the same drive, but the libido is a variation on the death drive.]

While the compulsion to repeat can operate in accordance with the | libido, it can also operate as a tendency of life to return to an earlier stage. Freud characterises this tendency to return in the following terms [the following up to citation is Freud quotation]:

At this point we cannot help thinking that we have managed to identify a universal attribute of drives – and perhaps of all organic life – that has not hitherto been clearly recognized, or at any rate not explicitly emphasized. A drive might accordingly be seen as a powerful tendency inherent in every living organism to restore a prior state, which prior state the organism was compelled to relinquish due to the disruptive influence of external forces; we can see it as a kind of organic elasticity, or, if we prefer, as a manifestation of inertia in organic life. (Freud 2003a: 76)

What leads Freud to this conclusion? Central to this conception are, I think, two primary assumptions in the account we have been looking at so far. The first is that the organism is defined essentially as closed off from the world. Organic life’s engagement with the world is seen as essentially traumatic and disruptive for Freud. Second, there is the belief that organisms, in their particular development, tend to repeat their development as a species. If we combine these two assumptions, then we have the claim that change (and hence development) is traumatic, and therefore generates a tendency for the organism to return to a prior, less traumatic state. Now, Freud claims that this movement can be seen in the fact that fish, when spawning, return not simply to their own birthplace, but also ‘to the previous domain of their species, which, in the course of time, they have exchanged for others’ (Freud 2003a: 77). Here the second claim, the recapitulation theory of embryo development, comes into play, as each animal carries with it the history of its development from the simplest forms of life. In fact, this movement is not simply to the earliest forms of life, but to the origin of life itself in the move from the inorganic to the organic. Thus, the drive to repeat is not simply a drive to return to an earlier form of life, but in fact, a death drive. In this sense, the compulsion to repeat/return and the death drive are equivalent: ‘The goal of all life is death, or to express it retroactively: the inanimate existed before the animate’ (Freud 2003a: 78). Freud’s account of the origin of repetition therefore ultimately traces it back to the constitution of consciousness itself. Life can be seen as playing out the relations between two different drives. First, there is the libido, which aims at conserving life by protecting the organism from external traumas that threaten to destabilise it. This conservation of life is ultimately to be understood as simply making more complex the more fundamental drive, the death drive, which seeks to return the organism to its primal state.
(88-89)

SH notes a key feature of Freud’s account. Since the organism wants to move back toward its inorganic origins, its death is not always to be attributed merely to external forces. SH then addresses the question, if life wants to dissolve into the inorganic, why do life forms exist at all? [The answer is not entirely clear to me, but it seems to be saying that the death drive remains dominant, but is channeled through more life preserving drives. The reasoning why I do not quite grasp, so please read the following quotation. Perhaps SH is saying that the simplest life forms in early evolution lived and died quickly, as we would expect from them having a death drive and also a primitive self-sustenance system. It is only because of some accidental structural feature of their chemical make-up that there is a delay between birth and death. Then, the creature evolves more complicated chemical structures which further that delay. It is still not clear why those self-sustaining structures would develop if the death drive aims to minimize them. Perhaps it is all an accident of evolution.]

Well, death is at first ‘still easy for living matter; the course of life that had to be gone through was probably short, its direction determined by the newly created organism’s chemical structure’ (Freud 2003a: 78–9). Over time, however, the complexity of life means that more and more detours are incorporated between life and death. These drives delay the movement towards death, and so appear to be conservative. They are the ‘guardians of life’ in that they allow the organism to perpetuate itself, but in the end, these drives, such as the sexual drives, are ultimately subordinated to the death drive. They are determined by the fact that the organism wants to choose its own death, rather than succumb to external influences.
(90)

[SH’s concluding point seems to be that because of the death drive, there is repetition in the organic system. And so this is like Deleuze’s notion of the eternal return as a repetition of difference. But for Freud, what is repeating is a similar sort of action in an extending chain of moments, where for Deleuze what repeats is intensive difference.]

In essence, this death drive plays the same role that the eternal return plays in Deleuze’s account. The ground of Freud’s account is here characterised as a mode of repetition. Once again, however, we can see that rather than repetition being conceived of as a field of intensive difference, it is here understood as an extensive, physical structure, much as time was equated with passive extension in Kant’s philosophy. As we shall see, Deleuze will retain the structure of the death drive, but instead understand death in terms of a field of intensive difference. Before turning to Deleuze’s account of the third synthesis as the death drive, we need to briefly look at the second synthesis.
(90)

 

 

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.

Freud, Sigmund (2003a), ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings, trans. John Reddick, London: Penguin Books, 43–102.

 

 

Somers-Hall, (2.3), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘2.3 Deleuze’s First Synthesis of Time: Hume (70–9/90–100)’, summary

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

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Part 1
A Guide to the Text

 

Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself

2.3 Deleuze’s First Synthesis of Time: Hume (70–9/90–100)

Brief summary:

We often see pairings of things, like: smoke-fire, smoke-fire, smoke-fire. After a while, when we see smoke, we then call to mind fire and expect to see it, and indeed, after looking below the smoke, we see the fire. This is because we contract all the prior instances of the pairings into one forceful association. Since it unites our past memories with our future anticipated impressions, this is a “contraction,” which somewhat inexplicably Deleuze also terms “contemplation”.  From an empiricist view, we are not some preconstituted subject who performs these contractions. Rather, the contractions happen automatically on a very basic level of experience, by means of a passive synthesis that does not involve our conscious understanding or the use of any concepts. Yet, [somehow] we can see every part of the world performing these contractions, including our hearts (and other organs) and all other things (including rocks, somehow). This means that we are composed of a ‘symphony’ (you might say) of different temporal contractions of past and future. This also means that all the world is such a symphony of selves each with their own temporality. Time then is not a linear, quantifiable sequence of successive events. It is rather a multiplicity of things feeling time in their own way, and is thus qualitative.

Summary

Deleuze first evokes in this chapter the Humean idea that repetition does not change anything about the object that is repeating. It only changes the mind that “contemplates” the object. Why do the objects not change? Well, if they did, then there is not a repetition of the same thing. We think of repeating pairing like smoke-fire, smoke-fire, smoke-fire, or AB, AB, AB, etc. If the repetition changed the objects, then it would be AB, CD, EF, …, and thus not a repetition. [SH moves to another point in this paragraph, but I am not sure if it is connected with the prior]. We now want to know, what allows us to expect B when perceiving A? [We might say that we “habitually” see fire after first detecting smoke. I am guessing that is what is meant by ‘habit’ here is not repeating actions that we have little control over, like smoking habits or superstitious habits. If this normal meaning of ‘habit’ is to be included here, I do not know how exactly. But it also seems strange to use the word ‘habit’ if this predominant meaning is not meant to be included. The next idea I think is clearer. We have different instances of AB, AB, AB, .., but they all contract together in the present when we see A and call to mind B. The force of the tendency to make that association is a product of the number and significance of the prior repetitions. Perhaps also the normal meaning of habit can be understood here, if we regard all habits as being responses to something else. We feel stress, the our minds automatically call to mind smoking.] In other words, we want to know, “what is it that allows us to contract habits?” (62). We already saw how the synthesis of reproduction of the imagination calls to mind past impressions that associate with current ones. But Hume thinks that “the ability to contract habits is not restricted to creatures with cognitive faculties as subtle as those Kant describes, and so any explanation in terms of those faculties cannot be accurate” (63). [I think the idea here is that for Kant, the imagination can only associate reproduced past moments on the basis of conceptual relations between the parts. So we see something that we match with the concept of smoke, and that concept is then matched conceptually with its correlate fire.  Where for Hume, no concepts are needed. In fact, what we call concepts are really just very strong associations.] For Kant, there is a “quantitative relation of the understanding, which relies on storing a sequence of prior moments. [I do not at all understand the quantitive relations. Perhaps for Kant we calculate how many times the pairing was found in the past. I do not know.] But for Hume, the imagination “operates like a ‘sensitive plate’ in order to develop a qualitative impression of the AB relation”.

Hume’s point is that the ability to contract habits is not restricted to creatures with cognitive faculties as subtle as those Kant describes, and | so any explanation in terms of those faculties cannot be accurate. Rather than an inference from a number of supporting cases, Deleuze argues that Hume sees habit formation as a process whereby past instances of the AB sequence are contracted together to form generalities by the imagination. The imagination operates like a ‘sensitive plate’ in order to develop a qualitative impression of the AB relation, rather than the quantitative relation of the understanding, which relies on storing a sequence of prior moments.
(62-63)

[We see smoke. We think fire. We then turn our eyes downward from the smoke, and we actually see fire. Thus] habit allows us to anticipate the future by means of the past, thus giving us “a relation between the past and the future”. SH then addresses what makes this a synthesis. [It is not entirely clear how the following point is different from the prior one. He seems to reiterate that on the basis of the past we anticipate the future. Please read to see if there is more in it.]

Now, on this level we have a conception of time, in that habit anticipates the future on the basis of the past. After having observed AB enough times, we anticipate a future, B, when we perceive A. So habit gives us a relation between the past and the future. In what sense is this a synthesis of time? Hume says the following about our perception of time: ‘For we may observe, that there is a continual succession of perceptions in our mind; so that the idea of time being for ever present with us’ (Hume 2000: 1.2.5). Habit turns this succession into a synthesis of time by systematising it, thus generating a field of past instances and a horizon of anticipation of the future. Rather than simply having a succession, certain impressions are retained (qualitatively), and others are anticipated on the basis of our retained impressions. We therefore have a model of time whereby aspects of the past are retained, and aspects of the future are anticipated from within the present.
(63)

SH then addresses “Deleuze’s account of method” [I am not sure what method SH is referring to here. None was mentioned before, so it must be a new concept, but I do not see what that concept is in the following material.] This account of method shows how active syntheses are possible by means of passive ones [I am also not sure what the difference is. I suspect that the passive ones are like the automatic habitual contractions, and the active ones are more explicitly, willfully, and conceptual performed. So we do not just see smoke and call to mind fire. We think about smoke and its significance, and we think about fire and its significance, and their connection. Probably there is a better explanation of what the active syntheses are.]. SH first notes that the subject is constituted through “the systematisaton of the flux of experience” (SH 63). Habit constitutes the subject. And the subject is the synthesis of time, namely, the synthesis of the past with the future. SH then says that on the basis of the fact that syntheses constitute subjects, we can now see how active syntheses are possible. [The next point is very complicated and very difficult to re-explain. SH deals with this Deleuze quotation. “Deleuze claims that once the subject emerges, then ‘on the basis of the qualitative impression in the imagination, memory reconstitutes the particular cases as distinct, conserving them in its own “temporal space”. The past is then no longer the immediate past of retention, but the reflexive past of representation, of reflexive and reproduced particularity’ (DR 71/92)” (SH 63). SH says that “we represent this process to ourselves”. But I thought Deleuze was saying that the past becomes represented as distinct memories, and these memories are the representations, and not that the process itself of reconstituting that past is represented. But let us assume what SH is saying. I suppose that means we are thinking about and representing in our minds the process of remembering something. SH continues to say that we represent it using Kant’s structures, I suppose the faculties. Maybe it works like this. We see smoke, and we think fire. We then say to ourselves, ‘oh, I must have conceptualized smoke and then using operations of my understanding I associated it with fire, even though all these operations were invisible to me.’ Somehow this operation of the understanding constitutes the relation of past and future, which I suppose means that we use our understanding to tie together past with anticipated impressions. This I suppose is an active synthesis which can be conducted secondarily to the original one in the imagination. But really all of this is done by the passive synthesis of habit. The final point is that this original synthesis cannot be accurately represented by the faculties, but I do not yet understand why.]

Deleuze’s account of method aims to show how active syntheses are possible on the basis of passive syntheses, and so we also need an account of how these higher syntheses are possible. The first point to note is that the systematisation of the flux of experience is, for Deleuze, the constitution of the subject: ‘Habit is the constitutive root of the subject, and the subject, at its root, is the synthesis of time – the synthesis of the present and the past in the light of the future’ (ES 92–3). I want to come back to this point in a moment, but if syntheses are constitutive of subjects, we can now see how the active syntheses are possible. Deleuze claims that once the subject emerges, then ‘on the basis of the qualitative impression in the imagination, memory reconstitutes the particular cases as distinct, conserving them in its own “temporal space”. The past is then no longer the immediate past of retention, but the reflexive past of representation, of reflexive and reproduced particularity’ (DR 71/92). So Deleuze’s claim is that when we represent this process to ourselves, we do so through the types of structures Kant has outlined. Doing so gives us a false impression that the work of synthesising time is being carried | out by those faculties themselves, whereas in fact by simply representing the process they have falsified it. The synthesis of a temporal manifold therefore, according to Deleuze, relies on a prior synthesis whereby the notions of past and future are generated, and the indifferent moments of sensation are related to one another through habit. Thus, Kant’s active synthesis in terms of the higher faculties relies on a prior synthesis that cannot be accurately represented by these faculties.
(63-64)

We said before that the subject is constituted through the contraction of habit, and it is not that an already constituted subject is doing those contractions. Now we ask what is the nature of this subject? SH says that it is “simply the organisation of impressions themselves” (64). So habit is not an activity that the subject performs. It is rather a mode of expectation or ‘contemplation’ using Deleuze’s term. And “it is this contemplation of time as involving anticipations and retentions that Deleuze claims is the subject. We now address some implications Deleuze draws from this.

1) “First, this synthesis of time is organised according to rhythms of anticipation, rather than simply as a succession of moments. Rather than mathematical time, which is modelled on space, the time of habit is qualitative, and, like Henri Bergson’s duration, forces us to wait” (SH 64). [What is a rhythm of anticipation? That is not clear to me. And what does it mean for time to be qualitative? That it feels like something? So we feel like something will happen, because we anticipate it? Thus time is experienced as a sort of tension of waiting?]

2) The self is anything that contracts. This includes hearts. So selfhood is not psychological. [This next part is hard to follow. For it to work, we need to accept that rocks are performing some kind of contemplation, thus some sort of habitual contraction. What would that be? I do not know. Maybe the rock was formed by a contraction of particles. Put I am not sure what this has to do with the habitual contractions we are talking about. At any rate, assume that somehow this is happening, that means the rock has both selfhood and its own temporality. In fact then, everything in the world has selfhood and its own temporality. Furthermore, all time is organized. So far the organization has meant organized into habitual contractions. That means that time is not pure succession, because it is contracted all over the place. I will quote this paragraph, since I cannot explain it.]

Second, if the subject is simply the synthesis of time into an organised structure, then it is going to be the case that wherever we encounter such a synthesis or organisation of time, we will encounter a self: ‘there is a self wherever a furtive contemplation has been established’ (DR 78/100). This means that habit is not itself a psychological phenomenon, but instead operates throughout the world. In fact, as this synthesis is constitutive of the psychological realm, it will operate in the material world prior to it. We can see, for instance, that the heart contracts, not in the sense of the actual movement it makes, but to the extent that it organises an essentially indifferent succession into a series of moments of a particular duration (the heartbeat). Now, if the heart can be seen as operating according to a habit, then so can almost everything in the world. Deleuze puts this point as follows: Perhaps it is irony to say that everything is contemplation, even rocks and woods, animals and men, even Actaeon and the stag, Narcissus and the flower, | even our actions and our needs. But irony in turn is still a contemplation, nothing but a contemplation. (DR 75/96) A consequence of this is that if everything is a contemplation, then although the organisation of time is subjective, all time is organised. Essentially, the world is constituted as a field of co-existing rhythms operating with different tones, rather than as pure succession.
(SH 65)

3) [This third inference says a lot but gives no explanations. I will just quote it since I cannot explain anything in it.]

Third, when we look at how habit functions, even when a habit is driven by a need on the part of an organism, it is not the case that the habit itself is constituted in terms of the objects themselves. If I am thirsty, for instance, I do not anticipate or expect the molecular structure, H2O, but rather water. Habit does not operate in terms of that which generates impressions, but rather in terms of signs. Habit does not, therefore, operate with representations of things, but rather with what Deleuze and Guattari will later call affects.
(65)

So recall that our heart is contemplating. We have other organs too that must be contemplating. Thus we are a system of syntheses. We dissolve into these syntheses and thus we are larval subjects. [This notion of larval subjects is very interesting, but it is not explained here, even though it is in the quotation. A larva is a younger form of an animal before it metamorphosizes into its adult form. What does us having many internal contemplations have to do with our subjectivity being larval? It would seem to imply that our constitutive multiplicity or complexity of selfhood makes us be in a state before metamorphosis. Why? Is it because it prevents us from taking a final form? How?]  [This next part also seems to need some clarification and elaboration] SH also says that the “notion of the sign is important here” [but he does not explain what is meant by the sign. It is very difficult to explain what SH is saying in the rest of the paragraph about signs, since it introduces concepts without clarifying their meanings. So please read it for yourself.]

This leads us on to the fourth point. Deleuze has said that the heart contemplates, and obviously, the heart is a part of us. What is the relation between us and our heart, and all of the other organs and constituents of organs that make us up? We ourselves, according to Deleuze, are systems of syntheses [The following up to citation is Deleuze]:

The self, therefore, is by no means simple: it is not enough to relativise or pluralise the self, all the while retaining for it a simple attenuated form. Selves are larval subjects; the world of passive syntheses constitutes the system of the self, under conditions yet to be determined, but it is the system of a dissolved self. (DR 78/100)

The notion of sign is important here, because the relations between levels of the self cannot be understood as if the self were a series of distinct elements brought into relation with one another. We don’t have interactions between different substances, but interactions between levels of the same substance. Rather than a causal interaction between entities, we therefore have signals between levels. Our heartbeat appears as a ‘sign’ in our world, but this sign does not resemble the movement of the heart itself. The signs transmitted between levels are different in kind from the selves that generate them.
(65)

 

 

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.