Somers-Hall, (DR), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Difference and Repetition [in its entirety]’, 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

Difference and Repetition

Part 1: A Guide to the Text

 

Brief summary:

Deleuze reconceptualizes repetition and difference. He does so in order to enable philosophical thinking to find a new way to operate, which will allow it to explore a more fundamental layer of reality. In this layer, difference’s role is the genesis of variation, while repetition’s role is the perpetuation of variation. They cannot be thought using our normal philosophical tools, because their operations are unrepresentable, meaning that they do not lend themselves to subject-predicate judgments that may define something by determining which properties it has and which it lacks. To understand how all this works, we should distinguish three layers of reality: 1) Ideas, 2) fields of intensive difference, and 3) extensive actuality. In the world, intensive differences enter into situations that present problems. Ideas form in response to those problems, and they are like maps that implicitly suggest an infinity of ways the situation could develop. Those Ideas then interact with the problematic fields of intensive difference in a dramatized (unpredictable) way in which only certain developmental paths are actualized and made explicit in the world. It is just on this explicated level of extensity that we find negation, limitation, opposition, and identity, which is why extensive actuality lends itself to representation. Prior to that, on the levels of difference and intensity, all is affirmative and unrepresentable. Aristotle’s system of classification deals with this representable level of extensity, but it has its own flaws which result from it not acknowledging the more fundamental, non-conceptual sort of difference. Duns Scotus, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Hegel, Leibniz, Merleau-Ponty, and Plato all have to a greater or lesser extent improved upon Aristotle’s model. But to think this unrepresentable difference, our faculties really need to operate discordantly as each deals with an object different in kind from the others. Deleuze’s project in DR was not entirely successful in bringing about this new sort of thinking, but it makes substantial leaps in that direction.

 

Summary

(0 Introduction: Repetition and Difference) Deleuze wants a new concept of repetition that is not based on generality but rather on difference. We see generality (non-difference-based repetition) in two areas: 1) scientific experimentation, which tries to equalize differences between trials through symbolic quantification. But this generalization is blind to the irreducible differences unique in each case. 2) Moral law, like the categorical imperative, which mechanically calls for the rigid application of a command in diverse situations, which again are different. Kierkegaard provides an instance of the moral law exercised with real repetition and not with generality. God’s commands are not consistent, as we see with his command to Abraham to kill his son. Thus we repeat the moral law only when it is different each time. Representation is not true repetition, however, because what repeats is identical. However, there is a non-conceptual sort of difference that can allow for ideas to repeat. Leibniz’s identity of indiscernibles would say that concepts with the same determinations are the same thing. But Kant’s incongruent counterparts show that things like hands, gloves, and triangles can be formed with identical relations between the parts, and thus be conceptually identical, while still being distinct in space. (Chapter 1. Difference in Itself) In chapter 1, Deleuze critically examines representational systems. What makes a system representational is if it uses the subject-predicate structure of judgment that enables us to say, “this is an x, since it has these and not those properties.” It is thus based on limits and negation as well. Aristotle’s system of classification is one classic representational system. In it, there are genuses that contain species which are differentiated by differences in kind. Each genus can be a species in a yet higher genus, and likewise each species can be a genus that further divides into other species. The highest genus is being, but it cannot have a higher genus, so it does not conform to the structure of the system. Aristotle’s solution of giving being an equivocal meaning makes it inconsistent with all the other things in the system, which have univocal meanings. There are four ways that can more or less successfully avoid the problems of Aristotle’s system. 1) Univocity. For Duns Scotus, there are different intensive degrees of perfection/being, but there is only one sense of being, thus it is univocal. Spinoza also has a univocal sense of being. For him, there is just one being, but it is internally determined modally. As well, Nietzsche has a univocal notion of being. For him, the world is fundamentally a play of intensive power variations. Only secondarily do the weak divide the fields of variation up into regions that are treated as morally accountable subjects. Instead, one can affirm that being as this play of wills is univocal, and affirm the eternal returnability of each moment. 2) Infinite representation: Hegel’s dialectic for example is an infinite movement that all events are wrapped up in. Leibniz’s monads have a subject-predicate structure, but their predicates are infinite. 3) Perspectivism: Merleau-Ponty notes that the world is given not as made of discrete objects but rather only of spatially and temporally limited perspectives that only give us fragments of objects. 4) Plato’s Partial Participations. For Plato, things in the world never fully express a concept, but only do so to greater or lesser degrees, and the same thing can to more or less of a degree express different concepts. (Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself) The second chapter examines the role of repetition in the three syntheses of time and of the psyche. The first time synthesis is habitual contraction. On the basis of paired events that consistently follow one another, we anticipate the second whenever experiencing the first. This constitutes time as a mode of “waiting”, and it synthesizes the living present. The second time synthesis is memory as an inherent structure to all experience. The present from its inception is already integrated into our memory, which is a whole structure that we can either express as condensed in current habitualized automatic actions or as expanded like when calling to mind some specific event. This synthesizes the past in general. The third synthesis is the pure form of time, which is understood as time out of joint. Time can be out of joint when it is not successive, as with Kant’s a priori intuition of time. It can also be out of joint when it is passively synthesized by the eternal return. Kant thinks that time is synthesized by an active transcendental subject. But Deleuze locates the synthesis in the repetition of differential intensity. When we affirm the eternal returnability of the present experience, we are not anticipating the exact same circumstances repeating but rather that the future, like now, with be composed of differential intensities. This impregnates the present with the future and liberates us from the past, and thus the third synthesis constitutes the future. Deleuze also discusses three syntheses of the psyche, parallel to the temporal ones. Our psyche manages disruptive excitations according to the pleasure principle. But we repeat traumas, which are unpleasant. This is because the excitations from the trauma cannot be contained in the psychic system, and they must continually be contracted back into the system. This is the compulsion to repeat, which is a habitual synthesis. The second one is the virtual object. In the absence of the mother, a child might suck its fingers. This is a virtual object that helps it manage its unpleasant psychic excitations. It recalls past experiences of sucking milk, but in fact it recalls an event that never happened, since never before did the fingers give milk. The third is the death drive. Disruptive excitations can mutate the psychic system and cause it to evolve. The compulsion to repeat tries to take the system back to a prior state, which is a movement toward the organism’s inorganic origins. Thus for Freud, the death drive is a personal loss. But for Deleuze, the death drive is the variability of self-identity, and is thus a movement forward to a future self-variation. (Chapter 3. The Image of Thought) Philosophical thinking so far has been unable to think the more fundamental level of difference . Deleuze characterizes eight problematic features of the traditional image of thought: 1) good sense (thinking is reasoning), 2) common sense (the faculties agree on an object), 3) recognition (the faculties recognize the common object), 4) representation (the faculties use representation, with its four features: identity, analogy, opposition, and resemblance), 5) error (as misrecognition), 6) proposition (as bearer of truth), 7) solutions (problems are defined by propositional solutions), 8) knowledge (as propositional solutions rather than learning). Deleuze thinks however that real thinking requires that our faculties operate discordantly while each deals with an object different in kind. Kant’s sublime experiences are like this, as is Plato’s notion of the experiences of inconsistency, where we sense something imperfect while our understanding recalls a perfect Idea. But Kant thinks that the discord of the faculties is resolved when the reason supplies a representation, and Plato does not trace the origins of the discord to the immanent world but rather to a realm of representational Ideas. (Chapter 4. Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference) Deleuze thinks Ideas are non-representational. An Idea has two important features: 1) it is composed of indeterminate parts that are determined only through a binding differential relation, and 2) it can be explicated in various spatio-temporal events. Deleuze sees differential calculus as providing the basic model for the important features of Ideas, and then he offers three examples of Ideas. In calculus, the differential’s terms are indeterminate on their own and only gain determination in their differential combination. Ideas are like groupings of differential relations that suggest directions or paths of actualizations. Example 1) Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ atomism. Atoms are only sensibly determinate when they collide and differentially relate vibrationally, thereby constituting a physical thing. And there are many combinations that can be actualized. 2) Geoffroy’s homological anatomy. He thinks there is a transcendental structure that does not describe the parts of creatures but rather it only consists of the relations between those parts. Many creatures may instantiate those relations in various ways, making a fish fin have the same relational position as a human leg. 3) The Marxist notion of underlying invisible structures. There are visible economic, social, and political structures and relations, but they are determined by underlying invisible structures that may manifest on the surface in different ways given the conditions of the situation. Learning is the fashioning and application of Ideas in response to problematic situations. It involves the discordant exercise of our faculties, which allows us to deal with the unrepresentable intensive and differential relations in the problematic situation. Negation is not involved in these deeper layers or in our formation and application of Ideas. It only comes about when Ideas actualize determinately in the extensive world. Actualization begins with intensive variations in speeds and distributions that later determine the extensive and qualitative properties. This actualization is dramatized, since it is unpredictable.  (Chapter 5. The Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible) Deleuze is lastly concerned with the fields of intensity that can be evident in the physical world. He wants to account for how intensive differences come about and how new ones are constantly generated. Thermodynamics studies the importance of intensive differences, but it also thinks that on account of entropy they will equalize, causing the world to become a homogeneous, uneventful disorder. But life forms attest to the fact that instead more differential relations become created and the world also tends toward a heterogeneous dynamic order. For Deleuze, this happens because fields of intensity always interact with Ideas in a dramatized way, meaning that things develop not in a mechanistically predictable manner but rather they unfold with unpredictable differences and variations, like how life evolves or how eggs develop. Underlying our own subjectivity is a process of individuation that likewise is unrepresentable even though it forms the basis for the structures that we use for representational thinking. Our faculties might try to think this unrepresentable source as an ultimate Other which can know the world without perspectival limits. But even it is a representation. We also note that philosophical thinking in Deleuze’s sense, since it takes us to the pre-subjective structures in the world and within us, is a solitary and solipsistic activity. (The Two Prefaces: After Difference and Repetition) We gather from Deleuze’s two prefaces to DR that he was trying to revolutionize philosophical thinking by liberating it from the restrictions of conventional modes of thought. These traditional ways of thinking subordinate difference to identity, and thus are unable to think the more basic sort of difference that is fundamental to the world. Deleuze does not succeed completely in DR, because the explicated extensive world is still too closely tied to the more fundamental unrepresentable level. Deleuze later values the third chapter, because it serves as a guide for the new way of thinking that he sought and which he more successfully accomplishes with Guattari in their reconceptualization of multiplicity.

 

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (Ch.5), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Chapter 5. The Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible’, 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

Chapter 5. The Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible

 

Very brief summary:

In Chapter 5, Deleuze examines how intensive difference is found in the extensive world and is at work in the productions of extensive properties and qualities. The Idea colludes with fields of intensity in the world so to explicate actualizable paths of development implicated in the Idea. On account of intensity’s “depth”, it cannot be represented, and also, it is a wellspring that continually injects difference, variety, and energy into the world by constantly generating differential relations. This depth is also at work in individuation, which is the fundamental process that produces the structures that secondarily come to be our subjectivity, ego, I, etc.  In efforts to represent intensity’s depth, we posit an Other as the grounds of representation, but it is an erroneous concept.

Brief summary: 
Intensive difference is at work in the generation of extensive properties and other qualities.  In thermodynamics, intensive differences in heat explain the work that is done in such thermodynamic systems as engines, for example. But more needs to be said, because we still need to know what makes intensive differences come about and regenerate. Since instead of succumbing to entropy which equalizes intensive differences and reduces the world to a homogenized disorder, we instead have living forms that increase intensive difference and tend toward heterogeneous order. These intensive differences that are spatially distributed come about on account of a deeper sort of intensity of some kind which generates also the extensive space and qualities within it, and as well it is responsible for the continual renewal of intensive difference in the world. One way to distinguish intensive from extensive multiplicities is what happens when you divide them: divisions of extensity produce homogeneous parts, while divisions of intensity produce heterogeneous ones. Intensities interact with Ideas when explicating into extensive actualizations. The Idea provides a network of actualizable outcomes, and the intensive circumstances of the world help channel the unfolding of those actualizations. For example, the DNA of the embryo is like the Idea, and it instructs the cell to divide, but the differential relations in the given chemical make-up of the embryo encourage certain divisions of the cell rather than others. Thus this development is dramatized. There is also a developmental process underlying who we are. It is our individuation, which is not our self, subject, or ego, but it is responsible for them. Since it is unrepresentable, our faculties fail to recognize it. They instead see as the grounds for representation a supposed Other which is the omni-perspectival view on the world that guarantees the wholeness of its parts. But in fact it is representable. Also, since philosophical thinking takes us to the pre-subjective structures of the world and ourselves, it is a solitary and solipsistic exercise.

Summary

(5.1 Introduction) We move now from the Idea to the role of intensive difference in space. (5.2 Thermodynamics and Transcendental Illusion) For Deleuze, difference is a difference in intensity. In thermodynamics, a system performs more work when there is a greater differential between input and environmental temperatures. In other words, an intensive difference is what changes the functioning of the system. But thermodynamics also has the idea of entropy, which implies that heat differentials in systems over time tend to equalize as the system enters into a state of homogenized order. Deleuze thinks thermodynamics is missing the element of the creation of differentials. Thermodynamics cannot for example explain the generation of life forms, where there is a movement toward more and greater differentials as the organisms becomes increasingly heterogeneous and organized rather than homogeneously disordered. (5.3 Merleau-Ponty and Depth) Deleuze has three spatial syntheses that are parallel to the temporal ones. 1) Intensive differences become spatially localized by being distributed into various spatial locations. From there they may exchange locations on the basis of how they relate, like how heat moves toward cold. 2) Intensive depth somehow generates the extensive space that intensities explicate into along with the qualities that are obtained. 3) The distributions of intensive differences along with their extensive properties and other qualities remains fresh and dynamic, because the intensive depth responsible for them returns eternally. In this way, newness and variety are continually injected into systems, which counteracts the tendencies toward entropy. (5.4 The Three Characteristics of Intensity) Intensity is of the realm of the spatium, and extensity of the extensum. Intensity explicates into extensity, thus intensity is more fundamental. The extensum is a homogenously divisible multiplicity, since its divisions produce parts of the same nature. This is what happens when we divide measures of space for example. The spatium is a heterogeneously divisible multiplicity, since each division produces parts that differ in nature. For example, were we to divide our consciousness of a melody between what it was like many moments before and what it is like now, we will find that the experiences are qualitatively different. Intensity has three important features, it includes the unequal in itself, since it does not divide into equal parts, it affirms difference, since its differential relations are not negational, and it is an implicated, enveloped, or embryonized quantity, since it explicates into extensities. (5.5 Individuation) Differential potentials in the physical world, like the electrical ones that create lightening, are intensive differences that explicate into extensive ones. There are actualizable outcomes implicated in the intensive relations that become explicit and manifest in the extensive world. For explication to happen, there is firstly the Idea, which is the structure of actualizable instantiations which in the Idea are a network of complicatedly implicated differential relations. The Idea establishes the sorts of solutions that can be taken. But the Idea interacts with the fields of intensities in the world which co-determine which actualization will explicate. For example, the embryo has a DNA code which can be thought of as the Idea. But this has to do with how it interacts with the intensive situation of the embryos and not because it is a fixed code. Certain intensive differences like in the chemical composition of the embryo help determine how the embryo develops. Thus the development is dramatized, since it is not entirely predetermined by the DNA. (5.6 The Other) For Deleuze, the individual is not the same as the ego, subject, I, etc. Rather, the individual has more to do with the generative processes that allow these other subjective structures to arise. Our faculties cannot recognize this generative process within us, since it is sub-representational. They have a solution for this, but it does not succeed. They need a non-representational basis for representation. They note how our perspectival limitations only give us fragments of the world and never complete objects. We seem however to posit an unlimited omni-perspectival view that guarantees the wholeness and unity of the parts of the world. But this omni-perspectival view is not possible for any subjectivity, and is thus seen as the Other. Because it creates a common constituted world for all of our judgments to agree about, the Other is the basis for representation. But such an Other is not really unrepresentable, but is only so for human which are perspectivally limited. But to really be the basis for representation, it needs to be un-representable. Deleuze also thinks that since philosophical thinking takes the thinker to the pre-subjective structures of reality, including those within oneself, it is a solitary and solipsistic exercise.

 

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (Ch.4), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Chapter 4. Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference’, summary

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

[Central Entry Directory]
[Deleuze Entry Directory]
[Henry Somers-Hall, Entry Directory]
[Henry Somers-Hall’s Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, Entry Directory]

 

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

Summary of

Henry Somers-Hall

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition:
An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

Chapter 4. Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference

 

Very brief summary:

Chapter 4 characterizes the sorts thinking that deal with the fundamental intensive level of reality and also the Ideas that are involved in this thinking. An Idea has two important features: 1) it is made of indeterminate parts that are determined by means of a binding differential relation, and 2) it can find many various spatio-temporal actualizations. The differential in calculus is determinate only through reciprocal relations, and it describes the basic structure of Ideas. There are three other examples that more or less fulfill the two criteria of Ideas: 1) Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ atomism, since atoms become determinate only when in vibratory collision and many combinations are possible, 2) Geoffroy’s homological anatomy, where there is a transcendental template whose parts gain sense only in their combined network and many instantiations can be actualized from it, and 3) the Marxist notion that there are invisible networks of relations that underlie and determine the social, political, and economic surface conditions. Learning happens when first we encounter a problematic situation, then on the basis of a question, we gather fragments to form an Idea, implicated within which are many actualizable solutions. The discordant exercise of our faculties is itself a solution to the problem of unrepresentable Difference that we encounter. Also, negation is not a part of the fundamental levels of reality and thinking. It comes about either when we formulate propositions, which are negatable, or in actualization, which generates determinate properties that can oppose one another. Actualization is dramatized, meaning that it begins with intensive variations in the speeds and distributions of development, then secondly these form the extensive and qualitative properties, but all this occurs dramatically in an unpredictable way.


Brief summary: 
Now that we know what thinking should not be like, we look at how Ideas and thinking should be understood. Deleuze thinks that Ideas should not be formulated propositionally, in which case it would take on empirical determinations. Kant’s Ideas at first seem to fulfill this requirement, but in the end they do not. Deleuze characterizes the Idea as having three intrinsically related moments, which are expressed in an unorthodox tradition in calculus. Bordas-Demoulin sees the differential as undetermined, since in the differential formulation for the circle we get the essence of a circle without needing reference to particular circles, as with Descartes’ algebraic formulation. Maimon thinks that the differentials involved in intuitive givenness by themselves are not sensibly determined but gain it when they are differentially related. In this way he describes the conditions for determinability. And Wronski is concerned with notable moments in a variation that are numerically determinable, thus he shows the role of determination. Other fields might have Ideas with this structure, but only calculus looks at the structure itself. Ideas emerge under three conditions: the parts gain determination only through their differential relation, they then lose their independence, and the Idea applies to a variety of spatio-temporal differential relational situations in the world. Deleuze offers three examples. The first is Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ atomism. Here the atoms are insensible until colliding, and they can take many various arrangements of combination. The second is Geoffroy’s homological model of anatomy. Here there is a template of sorts that is really just made of differential relations of parts that take a wide variety of instantiations in the different species. The third is Marxist social ideas. Here we are to think of an invisible network of underlying relations that are responsible for the surface conditions in the political, economic, and social situation. Ideas also have three dimensions: vertical (Ideas can be rearticulated in more basic fields), horizontal (one Idea can find different variations within one area), and depth (one Idea can underly seemingly different Ideas in otherwise incommensurable domains). An Idea is virtual, and it explicates into actuality. It is not possible, since the possible is a deprivation of reality, but the Idea has no such deprivations.  There are three stages in the formulation and actualization of Ideas, and this is learning. First we encounter a problematic situation. Secondly we gather little Idea fragments, which are differential relations, that we combine to form the Idea. We do this in part by means of the question, which creates the framework for how the Idea should be composed and what sorts of actualizations it implicates. Thirdly this Idea is like a map or graph implicated many actualizable solutions, which may find determinate actualization. Our body itself is a solution that evolution has found to certain problems. Our faculties also, insofar as they operate discordantly, are a solution to the problem of the unrepresentable fundamental Difference, which can only be thought about through this discordant exercise. Negation is not found at the levels of the problem or the Idea. It comes about in two ways. The first is when we formulate the problem propositionally, which allows us to negate the sentences. The second is in actualization, which creates determine properties that oppose one another. This actualization however happens by means of dramatization, since development is unpredictable and involves a complicated network of “actors”. Actualization is first spatio-temporally intensive, as it involves intensive variations in developmental speeds and distributions. Then only secondly is it extensive and qualitative.

Summary

(4.1 Introduction: Kant and Ideas) Deleuze seeks a model of thinking where thought does not consist of propositional solutions that relate to empirical objects. So Ideas for Deleuze should not have an extrinsic relation to the empirical world. Instead a) they should be intrinsically related, while b) maintain a difference in kind such that thinking on the level of Ideas is not done using empirical determinations. Kant’s Ideas are problematic since they have no empirical object, but this also means they have no propositional solutions. So they would seem to involve a sort of thinking that deals with problems that are not understood in terms of their possible solutions as articulated in propositions using empirical determinations. However, in the end, the Ideas for Kant receive empirical determinations and thereby extrinsically relate to the empirical world. (4.2 Ideas and the Differential Calculus) Deleuze thinks that the Idea has three intrinsically related moments, namely, indetermination, determinability, and determination. One place where they obtain such a relation is in an unorthodox tradition in the history of calculus that grants the differential its proper metaphysical status. The three main thinkers in this tradition are Bordas-Demoulin, Maimon, and Wronski. They will relate the three moments intrinsically in this way: the differentials dx and dy are by themselves undetermined, but they obtain their determinability when brought into differential relation, which can then be determined numerically. Bordas-Demoulin shows how the differential formulation for the circle gives us its essence, since ydy + xdx = 0 tells us that its points tend back steadily to its point of origin. Descartes’ alternative formulation x² + y² – R² = 0 only tells us what specific values of a circle are, and thus it requires determination. But since the differential formula tells us what circles are without needing to deal with specific ones, it sees the differential as being undetermined. For Maimon, the differential terms dx and dy by themselves cannot receive sensible determination, but they can when they are differentially related. In this way he gives the conditions for determinability. Wronski is concerned with moments in a variation that are drastic while also being numerically determined, thus he supplied the notion of determination. Again, the differentials begin undetermined on their own, but they are determinable when differentially related, which creates a value that may be numerically determined. (4.3 Ideas and the Wider Calculus) The Idea for Deleuze has these structural features, and differential calculus brings that structure to light. Other fields generate Ideas, but unlike calculus they might not explore the structure of Ideas themselves. An Idea is a multiplicity since it is composed of many differential relations. An Idea emerges under three criteria: 1) the parts gain their determination through their differential relation, but they are undetermined prior to this relation, 2) after differentially relating, they lose any independence they might previously have had, and 3) the Idea that emerges applies to a variety of spatio-temporal differential relations in the world. (4.4 First Example: Atomism as a Physical Idea) Deleuze gives three examples in the history of philosophy that seem to fulfill these three criteria for the emergence of the idea. 1) Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ atomism. The atoms that make the world are falling downward too quickly to be perceived, thus on their own the parts are undetermined. They only become sensibly determined when they collide repeatedly and vibrate in a general region. Thus the parts gain their determination through their differential relation. And since they may enter into a variety of relations, they apply to a variety of spatio-temporal configurations. Deleuze is not completely satisfied, since this model understands determination too much as sensible determination. (4.5 Second Example: The Organism as Biological Idea) 2) The second example is Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s homological model of evolutionary anatomy. The alternative model by Cuvier, comparative anatomy, gives the same name to different species’ parts that are similar in form and function. Thus a fish fin and a human arm have these different names. But as species evolve there might be evolutionary connections between these parts, even though their form and function mutated. Cuvier’s model will miss these connections. For Geoffroy, however, there is a transcendental structure that is merely a set of relations between parts. All species, then, have these relations, even though their parts differ. Thus it is the same relational juncture in the transcendental structure that in fish takes the form of a fin and in humans an arm. So, the parts in the transcendental model on their own have no sense or conceptual content were they taken on their own, but they gain some conceptual determination when they are understood as occupying their place in the whole total network of differentially related parts, and there are many possible evolutionary instantiations of this transcendental structure. It would seem then that Geoffroy’s model fulfills Deleuze’s requirements for an Idea, but Deleuze thinks that it is still too much tied to actual instantiations. (4.6 Third Example: Are there Social Ideas, in a Marxist Sense?) 3) The third example is Marxist social ideas. There are certain visible surface structures like laborers and means of production. Althusser thinks that Marx is not so concerned with these but more so with deeper, invisible, unspecifiable political and ideological relations that are responsible for the generation of the visible surface structures. These deeper structures also fulfill the three requirements for an Idea, since the parts of these deeper structures have no sense taken independently, but they gain it as a network of such relations, which can take on many different manifestations under different historical circumstances. (4.7 The Relations of Ideas) There are three dimensions of varieties of Ideas. 1) Vertical: an Idea for a problem or solution can be reformulated in a more basic or general domain. So biological ideas might be reformulated using chemistry concepts, which can be reformulated into physics notions, which finally might be reformulated in mere mathematics. 2) Horizontal: here an Idea finds variations of itself within one domain. For example, Geoffrey’s transcendental structure finds many different arrangements (perhaps for creatures with different basic structures, like plants and vertebrates), each being its own Idea. 3) Depth: two systems might seem to be very different and to have very different Ideas might on a deeper level share the same Idea. Geometry and arithmetic for example seem very different, since the one can represent irrational values simply and the other cannot. But on a deeper level they share fundamental structures and thus the same Idea underlies the seemingly different Ideas in each system. (4.8 Essence, Possibility and Virtuality) Ideas for Deleuze become actualized, but we are not to understand them as if there were essences in the traditional sense of the term. For Aristotle the essence is obtained by removing everything that is inessential. The essence for Bergson however is something like the combined network of all actualizable manifestations of the Idea, which are folded in together in a complicated way. His analogy is color. White light is like the essence of color, since it can be broken down into any actualizable color, all of which when recombined form white light. This notion of the Idea involves the concepts of virtual, actual, and possible. The Idea is virtual, and it explicates into actualities. The virtual is not the possible, since the possible is the real deprived of actuality. However the virtual is fully real and lacks nothing, since it implies its infinity of actualizable instantiations. The virtual has three important properties: 1) it is real without being actual, since it is responsible for the genesis of actualities 2) it is complete without being entire, since it contains all actualizable instantiations (making it complete), but since they are infinitely many and various, it can never be exhausted by its actualizations (making it not entire). 3) it is differentiated without being differenciated, since it is composed of a network of differential relations (making it differentiated), but these relations and its terms cannot be ascribed predicates (and so it is not differentiated). (4.9 Learning and the Discord of the Faculties) Learning for Deleuze does not involve drawing inferences from propositions. Instead, we learn when we engage with the problematic situation at hand, then take from many sources little Idea fragments in the form of significant relations in the situation, and combine them into a map or graph of sorts that implies a wide variety of directions to pursue, which is the Idea, then lastly to develop solutions that can change the conditions of the original situation in such a way as to solve its problematic elements. Evolution has already done such a thing, since each of our organs is like a solution to certain problems. Likewise, each faculty is like such a solution. Now, the world is composed fundamentally not of distinct recognizable entities but rather with intensive differences. This means that were our faculties to operate concordantly to recognize a common object, they are not thinking about this fundamental layer of reality. Instead, their discordant exercises, whereby each has its own object of a different kind, enables such a thinking of intensive difference, and thus the discordant exercise of the faculties is like a solution to the problem of Difference itself. (4.10 The Origin of Ideas) So the problem is found in our encounter with an intensive field of differential relations that we cannot process using our given resources. We then formulate an Idea by putting fragments together, and on its basis we find solutions to the problematic situation we originally encountered. What relates the original problematic solution to the Idea we come to form is the question, which sets a particular framework for the construction of the Idea. Deleuze uses the metaphor of the dice throw to illustrate this. The problem is like being in a situation that calls for the throw of the dice, which will be the solution. The dice themselves are the Idea, since they contain the actualizable outcomes, only one of which at a time is in fact actualized. Also, the dice faces can be redesigned, just as the Idea can be reformulated. And the continual reformulation of the Idea is like the repetition of difference. (4.11 The Origin of Negation) For Deleuze, negation is not a part of how things are generated. However, there can be negation after they are generated. The problematic situations do not have negation in them, nor do the Ideas and the actualized solutions. We get negation however when we formulate the problems propositionally, which allows “it is not the case that…” to be affixed to them. This propositional denial is one origin of negation. But it misleads us into thinking that there is negation in the fundamental levels of reality. There is another origin of negation, which is the process of differentiation by which distinct actual states of affairs are generated. But this negation is secondary to the non-representable fundamental structures where there can be no negation. (4.12 Actualisation) Implicated in the Idea are many actualizable instantiations of the Idea, which serve as solutions to problems. But there is dramatization in actualization. It is like the development of egg, where new stages are not predictable from prior ones, and also there are many interrelated parts that interact complicatedly like dramatic actors do. Actualization in this form of dramatized development is initially spatio-temporally intensive, because it involves intensive variations in the accelerations of development and in the distributions of elements. Then, as a result of the intensive spatio-temporal dynamics, extensive and qualitative features come about secondarily.




Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

Somers-Hall, (Ch.3), Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition, ‘Chapter 3. The Image of Thought’, 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

Chapter 3. The Image of Thought

 

Very brief summary:

Philosophy so far has failed to think about the intensive and differential basis of the world, because it has been using a representational model of thinking that cannot deal with this non-representational level of reality. Deleuze characterizes this traditional image of thought by discussing its eight “postulates”: 1) good sense (reason alone is adequate for thinking), 2) common sense (the faculties cooperatively deal with a common object), 3) recognition (thereby they recognize an object), 4) representation (its means and product are representational, since it has the four features of representation, namely, identity, analogy, opposition, and resemblance), 5) error (as misrecognition), 6) proposition (propositions bear truth), 7) solutions (problems are understood in terms of possible solutions in propositional form), 8) knowledge (as being propositional rather than the learning process). For Deleuze, in order to think about the intensive grounds, our faculties need to operate discordantly while having objects that differ in kind. Kant’s sublime experiences are partly like this, since the faculties have different objects that do not conform to one another. Also Plato’s experiences of inconsistency involve sense data of an imperfect idea and a mental recollection of a pure Idea, which differ in kind. But Kant thinks that reason finally supplies a representation, and Plato traces the origins of thinking to another realm of Ideas rather than to the immediate intensive situation.



Brief summary: 
One of the reasons that philosophy has not thought about the intensive grounds of the world and of ourselves is because it has been using a faulty conception of what philosophical thinking should be. Deleuze characterizes this traditional “image of thought” on the basis of its eight “postulates:” 1) good sense: reason is thought to be adequate for the task of philosophical thinking, 2) common sense: our faculties including reason cooperate to recognize a common object, 3) recognition: common sense processes the data, and by means of good sense we can recognize the thing by forming a proper judgment of what it is, 4) representation: what we come to recognize and as well our means of arriving at that recognition has the four problematic features of representation, namely, a) identity (there is one self-same object that receives determinations), b) analogy (it is recognized when the intuitive and conceptual contents are analogous to each other), c) opposition (we select the object’s determinations partly by knowing what are the opposing determinations), d) resemblance (the selected determinations resemble one another). 5) error: misrecognition is the source of error. 6) proposition: the locus of truth is the proposition and not sense, 7) solutions: the problem is understood in terms of possible solutions, and 8) knowledge: knowledge is taken to be propositional solutions rather than the process of learning while struggling within the problem. These postulates show how traditional philosophy has placed thinking on a level of representation that misses the underlying problems and significances that thinking should attend to. For this, Deleuze thinks that all the faculties should work discordantly, each having objects that differ in kind. Kant’s sublime experience at first creates such a situation, but it is rectified by the reason which supplies the needed idea. Plato’s discussion of the experience of inconsistent properties also seems at first to satisfy Deleuze’s requirement. Here the sense faculties are dealing with for example imperfect equality among sense givens, while the understanding is recalling something that differs in kind, namely the experience of the pure Idea of perfect equality. Yet unlike Plato, Deleuze thinks the Idea should be immanent to the intensive situation and not found in a separate realm of Ideas.

Summary

(3.1 Introduction) Deleuze is critical of the traditional image of thought, because the foundations of thinking cannot be found within the structure of judgment. (3.2 Feuerbach and the Postulate of the Principle) There are eight postulates of the dogmatic image of thought. 1) good sense: rational thought is adequate for thinking. Descartes’s method of doubt for example leads us to a basic act of reason, the ‘I think’, which can be a stable and reliable basis for all other thinking. Hegel also begins with thought itself. Feuerbach criticizes this notion, since the methodologies assume things other than rational thought, for example, the assumption that the philosopher is speaking the truth, which is required for understanding what they say in the first place. Instead, Feuerbach thinks that philosophical thinking must go outside itself and have an encounter with pure sensuous intuition. Deleuze also wants such an encounter, but instead with the transcendental ground for the passive synthesis of sensuous intuition. (3.3 Descartes and the Postulates of Common Sense and Recognition) 2) The second postulate is common sense. There are two meanings for common here: a) all our faculties cooperate to recognize a common object, and b) all people in common have such faculties that work this way. In cases of misrecognition, our reason might incorrectly judge the organized givens of our faculties as something it really is not. (3.4 Kant and the Postulate of Representation) 3) The third postulate of recognition. By means of the common sense operation of the faculties, we may recognize the object. 4) The fourth postulate is of representation. The faculties recognize the object under the form of a representation, which means it has the four problematic qualities of representation: a) identity: it is a self-same entity to which its determinations are predicated, b) analogy: the object’s determinations are grasped as belonging to the object by means of an analogy between their intuitive and their conceptual manifestations, c) opposition: the object’s determinations are selected in part by knowing which ones are opposed to those, and d) resemblance: the determinations are selected also on the basis of their resemblance to one another in their shared belonging to a common object. Kant’s model of recognition shows all the first four postulates. (3.5 Plato and the Encounter) Deleuze would prefer instead that each faculty’s object be different in kind and that all faculties worked discordantly. Plato might have a model that would satisfy Deleuze. For Plato, we have faculties for our sense experience and faculties for our conceptual thinking. Sense experience can give contradictory properties of the same object, as when two things appear as equal in size under certain conditions and not equal under others. Plato thinks this experience causes us to recall a prior experience of the Idea of pure equality that we had before our bodies were born. Thus in such experiences our faculties have objects that differ in kind, since the senses are dealing with impressions of imperfect equality and our minds with a pure Idea of perfect equality. But really they are not different in kind, since both the bodily experience of imperfect equality and the experience of the Idea of pure equality are both the same sort of experience, only with the prior one being better. Also, his model has the four problematic properties of representational thought, since the Idea is self-same (identity), the objects have opposing properties (opposition), our knowledge of things is analogous to our knowledge of ideas (analogy), and the sense experience resembles and thus recalls the pure experience (resemblance). (3.6 The Kantian Sublime and the Discordant Relation of the Faculties) In Kant’s mathematical sublime, there is a discord of the faculties. They cannot agree on what what the object is, since it is too great to be processed, and yet they are forced to come to some conclusion about it. The reason then supplies the Idea of totality. Deleuze is not satisfied, since he would prefer that the Idea come from the discord itself and not from one faculty, especially not from the reason. (3.7 Descartes on the Postulate of the Negative or Error) 5) The fifth postulate of error, which is the notion that error results simply from misrecognition. Descartes sees error as happening when the faculties together process a common object, but the reason fails to make the proper judgment about what it is and in that way misrecognizes it. For Kant, we want a total system of knowledge. But for him, all knowledge needs both concepts and intuitions from sense experience. However, many things we need to know cannot be experienced, like the temporal origin of the world. So reason supplies concepts without the necessary intuitions, in order to have a more complete system of knowledge. On the one hand, this makes us think that we can have knowledge without intuition, while on the other hand, this is not true. Thus Kant calls it the transcendental illusion, and this for him is error. (3.8 The Postulate of the Proposition) 6) The sixth postulate of the proposition or of the logical function. A sentence has both a sense and a denotation. Its designation is the true objective state of affairs it refers to. Its sense is subjective belief, which is not dependent on truth and falsity, since a proposition can make sense even if it is false. Sense is broader than denotation, since it refers to possible states of affairs (either that it is or is not raining), but denotation can only refer to one state of affairs, the true one. But still the tendency in philosophy has been to give denotation the primary status, and then sense is understood in terms of how it can take propositional form. This leads to a number of problems. One is that sense is broader and thus more fundamental than the proposition, so we cannot make the proposition the ground for sense. The second problem comes when we try to explicate the sense of a proposition in propositional form. It only produces a new proposition, which will have a new sense. This regress could terminate in a fundamental proposition like Descartes’ cogito, which has problems that we already noted. Or the regress might be infinite and thus fail to find a solid ground. (3.9 The Postulate of Modality or Solutions) 7) The seventh postulate is of solutions or modality. Under this view, problems are understood propositionally and in terms of their possibility of being solved. So for example, a referendum deals with a problem, but it is understood as a possible policy change that is formulated as a proposition that takes the form of a questions, like “Yes or no, should this possible change be made?” But such an understanding of problems as propositions only tells us what conditions them, since we try to know, under what conditions can it be solved? But such a focus on solutions cannot help us know what generates the problems, and thus it is not adequate for a model of thinking the grounds of reality. (3.10 Conclusion: The Postulate of Knowledge) 8) The eighth postulate is of knowledge. It regards knowledge as being constituted of propositional solutions to problems expressed in propositional form. For Deleuze, what is more important for knowledge is the process of learning, which for him is the active engagement with the problems when we are still trying to grasp them and solve them.

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

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

Chapter 2. Repetition for Itself

 

Very, very brief summary:

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

Very brief summary:

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

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

 

Summary

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




Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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

 

 

 

 

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

by Corry Shores
[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

Chapter 1. Difference in Itself

 

Very, very brief summary:

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

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


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

Summary

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

Citations from:

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

Or if otherwise noted:

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