Deleuze says, "The error of all efforts to determine the transcendental as consciousness is that they think of the transcendental in the image of, and in resemblance to, that which it is supposed to ground" (The Logic of Sense, p. 105). I don't undertsand this idea that transcendental consciousness must ground anything, but I must allow that Deleuze has a better grasp than I do on the phenomenology of his day, which is the primary target of criticism in this section. This is what Deleuze means by the transcendental: "Only when the world, teeming with anonymous and nomadic, impersonal and pre-individual singularities, opens up, do we tread at last on the field of the transcendental" (p. 103). Whose world? Whose transcendental? I'm a little perplexed.
Labels: Deleuze, ground, transcendence, world
11 Comments:
Interesting that you hone in on this.
I'm, as you know, neither a 'deleuzian' or a kantian, and neither do I know much about either (esp. kant) but I do know that this criticism of deleuze's on the kantian transcendental field is taken up by all d's followers.
I think the idea is that for d. kant fails in his own project - the transcendental should generate the subject rather than find itself kitted out with one ab initio. It should set out the 'conditions of poss' for things???
So D. wants a transcendental from which 'things' 'emerge' - and which does not simply copy or trace the empirical domain.
and of course this deleuzian transcendental is 'no-one's'. I think he follows Sartre in this impersonality. We read backwards to the field from which 'we' 'emerge.'
(this whole q. of theories of emergence is still neglected. Stengers does write something on it in Cosmopolitiques. For ex. the so-called 'hard problem' presumes a theory of emergence - consc. emerges from brain activity.
For Crocco et al. the mind/person does not 'emerge' from the brain.
For d/g the mind is the brain.
and as a conseq. deleuze cannot have a strong notion of cadacualtez - Eric Alliez notes in 'The Signature of the World' that d's phil verges on a scholastic 'monophsycism' (ony one 'mind'- and he should know...
merry xmas.
"Yet one more step: when immanence becomes immanent to 'to' a transcendental subjectivity, it is at the heart of its own field that the hallmark or figure [chiffre] of a transcendence must appear as action now referring to another self, to another consc (communication). This is what happens with Husserl and many of his successors who discover in the Other or in the Flesh, the mole of the transcendent within immanence itself...
In this modern moment we are no longer satisfied with thinking immanence as immanent to a transcendent; we want to think immanence with the immanent, and it is from immanence that a breach is expected. Thus, in Jaspers, the plane of immanence is given the most profound determinatio as 'Encompassing', but this encompassing is no more than a reservoir for eruptions of transcendence. The Judeo-Christian word replaces the Greek logos...
The three sorts of Universals - contemplation, reflection, and communication - are like three philosophical eras - eidetic, Critical, and Phenomenological - inseparable from the long history of illusion. The reverse of values had to go so far - making us think that immanence is a prison (solipsm) from which the Transcendent will save us...
Sartre's presupposition of an impersonal transcendental field restores the rights of immanence [The transcendence of the ego]...
(D/G, What is phil, pp.42-3).
Spinoza was the philosopher who knew full well that immanence was only immanent to itself...He is therefore the prince of philosophy....
Perhaps this is the supreme act of philosophy: not so much to think The plane of immanence as to show that it is there, unthought in every plane, and to think it in this way as the outside and inside of thought, as the not-external outside and the not-interal inside - that which cannot be thought and yet which must be thought, which was thought once, as Christ was incarnated once, in order to show that one time, the possibility of the impossible. Thus Spinoza is the Christ of philosophers, and the greatest philosophers are hardly more than apostles who distance themselves from or draw near to this mystery.
(WIP, p.60).
I think with your knowledge of phil you would get a lot more than me from What is Philosophy. IN fact i think it would be a shame to not pass that way after LoS.
I might refer the reader to the essay 'Subjectless Subjectivities' in A Shock to Thought (ed. Massumi). The essay shows how d/g make use of Raymond Ruyer's concept of 'absolute survey' in envisaging the immanent survey of a field without subject. Absolute immanence = absolute survey - just as they see the brain in 'absolute survey - with no distance from itself.
This was Ruyer's great intuition which the AGNT is aware of - we are not looking at a perceptual field 'in front' of us.....His error was ultimately to locate this absolute survey in the brain - but that's another story.
P.
Merry Christmas to you too.
Kristeva says somewhere that her big question is how is language possible? For my part I'd say it a little differently: how can we talk? Well, I can be selfish. Sometimes I tell myself, in what seems like good faith, that I have to be selfish with language in order to demonstrate what can be done, at the risk of sounding like a fool. Maybe if I'd read Kant I'd be a better conversationalist. On the other hand I feel pretty postmodern. Who knows. Sometimes I think the problem of language is so far from a problem of epistemology it's a wonder anything gets communicated at all.
We have A Shock to Thought in our university library so I'll check out that strange person's essay on Monday--speaking of whom, does he have plans to translate Ruyer?
I was planning on doing Anti-Oedipus after Logic, but if you think What is Philosophy? is a good next step I can check that out again (just skimmed it last time).
No plans to translate the 'psychobiologist' Ruyer. It's not necessary. There is just one great intuition.
Anti-Oedipus is a fine text (like an old favorite)- but you might get more from WIP - you'll be the judge of that.
I am not a deleuzian - but he was, for me, the most inter-esting phil...always takes you somewhere you never knew existed.
Deleuzian or no, your grasp of Deleuze's thought impresses me as does your enthusiasm. I'm glad you've been following my readings even through my snail quick passage through Logic.
I should have said 'a most inter-esting philosopher.' Lists aren't that useful...
He is of course, a v. good writer which does help (smile).
I read "Subjectless Subjectivities" yesterday and it was familiar to me--you had mentioned it before.
For what it's worth the bit on Ruyer is useful - but the rest (of the essay) is rather naive. I hadn't met the AGNT then...
Still it's the only piece in english (or any lang.) that discusses ruyer and dg. Written and researched over 10yrs ago.
It's a pity I can't get this blog to alert me when a comment is added!
It's a pity I can't get this blog to alert me when a comment is added!
Maybe you could if you used a gmail account or blogger identity. Where else have you been hanging out, btw? I want to read more blogs.
yes, I will explore getting an 'identity'.
I don't hang out anywhere to be honest.
Fido was the first blog I commented on - alerted by Mariela Szirko to your comments...(She must have done a search one day).
Otherwise I v. occas look at Steven Shapiro - his links can be useful - but i can't say i read it.
I would read Brian Massumi if he had a blog! perceptive fellow. (does have a webpage).
B. Latour's site is excellent - visit at least once a year.
Used to hang out on the old spoon's dg list. It died - prob a good thing.
Otherwise the only list I currently sub to is JCS (journal of consc studies). A Kind of science fiction comedy show. Heavyweights like the likeable Stuart Hameroff often weigh in - it's a kind of iteresting negative paradigm!
I do scan the Guardian Weekly - I sub to the paper version. - There are lots of blogs on the Guardian site(s). But I just don't have the desire.
Learning Spanish and trying to keep up with the kids is enough!
P.
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