What is Deleuze?

[nomadthethird]

(Badiou! The New French Philosopher!)

As someone else who shall remain nameless put it so eloquently: Badiou's career has benefited immensely from his having outlived Deleuze by some 20 years.

What I find sort of sad is that academics and their admirers find it necessary to fight Badiou's 50-year-old battle against Deleuze, to become more famous and well-regarded than Deleuze was, for him, even still.

Is there really any need anymore? Deleuze has gone the rounds and been chewed up and spit back out by the important parties. All that's left is revisionism.

Btw, even Hewlett Packard sees potential in this geometric logic business:

Geometric Logic, Causality, and Event Structures

So much for being outside the reach of capitalism.

 

[poetix]

I have bills to pay. I'm not what you would call a person of independent means.

Anyhow:

1) In between not knowing the math, and knowing the math, there is learning the math. Very little existing knowledge is presupposed in B&E. There are always some prerequisites, but they're really not that heavy (I didn't study mathematics formally past GCSE, but I didn't find myself completely unable to proceed). Intellectual curiosity is a strong motivating factor for some people - e.g., in theory, those who read philosophy books and talk about them. Writing philosophy books for people who have no intellectual curiosity strikes me as a fairly unrewarding exercise.

2) Nowhere is it claimed that mathematics provides access to being. The claim (or "wager", since it's not exactly a truth-claim as such) is that mathematics "is ontology"; that is, that it lays out just the kind of empty framework, systematically voided of substance, that one might use if one wanted to talk about being without presuming to be able to make any "inroads" into it whatsoever.

3) Neither is it claimed that theorems are politically decisive, or that one should care about them the way one cares about food, shelter, paying the bills and so on. There are however other things it's possible to care about than bare animal survival, and other ways of caring about them. And the different objects and modalities of concern do sometimes link up, in sometimes unpredictable ways, over the course of an average human lifetime. It's why people get baptized, say, or learn to speak another tribe's language so that they can marry someone from that tribe (I was speaking to someone the other day who did this). I get the impression that Badiou's political radicalisation was a life-event of a rather similar sort.

4) The mathematics doesn't have the function of supporting other truth claims by somehow magically "proving" them. It provides a framework for making the various things you're claiming consistent with each other. They might all be false at once; the point is for them to be consistently false. (Also, of course, the consistency of Badiou's "meta-ontology" is not as rigorous as the consistency of the mathematical "ontology" it tracks - the one isn't a model for the other, although the mathematical concept of model does provide a metaphor - and it is no more than a metaphor - for their relationship).

5) If there can be left-Heideggerians, there can be left-Platonists.

 

[nomadthethird]

Parlor games for the "Left" while 9/10 of the world starves and continues being exploited.

I like it!

 

[nomadthethird]

I actually think writing philosophy for people who ostensibly have no reason to care about it or bother with it is a very good idea and would be a very noble cause.

As I see it, the problem with people who want power, especially political power--even those who sincerely believe this would only be for the good, and disavow their own sadism--is that they're naive enough to believe they'd obviously do a better job than whoever's running Empire in its current incarnation.

Anyone who knows anything about power doesn't want it. At least not the way its defined you know phallic-ly.

 

[poetix]

I actually think writing philosophy for people who ostensibly have no reason to care about it or bother with it is a very good idea and would be a very noble cause.

Intellectually incurious people do not even read the books that are written especially for them. And if a curiosity should arise, it is hardly likely to be satisfied by something that's obvously pandering to the incurious. You think Malcolm X in prison would have been delighted by a book written especially for the person he was desperately trying to escape being?

 

[josef k.]

"Intellectually incurious people..."

An interesting category of people.

 

[nomadthethird]

Intellectually incurious people do not even read the books that are written especially for them. And if a curiosity should arise, it is hardly likely to be satisfied by something that's obvously pandering to the incurious. You think Malcolm X in prison would have been delighted by a book written especially for the person he was desperately trying to escape being?

I don't know if I believe in "curiosity" the way you do. I think people cling to whatever their ego needs to cling to in order to get through the day. For some people that's intellect. For others, it's looks. For others, it's athleticism. Etc. Each person develops that trait throughout their lives in order to feel valuable to the world in some way, usually defining themselves over and against everyone they despise (usually whoever rejected them or intimidated them early in life).

I don't know if being more intellectual than the next guy is better than the alternative, or more laudable, or something everyone should strive for. There are a lot of very philosophically uncurious people who accomplished important things. Some of the smartest people I've ever met or known or worked for, who've accomplished things I probably couldn't even dream of accomplishing for the world, would laugh derisively at "disputes" regarding "ontology".

 

[josef k.]

I don't know if being more intellectual than the next guy is better than the alternative, or more laudable, or something everyone should strive for. There are a lot of very philosophically uncurious people who accomplished important things. Some of the smartest people I've ever met or known or worked for, who've accomplished things I probably couldn't even dream of accomplishing for the world, would laugh derisively at "disputes" regarding "ontology".

Amen to that.

 

[nomadthethird]

Speaking of Plato, the dialogues were actually performed among common men (or at least, non-philosopher statesman and politicians), for the benefit of the entire polis in entirely common language, not for the benefit of a small elite of fully washed philosophers in barely intelligible jargon.

 

[nomadthethird]

And by the way, Malcolm X was fighting for those leagues of "common" uneducated intellectually uncurious black folk regardless of their philosophical shortcomings.

 

[pajbre]

And by the way, Malcolm X was fighting for those leagues of "common" uneducated intellectually uncurious black folk regardless of their philosophical shortcomings.

true that. the argument that people who haven't gotten into badiou or any other philosopher (or work of art, etc) are simply lazy or incurious is spurious at best. maybe it has more to do with (in part) an unequal distribution of social capital, and/or as was mentioned above, most people in the world are more concerned with not being shot or not starving.

 

[poetix]

true that. the argument that people who haven't gotten into badiou or any other philosopher (or work of art, etc) are simply lazy or incurious is spurious at best. maybe it has more to do with (in part) an unequal distribution of social capital, and/or as was mentioned above, most people in the world are more concerned with not being shot or not starving.

That would indeed be a strange argument to be making.

My point is simply that people who are interested in philosophy but know very little maths ought not to be deterred from learning the mathematics employed by Badiou simply by the fact that they don't already know it. There is a sort of inculcated math-phobia that a lot of people have, possibly due to being taught very boring maths very badly at school. Some people, otherwise quite motivated, will be put off Badiou by this. There is an extent to which Badiou throws down the gauntlet to the less mathematically well-equipped reader (myself, for example): the message is very much the Rancierian "all that matters is the will to understand". There is something quite liberating about finding that this is in fact the case. But not everyone will want or need to be liberated in this particular way.

People who are not interested in philosophy are generally just not interested
in philosophy - this goes for Deleuze as much as Badiou. If they should happen to develop such an interest, they will seek out real philosophy books to read, not books written for people who are not interested in philosophy. Autodidacts don't like being condescended to; a dislike of being condescended to is often among the reasons why they become autodidacts in the first place.

Being interested in philosophy is not a form of moral virtue, and will not make the world a better place. The capacity to be interested in things, philosophy included, is more or less universal however; one of the things it might mean for the world to be a better place is that more people would be able to develop and exercise this capacity with respect to a wider variety of possible objects of interest. There is certainly no privileged place for philosophy among these objects.

It seems an odd thing to demand of a work of speculative metaphysics that it should possess a universal relevance to the immediate concerns of the world's struggling population, and somewhat incharitable to suggest that any activity that does not possess such relevance is merely a "parlour game". If someone were claiming that a knowledge of "mathematical ontology" were necessary for personal salvation, or essential for proper determination of the correct political line, one would be entitled to laugh at them a little. But I don't find such a claim in Badiou, any more than I find the claim that his systematic thinking "proves" the validity of his (generally admirable) political positions. Here is what he says, in fact:

Philosophy does not have, and has never had at its own disposal the effective figures of emancipation. That is the primordial task of what is constituted in political doing-thinking. Instead, philosophy is like the attic where, in difficult times, one accumulates resources, lines up tools, and sharpens knives. Philosophy is exactly that which proposes an ample stock of means to other forms of thought.

It would be a marvel of interpretation if anyone could detect here an appeal to intellectual authority, or a demand that "other forms of thought" submit to philosophical regulation.

 

[nomadthethird]

You're not getting it, which leads me to believe that you've never had much trouble paying the bills even if you have them to pay (which even the Duponts and Rockefellers do, btw, tho I am not accusing you of being rich).

How can you expect people to be "curious" and interested in becoming more "curious" about things like books (which cost money and if not that precious time) when they can't even afford to eat, their neighborhood is a war zone, their kids are on their way to jail, or they are, and they have to work several jobs to stay afloat, etc?

This is the situation that a good 90% of the 6 billion + human population finds itself in.

Philosophy is what Thorstein Veblen would have called a "leisure class activity", today more than ever.

No one asked "speculative metaphysics" to address these problems of basic survival and international crisis. The question is whether speculative metaphysics is important in a world where these problems exist. AFAIC, I couldn't care less if people waste time on nonsense--just don't pretend you're the world's greatest leftist if all you care about is metaphysics and you aren't doing a damn thing about the problems you're blaming entirely on the Right.

 

[nomadthethird]

As for the "proving" aspect of Badiou's math:

In case you haven't noticed yet, geometry, logic, and geometric logic are all systems of MATHEMATICAL PROOFS. That is how math works. By proposing axioms and then proving them with what else? Math.

This means that Badiou's "axioms" are meant to be proved with his mathematical work on sets and geometric logic. I doubt they are, but he tries, all the same.

 

[nomadthethird]

I've never once in my life met anyone who was "mathphobic". I have, however, met people who struggle with math and find it nearly impossible to understand, and in more cases, people who simply do not have the means nor the opportunity (to borrow a phrase from the law) to spend years and years on the sort of schooling it takes to master advanced mathematics such as set theory or geometric logic. I did exceptionally well in the maths that I've taken, but I have no interest in continuing in it, because it's more important that I learn cell and molecular biology and biochemistry so I can do well in medical school.

I am lucky to have the means and opportunity to pursue the career I want to have. Most people are not so lucky. If I one day end up with a practice of my own, or work for a hospital, or work in research, it won't be because I'm more "curious" than anybody else, it's because I was lucky, up and down the line, basically from conception.

Life/the world is not a meritocracy. Far from it.

 

[josef k.]

...the claim that his systematic thinking "proves" the validity of his (generally admirable) political positions.

Such as his professions of support for Mao and Pol Pot...

 

[poetix]

You're not getting it, which leads me to believe that you've never had much trouble paying the bills even if you have them to pay (which even the Duponts and Rockefellers do, btw, tho I am not accusing you of being rich).

I found that graduate student poverty started seriously sucking when I had a small infant to feed. That was the point at which I gave up being a graduate student. I appreciate that the exigencies of keeping body and soul together can impinge fairly forcefully on people's life choices, even in an affluent society.

How can you expect people to be "curious" and interested in becoming more "curious" about things like books (which cost money and if not that precious time) when they can't even afford to eat, their neighborhood is a war zone, their kids are on their way to jail, or they are, and they have to work several jobs to stay afloat, etc?

People do sometimes get peculiar notions about what really matters in life, in the most unpromising circumstances. Religious revivals and political movements both demand time and money that their most dedicated adherents can little spare. People think.

This is the situation that a good 90% of the 6 billion + human population finds itself in.

This is unquestionably true. However, I don't accept the Maslow's Hierarchy view of human needs where the material desperation of those billions drives out every other form of need or aspiration, reducing them to bodies to be clothed and bellies to be filled. That isn't how people see themselves. We fight for bread and roses.

No one asked "speculative metaphysics" to address these problems of basic survival and international crisis. The question is whether speculative metaphysics is important in a world where these problems exist. AFAIC, I couldn't care less if people waste time on nonsense--just don't pretend you're the world's greatest leftist if all you care about is metaphysics and you aren't doing a damn thing about the problems you're blaming entirely on the Right.

Who is pretending to be the world's greatest leftist?

Badiou, as is well-known, has long been involved in political work for the rights of "undocumented" migrants. I doubt he overrates the significance of speculative metaphysics in the accomplishment of that work. His writing and his politics meet in his polemics, books like Ethics and The Meaning of Sarkozy, which exhort their readers in fairly plain terms to reject the naturalised metaphysics of capitalist realism and commit themselves to collective political thought and action.

I've been politically inert for most of my adult life, which has been swallowed up by first study and then parenthood and work. At the time when I could have done the most, I was a complacent liberal who was more or less happy to let the grown-ups run things. Now I'm trying to find ways of making myself useful. I certainly don't consider knowing an awful lot about Badiou and set-theoretic ontology to be one of those ways.

 

[poetix]

As for the "proving" aspect of Badiou's math:

In case you haven't noticed yet, geometry, logic, and geometric logic are all systems of MATHEMATICAL PROOFS. That is how math works. By proposing axioms and then proving them with what else? Math.

No, that is not how math works. Axioms are not proved. Theorems are proved, on the basis of axioms. Such proofs amount only to the demonstration that, given such and such axioms, such and such a theorem follows. Badiou works through some of these proofs - generally only very simple ones - as part of a demonstration of how axiomatic set theory hangs together, and uses the way in which it hangs together as a guide-rail for making his meta-ontology hang together. That's all!

 

[josef k.]

Now I'm trying to find ways of making myself useful. I certainly don't consider knowing an awful lot about Badiou and set-theoretic ontology to be one of those ways.

So what exactly is Badiou doing for you, philosophically-speaking?

 

[nomadthethird]

I found that graduate student poverty started seriously sucking when I had a small infant to feed. That was the point at which I gave up being a graduate student. I appreciate that the exigencies of keeping body and soul together can impinge fairly forcefully on people's life choices, even in an affluent society.

Poor graduate students, being in the top--what?--10th percentile of employability. You still don't get it. The people who live in Bogota who can either work for the cartels, prostitute themselves, both very high risk occupations, or very literally starve to death. Sort of the same way we can either work for our Capitalist Overlords or starve.

People do sometimes get peculiar notions about what really matters in life, in the most unpromising circumstances. Religious revivals and political movements both demand time and money that their most dedicated adherents can little spare. People think.

What really matters is thinking, curiosity, and high mindedness, then? That's exactly what I thought you were saying.

I don't think religious revivals are important at all. Nor do I think most political movements are "important". They're gain-motivated, selfish, stupid, and messy.

People do not think very well. That is where you're very, very wrong. The thoughts and "accomplishments" of humans so far have amounted to pathetic stabs in the dark that have actually caused much more harm than they have good. We know just enough about, say, chemistry to be very, very dangerous to our own ecosystems and survival. Abstraction is not very efficient, productive thinking, after all. It's actually hugely inadequate to the world. Computers are much better with information than people are--that's why we let them do the important stuff now.

Who is pretending to be the world's greatest leftist?

Go ahead and take a wild guess as to who I was talking about there.

I've been politically inert for most of my adult life, which has been swallowed up by first study and then parenthood and work. At the time when I could have done the most, I was a complacent liberal who was more or less happy to let the grown-ups run things. Now I'm trying to find ways of making myself useful. I certainly don't consider knowing an awful lot about Badiou and set-theoretic ontology to be one of those ways.

Thank christ you were converted to the ways of righteousness, otherwise, what would the rest of the world do?