Charis Tambakis, Η ανάδυση της δυνητικότητας στη
φιλοσοφία του Ζ. Ντελέζ
Στην πρώτη περίοδο της φιλοσοφικής του δραστηριότητας
(ως τη διατριβή του το 1968) ο Ντελέζ μελετά συστηματικά — μεταξύ άλλων — τη
φιλοσοφία του Μπερξόν, ερμηνεύοντας δημιουργικά τη σκέψη του ως απάντηση στην
καντιανή υπερβατολογική κριτική. Ο Ντελέζ εστιάζει στη γέννηση της διαφοράς,
θεωρώντας ότι αυτήν εκφράζει ουσιαστικά η μπερξονική διάρκεια, από μεθοδολογική
(γνωσιολογική) και οντολογική σκοπιά. Στα πλαίσια λοιπόν της μπερξονικής
σκέψης, η δυνητικότητα αναδεικνύεται καταρχάς σε εξηγητικό σχήμα για τη
λειτουργία της μνήμης ― και κατ’ επέκταση της συνείδησης ―,
περιγράφοντας έτσι το ιδεατό πεδίο της αδρανούς ή δυνητικής διαφοροποίησης που
συσσωρεύεται στο ασυνείδητο. Ήδη στο σχετικό του κείμενο του 1956 αλλά και στα
μαθήματά του πάνω στη Δημιουργική εξέλιξη (1960), ο Ντελέζ επεξεργάζεται την
έννοια της διαφοράς κατά τρόπο ώστε να προσδώσει στη διάρκεια κυρίαρχα
οντολογικά χαρακτηριστικά, συντασσόμενος με την προσπάθεια του Μπερξόν να
εξηγηθεί η γένεση του πραγματικού. Για τον Μπερξόν όμως η διάσταση διάρκειας (ή
πνεύματος) και ύλης δεν παύει να συνιστά μια διαφορά φύσης ή δύο αντίθετους
πόλους στην προσέγγιση του απόλυτου. Ο Ντελέζ αναιρεί αυτήν την πολικότητα
επεκτείνοντας τις αναλύσεις της Δημιουργικής εξέλιξης και θεωρώντας ότι κάθε
πραγματικό στην ολότητά του ενέχει δυνητική και ενεργητική διαφοροποίηση, με
την τελευταία να δηλώνει την εξατομίκευση που προκύπτει από την αλληλεπίδραση
της δυνητικής δομής με τους προκείμενους χωροχρονικούς συσχετισμούς.
Προτείνεται έτσι ένας μονισμός της διαφοράς, ο οποίος μάλιστα επανεντάσσει στη
διαδικασία της ενεργούς διαφοροποίησης το φυσικό πεδίο ως χώρο και ύλη, κάτι
που άλλωστε αποτελούσε και στόχο της μπερξονικής σκέψης
Χάρης ΤΑΜΠΑΚΗΣ Υποψήφιος Διδάκτωρ, Πανεπιστήμιο
Ιωαννίνων. Γεννήθηκε (1967) και μεγάλωσε στο Αγρίνιο (Δυτική Ελλάδα). Σπούδασε
στο τμήμα Φιλοσοφίας, Παιδαγωγικής και Ψυχολογίας του Αριστοτελείου
Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης, αποκτώντας ειδίκευση στη Φιλοσοφία (1991). Μετέβη
με κρατική υποτροφία για μεταπτυχιακές σπουδές στη Γαλλία, όπου μελέτησε την
αριστοτελική θεωρία της μνήμης (DEA, Paris-IV), με διευθυντή τον G.
Romeyer-Dherbey (1994). Συμμετείχε με ανακοινώσεις σε όλα τα μείζονα συνέδρια
φιλοσοφίας που οργανώθηκαν τα τελευταία χρόνια στην Ελλάδα και οι δημοσιεύσεις
του αφορούν κυρίως την αρχαία φιλοσοφία αλλά και τη λογοτεχνία.
Εργάζεται ως φιλόλογος στη μέση εκπαίδευση, ενώ
παράλληλα ολοκληρώνει τη διδακτορική διατριβή του στο Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων,
με θέμα τις θεωρίες του χρόνου και της μνήμης κατά τον Αριστοτέλη και τον
Μπερξόν, υπό την επίβλεψη του Γ. Πρελορέντζου
chtabakis@sch.gr
Spyridon Tegos, Revisiting Empirisme et Subjectivite:
Notes on Deleuze;s Concept of Empiricism
Deleuze’s reading of Hume can be fruitfully seen as an
attempt to reclaim the concept of empiricism and dissociate it from what was
routinely thought to be the ‘British tradition of empiricism’ and its
contemporary analytic legacy. On the other hand, Deleuze’s refusal to endorse
any standard form of naturalism should also be set next to his, at least
partial, rejection of Kantian readings of Hume’s empiricism. As he puts it
himself in EMPIRISME ET SUBJECTIVITÉ: ‘The criterion of empiricism becomes
evident. We will call ‘nonempiricist’ every theory according to which, in one
way or another, relations are derived from the nature of things’. Therefore an
important aspect of Deleuze’s project regarding the relationship between the
mental, the affective and the corporeal in his anthropology originates in this
text and can be summarized as ‘the substitution of a psychology of the mind by
a psychology of the mind's affections.’ In this paper I endeavor to locate this
precocious book alongside his virtually unknown early text entitled ‘Instinct
and institutions’ the slightly predates Empiricism and subjectivity within
Deleuze’s overall project and its evolution over time. More precisely I focus
on the meaning and scope of this concept of the ‘psychology of mind’s
affections’. Concomitantly I discuss its relation with the alleged vitalism in
Deleuze’s work. In this context, I think that the idea of a ‘pluralism as
monism’ receives a new light insofar as it is tested against the background of
Deleuze’s concept of ‘transcedental empiricism’. This analysis can be
profitably located within the project of Mille Plateaux as part of a
‘philosophy of surface’, an attempt to dissociate philosophical analysis from
the image of profoundness while setting the agenda for a philosophical imagery
of infinite ‘plateaux’, that is for a philosophy of surface.
Spiros Tegos is Lecturer of Early Modern Philosophy at
the Department of Philosophy and Social Studies, The University of Crete,
Greece. He holds a Ph.D. on ‘The Concept of Social Sentiments (friendship,
sympathy, compassion) in Early Modern Political Philosophy’ (Paris X-Nanterre,
2002) and visiting research appointments at the Universities of Harvard,
Princeton, IASH University of Edinburgh and Ecole Normale Supérieure, Lyon.
Most recent publications include ‘Adam Smith Theorist of Corruption’, The
Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith (eds.) M. Paganelli, Ch. Berry, C. Smith., (OUP:
2013) and ‘The Addisonian and French Origins of Politeness in Adam Smith’,
Revue Internationale de philosophie, 2014, ‘Friendship in commercial society
revisited: Adam Smith on commercial friendship’, Propriety and Prosperity. New
Studies on the Philosophy of Adam Smith, (eds.) David F. Hardwick & Leslie
March, Palgrave, 2014.
Spyridon.tegos@gmail.com
Ed Thornton
In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari attempt to
distinguish Lacanian structuralism from it’s ‘reverse side’. In this paper I will
argue that this distinction can only be understood in light of a rigorous
explanation of the use of the term ‘multiplicity’. While Deleuze and Guattari
clearly state in Anti-Oedipus that “desiring-production is pure multiplicity”
and that it is “a multiplicity so complex that we can scarcely speak of one
chain or even one code of desire”, little work has been done to clarify the
importance of this concept in the context of a theory of desire. The concept of
a ‘multiplicity’ comes to Deleuze from Riemann and from Bergson, and appears
throughout Deleuze’s philosophical development. Over this time a precise
understanding of the structure of a multiplicity is developed and a clear
distinction is made between ‘continuous’ and ‘discrete’ multiplicities. In this
paper, my discussion of the concept of the ‘multiplicity’ will draw on a range
of Deleuze’s work, running from Bergsonism (1966) through to A Thousand
Plateaus (1980), in order to clarify the distinction between these two types of
multiplicity and to show how it can be used to differentiate Lacanian
structuralism from its ‘reverse side’.
Ed Thornton is an AHRC, TECHNE funded, doctoral
student at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is currently conducting
research for his PhD thesis, which is tentatively titled, How to construct a
line of flight: A psychoanalytic genealogy of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept.
This project will focus on an analysis of the concept of the ‘line of flight’,
paying close attention to the influences of the theories of Jacques Lacan and
the writings and practices of Fernand Deligny on Deleuze and Guattari’s
collaborative project. Before starting his PhD research, Ed completed his MA in
Cultural and Critical Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London and his
BA in Philosophy at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge.
ethornton@live.co.uk
Ovidiu Tichindeleanu, An Other Genealogy of Deleuze
and Guattari for a Philosophy of Liberation
In seminars from 1981, Félix Guattari elaborates on
what would be two complementary analytical fields opened by his own praxis: on
one hand, generative schizoanalysis, dealing with fields, territories, objects,
persistent subjects, behaviours, efficient causes, formal representations,
space-time coordinates, energetic coordinates; and on the other,
transformational schizoanalysis, dealing with lines of flight, acts of passage,
diagrams, transformation of incorporeals, non-informational, non-systemic, and
non-energetic matter, abstract machines. What is interesting is that when he refers
to his practice at La Borde, both fields remain in full focus, whereas in his
own “philosophical” books, as well as in the correspondence with Deleuze, the
first direction tends to recede and the second line of concepts, undoubtedly
more seductive, takes pre-eminence. I argue that this internal tendency is
reproduced and brought to extremes in the post-socialist history of
post-Deleuzian philosophy. By so doing, Western radical thought remains
enclosed within an internal critique of modernity and compensates through
extravagant avant-garde gestures, leading ultimately to something that East
Europeans have called masked defeatism. Thus, Ray Brassier’s
“anti-correlationist” critique of Deleuze, who ingrains the world with meaning,
instead of radically accepting that thought is conjoint with non-being, and
Mark Fisher’s “capitalist realism”, the radical acceptance of the incapacity to
imagine anything outside of capitalism, since capitalism does not require, as
Deleuze and Guattari have shown, signification or belief in order to function.
I argue that this tendency is the biggest obstacle against a continuation of
Deleuze and Guattari’s work in critical social theory, contemporary Marxism and
decolonial thought. I suggest that at an epistemic level, the critically-minded
or left-field Western academia turned towards the poststructuralist French
philosophy, but in the process of importing it across the Atlantic, the
extravagance took over, allowing people to develop critiques of Western
modernity all while remaining white and Eurocentric. As opposed to this
tendency, I propose resituating Deleuze and Guattari’s inspiring concepts
within a different theoretical genealogy. For the limited purposes of this
presentation, I present two lines of connection, both coming from
psychoanalysis: First are Alice Miller’s appeals for waking the Western world
from its "millenary somnolence" by listening to the voice of the
child, and her description of psychoanalysis as a form of intimate coloniality:
the fascination of a Western professional possibility with “discovering the
unconscious of others”. Secondly, I refer to Jacob Levy Moreno’s alternative
project of psychoanalysis. As opposed to Freud, who drew his work in Vienna
significantly from the experience of his East European immigrant pacients,
Moreno, a Romanian Jewish immigrant to Vienna and then the United States, drew
his theory from his own experience as an East European immigrant in the West. I
argue that Miller’s theory of the child’s voice and Moreno’s theory of adult
Interpersonal Relations, as well as his methodology for social sciences which
included “sociodrama” and “psychodrama”, provide a theoretical and historical
context that reduces the extravagance of Deleuze and Guattari and opens
concrete ways of decolonizing the Western philosophy in substantial alliance
with the insurrection of the subjugated knowledges of the world.
Ovidiu Tichindeleanu, PhD in Philosophy (Binghamton
University, State University of New York 2009). Philosopher and social theorist
living in Chisinau, Moldova. Editor of IDEA magazine, and Collection
Coordinator of IDEA Publishing House, Cluj, Romania. Co-founder of the
independent platforms Indymedia Romania (2004), CriticAtac.ro (2010) and
LeftEast International (2012). Member in the Board of Directors of El Taller
International. From 2012 teaches at the Decolonial School of Roosevelt
Institute, Middelburg, Netherlands.
Ovidiu.tichideleanu@yahoo.com
Rohan Todd, The Emergent Affinities of Force in the
Texts of Temple Grandin
Thought without image has to start with an analysis of
the current state of affairs and from that point create something new. Although
monism is crucial to Deleuze’s empiricist endeavour, he nonetheless works
strategically and differentially with oppositions. As such, this paper is
concerned with the opposition between the sensible and the intelligible.
Bearing in mind that Deleuzian empiricism is not a mere reversal of this
opposition, I seek to explore the complications and experimentalism involved in
keeping a differential ontology open when our modes of making intelligible so
easily fall into a recognition model of thought. In experimenting with means by
which we might do this, neuroatypical modes of experience provide, if not a
model, at least a provocation. Engaging the quasi-scientific texts of the
autist Temple Grandin, I problematize the rationalisation of her interventions
in slaughterhouse design, founded as they are on a supposed affinity between
her experience as an autist and that of animals. Yet, amongst the abstractions
that give intelligibility to her experience, are rich descriptions of sensate
encounters with the intensive multiplicities of a world of force not yet tamed
by recognition. This paper performs a motivated reading of Grandin’s texts to
tease out some of the ways that Deleuze’s pluralist empiricism would keep open
the differential ontology that the recognition model prematurely forecloses.
Rohan Todd is a researcher in the School of Sociology
at the Australian National University. With an interest in Social Theory,
Human/Animal Relations, and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Rohan's current
research project seeks to think anew the shifting relations between
Sociological theory and the diversity of life it seeks to account for.
School of Sociology, The Australian National
University.
Shan-Ni Tsai, Both An Arch and Many Stones: The Time
of Storytelling in Calvino’s Invisible Cities
Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is initiated by
Kublai Khan’s invitation of Marco Polo to tell stories in search of the truth
of the corrupting empire. The dialogue between the two poses the novel as a
problem doubly structured: While Kublai Khan asks from an essentially monist
view for a totalizing rule that describes everything in his territory, his
quest is answered by Marco Polo’s stories of the most unpredictable and diverse
particularities of the cities from a radically pluralist view. The coexistence
of the two views is reflected in the novel’s composition of a monist framing
and plural descriptions of the cities. How can a storytelling be both monist
and pluralist? Drawing on Deleuze’s ideas of time, especially Aion, this paper
argues that the complicated time of storytelling composed by the encounter
between Kublai and Polo is crucial to this paradox. The contradictory views
participating in the storytelling can be transvaluated as two dimensions of a
time. As the time of storytelling unfolds itself, the two distinct views encounter
and undergo several transformations. The time of storytelling turns Kublai’s
totalitarian monism into a monism enveloping differences singular to particular
cities; and Polo’s disparate plural cities into a pluralism expressing a monist
vision. Between the monist and the pluralist, the time of storytelling emerges
because of the double movements of the actualization of Kublai’s virtual monist
problem of Kublai’s into plural answers and the counter-actualization of Polo’s
plural city in a monist virtual view.
Shan-ni Tsai is a master student in the Department of
Foreign Languages and Literatures in National Taiwan University. Her interests
include Deleuze, Benjamin, psychoanalysis, and literature of/after modernism.
She is now working on her thesis titled The Groundless Landscape of Time: A
Deleuzian Reading of Calvino’s Invisible Cities. tsaishanni@gmail.co
