Gilles Deleuze: Affirmation in Philosophy

285 Pages·2010·2.08 MB·English

by  Jay Conway

Gilles Deleuze: Affirmation in Philosophy
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Gilles Deleuze: Affirmation
in Philosophy
Jay Conway
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© Jay Conway 2010
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First published 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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ISBN: 978–0–230–27658–1 hardback
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conway, Jay, 1971–
Gilles Deleuze : affirmation in philosophy / Jay Conway.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–230–27658–1
1. Deleuze, Gilles, 1925–1995. I. Title.
B2430.D454C69 2010
194—dc22 2010027499
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
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For my parents, Jean Elizabeth Falls
and John Turner Conway
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Part I Deleuze and Systematic Philosophy 13
1 The shape of systematic philosophy 13
2 Deleuze’s slogan of the middle 18
3 The middle as becoming 20
4 Deleuze’s problem, differential, or abstract machine 23
4.1 The thought of incommensurability 23
4.2 The place of critique 25
4.3 Rethinking identity and difference 30
4.4 The social as site of invention 31
4.5 The body as site of creativity and risk 33
Part II Theatre of Operations 35
1 The exclusive disjunctive synthesis of
professional philosophy 37
1.1 The average post-structuralist, the average postmodernist 38
1.2 The average continental philosopher 42
2 Affirmative philosophy 44
3 Three conceptual personae: the Anglo-American
philosopher, the French philosopher, and the logician 48
4 The philosopher, the artist, the scientist, the historian,
and the logician 53
5 The phenomenologist as hero; the phenomenologist
as parasite 70
5.1 Counter-actualization and conceptual personae 70
5.2 The phenomenology series 73
6 The structuralist as hero; the structuralist as palace dog 88
7 Philosophy’s encounter with literature 93
7.1 Literary genre and the book of life 94
7.2 The literature of capitalism 98
7.3 Two more portraits: Whitman and Proust as philosophers 99
7.4 Deleuze as philosophy’s Dashiell Hammett 101
7.5 Philosophy is not poetry; poetry is not philosophy 105
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viii Contents
8 Why does the hero loath discussion? The abstract
machine of philosophical discourse 107
8.1 Discussion and debate as Deleuzian concepts 108
8.2 How do the concepts operate within Deleuze’s system? 110
8.3 There is no language, only an abstract machine 111
8.4 The major side of philosophical discourse 118
8.5 One more battle: the philosopher versus the academic 121
Part III Affirming Philosophy 125
1 Philosophy’s demise has been greatly exaggerated 129
1.1 The abstract machine of the end of philosophy 130
1.2 The concept of philosophy’s closure 132
1.3 Deleuze’s laugh 132
2 The first metaphilosophical question: what is a philosophy? 139
2.1 Philosophical history 139
2.2 T he incommensurability and interpenetration
of problems 140
2.3 A problem is difference 142
2.4 The question of evaluation 147
3 The second metaphilosophical question: what does
it mean to think? 154
3.1 What is an image of thought? 155
3.2 The idea of a dogmatic image 155
3.3 The dogmatic image and the problem of creativity 156
3.4 The dogmatic postulates and the Deleuzian alternative 162
4 Ethico-political metaphysics 177
4.1 The figure of difference in Deleuze’s portrait of Hume 180
4.2 The figure of difference in Deleuze’s portrait of Bergson 182
4.3 The figure of difference in Deleuze’s portrait of Nietzsche 185
4.4 The figure of difference in Deleuze’s portrait of Spinoza 191
4.5 Summary: counterfeit difference, genuine difference,
and ethico-political difference 203
4.6 This world of forms: difference and repetition and
the logic of sense 205
Notes 227
Bibliography 250
Index 259
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Acknowledgments
In Proust and Signs, Deleuze describes how philosophical apprentice-
ships require time and encounters. A chance encounter with a book,
then more books, led me to write my own. And this project took consid-
erable time: time filled with not only detours, dead-ends, and frustra-
tion, but also great excitement. I thank the late Gilles Deleuze for his
beautiful and inspiring work.
No one could ask for a more patient, more encouraging community than
the one that accompanied me on this road. I want to thank my mother Jean
Falls for encouraging my pursuit of philosophy from day one. I want to
thank my father John Conway and Tammy Conway for their deep commit-
ment to my well-being and to the life of this project. I want to thank Duane
Wright for opening up his home to me. I want to thank my sister Margo
Radovich along with Rob Radovich and Kayla Radovich for their love and
support. For his help with this manuscript, for allowing me to try out appli-
cations of Deleuze’s concepts in our daily life, and for his solidarity in all
matters philosophical I thank Carlos Brocatto. For believing in this book I
thank Priyanka Gibbons and the good folks at Palgrave Macmillan.
I want to acknowledge the tireless support, helpful suggestions and
humor of Georgia Warnke. David Glidden’s sensitivity and appreciation
for crime fiction helped me play both sides against the middle. No one
validated my decision to work on Deleuze’s philosophy more than
Carole Fabricant. Her fierce love of books and ideas encouraged me to
go past the cliché to the concept and the street. For their acts of kind-
ness I want to thank Donna Balderrama, Michelle Bloom, Bernd and
Lore Magnus, Stephen Daniel, and Mark Balaguer. I thank my students
past and present, especially those who attended my lectures on the
work of Deleuze, Spinoza, and Bergson. For kind words along the way I
thank Todd May, Constantine Boundas, Mike Davis, Sandra Harding,
and Erika Suderberg. Many years ago I overheard Rosi Braidotti recom-
mend the book Empiricism and Subjectivity; I am indebted.
My introduction to philosophy occurred while I was a student at the
University of South Florida. One could not ask for a better, more chal-
lenging, and more accommodating group of instructors than Jim Bell,
Roy Weatherford, Willis Truitt, Linda Lopez McAlister, and Stephen
Turner. The lectures, kindness, and friendship of Joanne Waugh inspired
me to pursue philosophy. I want to thank Butler Waugh as well.
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