[William Theodoracopulos] “Force as force does not need a name..here Buddhism is helpful to recognize that ” form is empty, emptiness is form” ..so you’re wrong..forces do not need to form in order to exist..this is also the new science…as for distinction there is no need for identity either. Spinoza is clear here in discussing affects…what composes is affirmative..what decomposes isnt…how can one tell the difference? Being tells the difference..knows this difference
Perhaps deleuze is harsh with the dialectic..his book on Nietzsche has been criticized for this…but there is value in what he says
Hegelianism is a negative and abstract movement which is a kind way to say its fake, just as identity is fake..for Nietzsche and deleuze it remains part of christian thought..that is..preying on other beings for its own existence..it is a movement of incorporation ,like napolean and the rise of the nation state..and even above..trying to incorporate everything into itself..it is territorializing and totalitarian…even metaphysically it demands all thought to be about itself
Obviously deleuze hates it which is why he has such concepts as deter rotor is luxation and lines of flight..post structuralism is arguably an assault on the Hegelian structures of nations institutions and even thought itself…it is simply against dialectics in every way
William Theodoracopulos Deterritorialization not deter rotor”
[William Theodoracopulos] “Force as force does not need a name..here”
{AK}: That may be so, but you’re already using one, ‘force’, to assert that observation.
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[William Theodoracopulos] “Buddhism is helpful to recognize that ” form is empty, emptiness is form”
{AK}:Yes, that is true, but Buddhism would characterise the Nietzschean metaphysics of forces and their Deleuzian affirmations as empty, too.
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[William Theodoracopulos] “so you’re wrong..forces do not need to form in order to exist..this is also the new science”
{AK}:The concept of ‘force’ is no less ‘metaphysical’ than the concept of ‘form’. In practice, assertion of either, always involves the implicit support of the other. This is not merely ‘linguistic’ or ‘conceptual’, as if language or conceptuality were independent phenomena, neatly divorced from the scenarios they reference.
At the most radical level, if one asks what do the words ‘form’ and ‘force’ do, a set of operational relations is obtained, largely involving referential and signifying uses. This is a characterisation from the perspective of utility. The conditions necessary for those uses to obtain are the structures of reference and signification. Those structures, in advance, and in the majority of social uses, express metaphysical patterns and theoretical bias.
Arguments against this, from alleged ignorance of intention; from claimed non-apprehension of metaphysical concerns; and so on; are not valid in the instances where cultural materials are used, and where those cultural artefacts are already complicit with and sourced from a history of metaphysical considerations. Secondly, those arguments themselves presuppose theories of intention and apprehension, choosing their options of defence through selections undeniably metaphysical.
This is not to say, that metaphysics in some way necessarily ‘owns’ all that it comes into contact with; or even that metaphysics is something ultimately determinable, at all, in such a way as to suggest a strictly determinate entity capable of such exclusive appropriations, at all.
Yes, it is the case that forces can operate without formally staged apprehension, but it is not the case that discourses and uses of the word, ‘force’, whether formally staged or not, do not draw on referential and signifying conventions commonly associated with the formal history of that word. Citing relations of independence between the linguistic form of the word ‘force’ and its referents; the allegedly ‘non-linguistic’ ‘forces’ referred to; is in itself the exploitation of a formal, metaphysical relation, that of ‘independence’. Thirdly, it is not the case that the linguistic is constrained only to formalisation. Language is just as susceptible to theorisations based on concepts of force, as on those based on concepts of form.
Thus far, my response has been to the statement, ‘forces do not need form in order to exist’, but you actually wrote,’ forces do not need to form in order to exist’. The addition of ‘to’ introduces a different emphasis, requiring special consideration. Firstly, though, as both versions of the statement appeal to the concept of existence, that should form the initial analysis.
If we take ‘to exist’ in its root or radical meaning, as ‘to stand forth’, then this could suggest, as corollary, that ‘forms’ are marks or registrations of ‘existence’; that they are ‘phenomena’ that ‘stand forth’, in some way; ‘appearances’ of existence; ontic-ontological signs; et cetera.
Whatever the nature of this existentiality; whether ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’; ‘subjective’ or ‘objective’; ‘physical’ or ‘mental’; if we consider existentiality as inclusive of all these possibilities, then it is sufficient to say that the concept of ‘standing forth’ applies to all of them.
That being the case, if form is that which ‘stands forth’, in all of these cases, the next consideration, would be the question of what ‘standing forth’ consists of; what conditions enable it; and what it suggests?
Firstly, on what basis does ‘standing forth’ occur? Difference, is the basis, and one of the enabling conditions, for ‘standing forth’ to be possible. Without selectivity, identity, the possibility of indication; all, corollaries of difference; ‘standing forth’ is not possible.
Distinctness; however it’s ‘nature’, ultimate or otherwise, might be characterised; is the minimal, enabling condition, for ‘standing forth’ to occur. It doesn’t have to be an absolute distinctness, merely an accessible one, in some way.
It is this existential distinctness or differentiation, that you implicitly appeal to in your contrast of ‘form’ and ‘force’, with respect to the concept of existential ordering ([WT] “forces do not need to form in order to exist”). So, straightaway, you’re engaging in speculative, metaphysical distribution of categories; asserting definitional closures for the concepts of form and force.
I said that difference was one of the enabling conditions of the ‘standing forth’ relation; the other condition, arises with the question of what does ‘standing forth’, ‘stand forth’ to? What registers that ‘standing forth’ occurs?
If there is no discernible registration of ‘standing forth’ in any distinct way, on what grounds can ‘standing forth’ be assumed or declared? Such would be an assumption or declaration based on a lack of distinct indication. If distinct indication is not in operation, what exactly is being referenced or meant, where is the differentiation? These are not necessarily insurmountable objections, but resorting to them could be premature if there has been a lack of adequate philosophical demonstration.
The rejection of existential registration, of the ‘standing forth to’, requires either of two concepts: one, the concept of a positable self-existent, not ‘standing forth to’ anything at all, not even itself; two, the concept of a positable ‘existence’, not configured by any determination at all, to the extent that registration of it is impossible due to this determinative lack. Both concepts are more redolent of mystical totality, than any positivist empiricism of forces, as proffered by Nietzsche and Deleuze. Buddhist thought does not neglect the analysis of these concepts, though in slightly different contexts to the one that I’m developing here.
The first concept, of a ‘self-existent’, is that of the classical ens, whose strict criteria of self-sufficiency prevents its full application to empirical entities, due to their alleged contingency.
The second concept, of an ‘existence’ without determination, is the afterglow of ontological inclusion, a non-specific assumption of Being, the hypothetical host instantly interiorising all suggested posits, kind of like Deleuzian immanence.
Underlying both concepts, is another assumption, the philosophy and metaphysics of identity.
The concept of a ‘force’ is one in which a distinct tendency that ‘stands forth’ in some way is formalised according to the distinctness with which it ‘stands forth’. It is as much a defined formulation, as any ‘form’. Though it may not be projected into the transcendence of a timeless Platonised stasis, its supervenience on the metaphysics of identity is equal to that of the concept of form.
Whatever qualities or attributes might be associated with the concept of ‘force’, in contrast to those belonging to the concept of ‘form’, the metaphysics of identification inaugurating both concepts is operationally identical. Whatever the subsequent claims of ‘existential’ distribution might be, with respect to the contrast between ‘form’ and ‘force’, those claims supervene on prior constructions of metaphysical assumption arising within identity inauguration.
The fixation of these prior constructions into an unanalysed and unthinking habit is one of the factors responsible for the narrow perspectives of insularity dominating contemporary philosophy, in general.
It is within the ambit of the Occident’s insular and positivist ontological habits, that
we see the circle of its mutually self-confirming assumptions in operation. Each categorical determination draws its raison d’être from the others. They are legitimised and delegitimised in accord with each other’s respective orderings. Traditional philosophical systems privilege one or other route through various schemas of these foundational, structuring principles; emphasising ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’ forms of these principia, as metaphysical tastes dictate.
But the root condition on which the kaleidoscopic variations of all the others rest, is identity assumption. And it is precisely this notion of identity which most requires full, analytical consideration. If notions of substance and transcendence necessarily arise as supplements to the alleged inadequacies of the yearning identity posits of Becoming, this supplementarity is merely emblematic of the contingency associated with identities in transition; which, if classical stringencies are to be believed (the criteria of a self-existent ‘ens’), are not really identities, at all.
If it is the case, that avowed empirical contingencies are treated as alleged ‘self-existents’ networked in the service of a ‘univocity of immanence’, as it were, this might well provision a comforting and uncomplicated lebenswelt of seemingly transcendence-free practices, wherein one could potter about in plurality, taking everything at face value, entirely undisturbed by the deeper complexities of substantial variation, especially if the ideology of ‘immanence’ has essentially replaced or displaced those troublesome complexities.
But if we look closer, asking exactly what ‘immanence’ is, how it arises, what does it mean? All of these questions have one answer, the inversion of ‘transcendence’. The ideology of immanence is rooted in that which its users attempt to proscribe or elide. The logics determining immanence and transcendence are one and the same, as with the Heraclitean observation that the way up and down is the same. Buddhist philosophy would not characterise non-duality as ‘immanent’, because of the polarisation that it seems to suggest.
Under the sign of rejected ‘transcendence’, resides a host of historically interrupted developments, not all of which were necessarily forms of ignorance grown obsolescent. They require more understanding than philosophy and contemporary academic fashions of the 21st-century seem able to provision. Domestication to what is after all the populism of an easy positivist, meme-mentality, is not the most effective production of such insights.
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[William Theodoracopulos] “…as for distinction there is no need for identity either.”
{AK}:
[William Theodoracopulos] “Spinoza is clear here in discussing affects…what composes is affirmative..what decomposes isnt…how can one tell the difference? Being tells the difference..knows this difference”
{AK}: Notions of ‘composition’ and ‘decomposition’ require contexts of delimitation to arbitrate which is which. Those contexts of delimitation, theoretically speaking, could be seen to be arbitrary, but in practice are contingent on initial identity assumptions of some sort.
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[William Theodoracopulos] “Perhaps deleuze is harsh with the dialectic..his book on Nietzsche has been criticized for this…but there is value in what he says”
{AK}:I don’t have anything to say about this, it’s not controversial, at least not at this time; not really interested in pursuing the issue.
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[William Theodoracopulos] “Hegelianism is a negative and abstract movement which is a kind way to say its fake, just as identity is fake..for Nietzsche and deleuze it remains part of christian thought..that is..preying on other beings for its own existence..it is a movement of incorporation ,like napolean and the rise of the nation state..and even above..trying to incorporate everything into itself..it is territorializing and totalitarian…even metaphysically it demands all thought to be about itself
Obviously deleuze hates it which is why he has such concepts as deter rotor is luxation and lines of flight..post structuralism is arguably an assault on the Hegelian structures of nations institutions and even thought itself…it is simply against dialectics in every way”
{AK}: The apparent anti-imperialism of this paragraph is in line with conventional, contemporary receptions and fashions. It appeals to the concept of fakery to condemn both Hegel, identity, and even thought itself.
Interestingly, back in the early 1990s, I began to develop a critique along the lines of the latter, titling it, ‘beyond the laws of thought’ or ‘afterthought’. The conventional concept of thought; the conception of it and its traditional sitings or positionings; were, it seemed to me, an entirely inadequate and insular fixation. So I can agree with those estimations.
However, appealing to a notion of fakery presupposes a conception of truth. Whilst this is a traditional dualisation of contestation, is it the most effective response when such a tradition might be in question?
On poststructuralism, I would just add that it is quite simply the considerations occurring ‘after’ structuralism, where ‘structuralism’ can be taken to be perhaps all of modernist thought, not just the thinkers such as Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, et cetera, identified with Continental structuralism of the 1950s and 1960s, incorporating, of course, the Czech and Russian thinkers who were precursors.
The ‘after’ would not only refer to chronological development, but to the theoretical questions occurring after the culminations of modernist projects. So it is in this sense, that ‘poststructuralism’ segues into ‘post-modernism’.