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Single Idea 21903

[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / i. Deflating being ]

Full Idea

In Deleuze's hands ontology is not a matter of telling us what there is, but of taking us on strange adventures.

Gist of Idea

Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure

Source

report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03

Book Ref

May,Todd: 'Gilles Deleuze' [CUP 2006], p.86


A Reaction

Presumably you only indulge in the strange adventure because you have no idea how to specify what there is. This sounds like the essence of post-modernism, in which life is just a game.


The 10 ideas with the same theme [denial that much of interest can be said about being]:

To think about being we must have an opinion about what it is [Nietzsche]
There is no 'being'; it is just the opposition to nothingness [Nietzsche]
Frege's logic showed that there is no concept of being [Frege, by Scruton]
The word 'being' is very tempting, but in fact means nothing at all [Cioran]
Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)]
Before Being there is politics [Deleuze]
Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure [Deleuze, by May]
Being is a problem to be engaged, not solved, and needs a new mode of thinking [Deleuze, by May]
The modern view of Being comes when we reject numbers as merely successions of One [Badiou]
The primitive name of Being is the empty set; in a sense, only the empty set 'is' [Badiou]