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Single Idea 21907

[filed under theme 7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism ]

Full Idea

For Deleuze, the task is not one of replacing a single set of categories with another set. It is one of being able to create and move among various sets of categories, and even to cross between them.

Gist of Idea

We don't want another new set of categories; we want a variety of flexible categories

Source

report of Gilles Deleuze (The Actual and the Virtual [1977]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 4.05

Book Ref

May,Todd: 'Gilles Deleuze' [CUP 2006], p.132

A Reaction

This sounds fun, but I'm not clear why we need this anarchic mix of categories. The motto of Deleuze seems to be 'at all costs, keep moving'. He loved the idea of nomads. Is Rimbaud our role model? The influence of Foucault is obvious.

The 22 ideas from Gilles Deleuze

21845 Philosophy aims to become the official language, supporting orthodoxy and the state [Deleuze]
21844 The history of philosophy is an agent of power: how can you think if you haven't read the great names? [Deleuze]
21839 When I meet objections I just move on; they never contribute anything [Deleuze]
21841 We must create new words, and treat them as normal, and as if designating real things. [Deleuze]
21842 Don't assess ideas for truth or justice; look for another idea, and establish a relationship with it [Deleuze]
21838 Before we seek solutions, it is important to invent problems [Deleuze]
21847 Before Being there is politics [Deleuze]
21840 A meeting of man and animal can be deterritorialization (like a wasp with an orchid) [Deleuze]
21843 People consist of many undetermined lines, some rigid, some supple, some 'lines of flight' [Deleuze]
21848 Some lines (of flight) are becomings which escape the system [Deleuze]
21850 Dualisms can be undone from within, by tracing connections, and drawing them to a new path [Deleuze]
21849 Thought should be thrown like a stone from a war-machine [Deleuze]
21907 We don't want another new set of categories; we want a variety of flexible categories [Deleuze, by May]
21903 Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure [Deleuze, by May]
21904 Being is a problem to be engaged, not solved, and needs a new mode of thinking [Deleuze, by May]
21908 Ontology can be continual creation, not to know being, but to probe the unknowable [Deleuze]
21901 'Difference' refers to that which eludes capture [Deleuze, by May]
21902 'Being' is univocal, but its subject matter is actually 'difference' [Deleuze]
21851 The State requires self-preservation, but the war-machine desires destruction [Deleuze]
21852 Nomads are the basis of history, and yet almost unknowable [Deleuze]
21853 We are currently extending capitalism to the whole of society [Deleuze]
21899 There is no being beyond becoming [Deleuze]