Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'A Conversation: what is it? What is it for?' and 'The Web of Belief'

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 1. History of Philosophy

21844	The history of philosophy is an agent of power: how can you think if you haven't read the great names? [Deleuze]
	Full Idea: The history of philosophy has always been the agent of power in philosophy, and even in thought. It has played the oppressor's role: how can you think without having read Plato, Descartes, Kant and Heidegger.
	From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
	A reaction: I find it hard to relate to this French 1960s obsession with everybody being oppressed in every conceivable way, so that 'liberation' is the only value that matters. If you ask why liberty is needed, you seem to have missed the point.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy

21849	Thought should be thrown like a stone from a war-machine [Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Thought should be thrown like a stone by a war-machine. …Isn't this what Nietzsche does with an aphorism?
	From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], II)
	A reaction: It sounds as if philosophy should consist of nothing but aphorisms.

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly

21845	Philosophy aims to become the official language, supporting orthodoxy and the state [Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Philosophy is shot through with the project of becoming the official language of a Pure State. The exercise of thought thus conforms to the goals of the real State, to the dominant meanings and to the requirements of the established order.
	From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
	A reaction: [He cites Nietzsche's 'Schopenhauer as Educator' as the source of this] Is Karl Marx included in this generalisation, or Diogenes of Sinope? Is conservative philosophy thereby invalidated?

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 1. Nature of Analysis

8460	Philosophers have given precise senses to deduction, probability, computability etc [Quine/Ullian]
	Full Idea: Successful explications (giving a precise sense to a term) have been found for the concepts of deduction, probability and computability, to name just three.
	From: W Quine / J Ullian (The Web of Belief [1970], 65), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.3
	A reaction: Quine also cites the concept of an 'ordered pair'. Orenstein adds Tarski's definition of truth, Russell's definite descriptions, and the explication of existence in terms of quantifications. Cf. Idea 2958.

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis

21839	When I meet objections I just move on; they never contribute anything [Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Not reflection, and objections are even worse. Every time someone puts an objection to me, I want to say: 'OK, OK, let's get on to something else'. Objections have never contributed anything.
	From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
	A reaction: I know it is heresy in analytic philosophy, but I love this! In analytic seminars you can barely complete your first sentence before someone interrupts. It's like road range - the philosophical mind state is always poised to attack, attack.

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy

21841	We must create new words, and treat them as normal, and as if designating real things. [Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Let us create extraordinary words, on condition that they be put to the most ordinary use and that the entity they designate be made to exist in the same way as the most common object.
	From: Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
	A reaction: This sounds like the attitude of someone creating a computer game. A language game! The idea is to create concepts with which to 'palpitate' our conceptual scheme, in order to reveal it, and thus put it within our power.