6 ideas
21852 | Nomads are the basis of history, and yet almost unknowable [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: There is no history from the viewpoint of nomads, although everything passes through them, to the point that they are like the noumena or the unknowable of history. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (Many Politics [1977], p.107) | |
A reaction: Nomads have the same place in society that indeterminate 'stuff' has in an object-orientated metaphysics. Deleuze seems to be romanticising nomads the way the late Victorians romanticised gypsies. |
14739 | 'Water' is two-dimensionally inconstant, with different intensions in different worlds [Chalmers, by Sider] |
Full Idea: For Chalmers, 'water' is two-dimensionally inconstant, in that it has different secondary intensions relative to different worlds of utterance. | |
From: report of David J.Chalmers (Foundations of Two-Dimensional Semantics [2006]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 7.2 | |
A reaction: In this way 'water' is regarded as being like an indexical (such as 'I'), which has a fixed meaning component, and a second component which varies with different utterances. Maybe. |
21853 | We are currently extending capitalism to the whole of society [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: What characterises our situation is ….the extension of capitalism to the whole social body. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (Many Politics [1977], p.110) | |
A reaction: This is driven by the naïve people who think all problems can be solved by market forces, and that to everything that goes bankrupt we should just say 'good riddance'. |
21851 | The State requires self-preservation, but the war-machine desires destruction [Deleuze] |
Full Idea: There will always be a tension between the State apparatus with its requirement for self-preservation, and the war-machine in its undertaking to destroy the State, to destroy the subjects of the State, and even to destroy itself. | |
From: Gilles Deleuze (Many Politics [1977], p.106) | |
A reaction: This seems to fit WWI quite well, but the desire of the war-machine to destroy the State which pays for it sounds unlikely. Nevertheless war is appalling for the state, but it is the whole point of the war-machine, which gets restless. |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |