8242
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Philosophy aims at what is interesting, remarkable or important - not at knowledge or truth [Deleuze/Guattari]
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Full Idea:
Philosophy does not consist in knowing, and is not inspired by truth. Rather, it is categories like Interesting, Remarkable, or Important that determine success or failure.
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From:
G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.3)
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A reaction:
Speak for yourself. I wonder what the criteria are for 'Interesting' or 'Important'. They can't seriously count 'remarkable' as a criterion of philosophical success, can they? There can be remarkable stupidity.
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8223
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The plague of philosophy is those who criticise without creating, and defend dead concepts [Deleuze/Guattari]
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Full Idea:
Those who criticise without creating, those who are content to defend the vanished concept without being able to give it the forces it needs to return to life, are the plague of philosophy.
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From:
G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1)
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A reaction:
This seems to be the continental view of analytical philosophy, that it is pathetically conservative. I would offer MacIntyre as a response, who gives a beautiful analysis of why the super-modern view is dead. The French are hopelessly romantic.
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8224
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'Eris' is the divinity of conflict, the opposite of Philia, the god of friendship [Deleuze/Guattari]
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Full Idea:
'Eris' is the Greek divinity of discord, conflict, and strife, the complementary opposite of Philia, the divinity of union and friendship.
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From:
G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.2 n)
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A reaction:
Are these actual gods? This interestingly implies that the wonders of dialectic and Socrates' elenchus are simply aspects of friendship, which was elevated by Epicurus to the highest good. The Greeks just wanted wonderful friends and fine speeches.
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15201
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That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN]
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Full Idea:
The fact that Queen Anne has been dead for some years is not, in the strict sense of 'about', a fact about Queen Anne; it is not a fact about anyone or anything - it is a general fact.
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From:
Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968], p.13), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 b
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A reaction:
He distinguishes 'general facts' (states of affairs, I think) from 'individual facts', involving some specific object. General facts seem to be what are expressed by negative existential truths, such as 'there is no Loch Ness Monster'. Useful.
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8222
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Concepts are superior because they make us more aware, and change our thinking [Deleuze/Guattari]
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Full Idea:
If one concept is 'better' than an earlier one, it is because it makes us aware of new variations and unknown resonances, it carries out unforeseen cuttings-out, it brings forth an Event that surveys (survole) us.
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From:
G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 1.1)
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A reaction:
I don't get much of that, but it is certainly in tune with the Kuhn/Feyerabend idea that what science can generate is fresh visions, rather than precisely expanded truths. Personally I consider it dangerous nonsense, but I thought I ought to pass it on.
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8248
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Phenomenology says thought is part of the world [Deleuze/Guattari]
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Full Idea:
According to phenomenology, thought depends on man's relations with the world - with which the brain is necessarily in agreement because it is drawn from these relations.
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From:
G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], Conclusion)
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A reaction:
The development of externalist views of mind, arising from the Twin Earth idea, seems to provide a link to continental philosophy, where similar ideas are found in Husserl, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. So study science, psychology, or sociology?
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8245
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The logical attitude tries to turn concepts into functions, when they are really forms or forces [Deleuze/Guattari]
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Full Idea:
Logic is reductionist not accidentally, but essentially and necessarily: following the route marked out by Frege and Russell, it wants to turn the concept into a function (...when actually a concept is a form, or a force).
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From:
G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 2.6)
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A reaction:
[Last part on p.144] I'm not sure that I understand 'form or force', but the idea that concepts are mere functions is like describing something as 'transport', without saying whether it is bus/bike/train.. Is a concept a vision, or a tool?
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22899
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'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN]
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Full Idea:
One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'.
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From:
Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive'
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A reaction:
[Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein?
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