21844
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The history of philosophy is an agent of power: how can you think if you haven't read the great names? [Deleuze]
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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.
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From:
Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
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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.
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21839
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When I meet objections I just move on; they never contribute anything [Deleuze]
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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.
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From:
Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
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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.
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21842
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Don't assess ideas for truth or justice; look for another idea, and establish a relationship with it [Deleuze]
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Full Idea:
You should not try to find whether an idea is just or correct. You should look for a completely different idea, elsewhere, in another area, so that something passes between the two which is neither in one nor the other.
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From:
Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
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A reaction:
Neither relativism nor dialectic. Sounds like just having fun with ideas, but a commentator tells me it is a strategy for liberating our thought, following an agenda created by Nietzsche.
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21850
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Dualisms can be undone from within, by tracing connections, and drawing them to a new path [Deleuze]
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Full Idea:
It is always possible to undo dualisms from the inside, by tracing the line of flight which passes between the two terms or the two sets …and which draws both into a non-parallel evolution. At least this does not belong to the dialectic.
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From:
Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], II)
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A reaction:
Deleuze disliked Hegel's version of the dialectic. Not clear what he means here, but he is evidently groping for an alternative account of the reasoning process, which is interesting. Deleuze hates rigid dualisms.
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14212
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A consistent theory just needs one model; isomorphic versions will do too, and large domains provide those [Lewis]
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Full Idea:
A consistent theory is, by definition, one satisfied by some model; an isomorphic image of a model satisfies the same theories as the original model; to provide the making of an isomorphic image of any given model, a domain need only be large enough.
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From:
David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Why Model')
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A reaction:
This is laying out the ground for Putnam's model theory argument in favour of anti-realism. If you are chasing the one true model of reality, then formal model theory doesn't seem to offer much encouragement.
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14213
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Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth [Lewis]
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Full Idea:
Anti-realists say the only world is imaginary, or only has the parts or classes or relations we divide it into, or doubt that reference to the world is possible, or doubt that our interpretations can achieve truth.
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From:
David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Why Anti-R')
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A reaction:
[compression of a paragraph on anti-realism] Lewis is a thoroughgoing realist. A nice example of the rhetorical device of ridiculing an opponent by suggesting that they don't even know what they themselves believe.
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14210
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A gerrymandered mereological sum can be a mess, but still have natural joints [Lewis]
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Full Idea:
The mereological sum of the coffee in my cup, the ink in this sentence, a nearby sparrow, and my left shoe is a miscellaneous mess of an object, yet its boundaries are by no means unrelated to the joints of nature.
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From:
David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'What Might')
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A reaction:
In that case they do, but if there are no atoms at the root of physics then presumably their could also be thoroughly jointless assemblages, involving probability distributions etc. Even random scattered atoms seem rather short of joints.
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21843
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People consist of many undetermined lines, some rigid, some supple, some 'lines of flight' [Deleuze]
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Full Idea:
Things, people, are made up of varied lines, and they do not necessarily know which line they are on or where they should make the line which they are tracing pass; there is a whole geography in people, with rigid lines, supple lines, lines of flight etc.
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From:
Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], I)
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A reaction:
An example of Deleuze creating a novel concept, in order to generate a liberating way of seeing our lives. His big focus is on 'lines of flight' (which, I think, are less restrained by local culture than the others).
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14209
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Descriptive theories remain part of the theory of reference (with seven mild modifications) [Lewis]
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Full Idea:
Description theories of reference are supposed to have been well and truly refuted. I think not: ..it is still tenable with my seven points, and part of the truth of reference [7: rigidity, egocentric, tokens, causal, imperfect, indeterminate, families].
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From:
David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Glob Desc')
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A reaction:
(The bit at the end refers to his seven points, on p.59). He calls his basic proposal 'causal descriptivism', incorporating his seven slight modifications of traditional descriptivism about reference.
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21848
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Some lines (of flight) are becomings which escape the system [Deleuze]
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Full Idea:
There are lines which do not amount to the path of a point, which break free from structure - lines of flight, becomings, without future or past, without memory, which resist the binary machine. …The rhizome is all this.
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From:
Gilles Deleuze (A Conversation: what is it? What is it for? [1977], II)
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A reaction:
The binary machine enforces simplistic either/or choices. I assume the 'lines' are to replace the Self, with something much more indeterminate, active and changing.
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