Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Difference and Repetition', 'The Confessions' and 'On the Concept of Character'

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10 ideas

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

21901	'Difference' refers to that which eludes capture [Deleuze, by May]
	Full Idea: 'Difference' is a term which Deleuze uses to refer to that which eludes capture.
	From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
	A reaction: Presumably its ancestor is Kant's noumenon. This is one of his concepts used to 'palpate' our ossified conceptual scheme.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being

21908	Ontology can be continual creation, not to know being, but to probe the unknowable [Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Ontology can be an ontology of difference ....where what is there is not the same old things but a process of continual creation, an ontology that does not seek to reduce being to the knowable, but widens thought to palpate the unknowable.
	From: Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]), quoted by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 5.05
	A reaction: I'm inclined to think that the first duty of ontology is to face up to the knowable. I'm not sure that probing the unknowable, with no success or prospect of it, is a good way to spend a life. Probing ('palpating') can sometimes discover things.

21902	'Being' is univocal, but its subject matter is actually 'difference' [Deleuze]
	Full Idea: Being is said in a single and same sense of everything of which it is said, but that of which it is said differs: it is said of difference itself.
	From: Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968], p.36), quoted by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
	A reaction: This is an attempt to express the Heraclitean view of reality, as process, movement, multiplicity - something which always eludes our attempts to pin it down.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / i. Deflating being

21903	Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure [Deleuze, by May]
	Full Idea: In Deleuze's hands ontology is not a matter of telling us what there is, but of taking us on strange adventures.
	From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
	A reaction: Presumably you only indulge in the strange adventure because you have no idea how to specify what there is. This sounds like the essence of post-modernism, in which life is just a game.

21904	Being is a problem to be engaged, not solved, and needs a new mode of thinking [Deleuze, by May]
	Full Idea: In Deleuze, Being is not a puzzle to be solved but a problem to be engaged. It is to be engaged by a thought that moves as comfortably among problems as it does among solutions, as fluidly among differences as it does among identities.
	From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 4.01
	A reaction: This sounds like what I've always known as 'negative capability' (thanks to Keats). Is philosophy just a hobby, like playing darts? It seems that the aim of the process is 'liberation', about which I would like to know more.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character

23896	We see our character as a restricting limit, but also as an unshakable support [Weil]
	Full Idea: Our character appears to us as a limit by which we do not want to be imprisoned, …but also as a support that we want to believe is unshakable.
	From: Simone Weil (On the Concept of Character [1941], p.100)
	A reaction: A nice perception. It is fairly easy to criticise, or even laugh at, one's own actions, but extremely hard to criticise our own character. Maybe we all wish we were more determined in our projects, but not much else.

23893	We don't see character in a single moment, but only over a period of time [Weil]
	Full Idea: Character is constant over a period of time; the way a person is at a single moment does not at all reflect the character of this person. We do, however, concede that character changes.
	From: Simone Weil (On the Concept of Character [1941], p.98)
	A reaction: I do think, though, that there are moments in behaviour which are hugely revealing of character, even in a single remark. But I agree that most single moments do not show much.

23894	The concept of character is at the centre of morality [Weil]
	Full Idea: We cannot pose a moral problem without putting the concept of character at its centre.
	From: Simone Weil (On the Concept of Character [1941], p.98)
	A reaction: The question for Aristotle (which I derive from Philippa Foot) is whether moral goodness simply is good character, or whether it is the actions (or even the consequences). Weil is close to modern virtue theory here.

23895	We modify our character by placing ourselves in situations, or by attending to what seems trivial [Weil]
	Full Idea: We can modify our character, by putting ourselves in circumstances that will act on us from the outside, …or by the orientation of our attention in the moments that appear most insignificant or indifferent in our lives.
	From: Simone Weil (On the Concept of Character [1941], p.99)
	A reaction: I've never seen anyone address this question (apart from Aristotle's emphasis on training habits). Choosing your source for current affairs information strikes me as very important. What you read, what you watch, who you spend time with…

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism

19745	The nature of people is decided by the government and politics of their society [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: Everything is rooted in politics, and whatever might be attempted, no people would ever be other than the nature of their government made them.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Confessions [1770], 9-1756)
	A reaction: A striking anticipation of one of Marx's most important ideas - that society is not created by individual minds, because the nature of consciousness is created by society. The central idea in the subject of sociology, I think.