This article reads Monique Wittig's Le Corps lesbien through Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of le corps sans organes and devenir-femme, devenir-animal in order to illuminate both Wittig's formal and figurative concerns and her larger literary objectives. The dismembered and dismember-ing lesbian lovers that Wittig describes in Le Corps lesbien illustrate a process of becoming-woman, becoming-animal and becoming-other that leads to a becoming-minoritarian and a renunciation of stratification and subjectification in the body without organs. This process is a celebration of dispersed, (...) multiplicitous identity that exists in haecceities. Wittig's lesbian lovers undergo various becomings in the text to illustrate the multiplicity of possibilities as they move towards the BwO, and the text as a whole uses this BwO to resist and dismantle the hetero-patriarchal order. (shrink)

The intertwining of landscape and face belongs to human spatial epistemology: as suggested by Matteo Meschiari, primitive humans used to orientate themselves in landscape through recognition of facial patterns. By reflecting upon Marlen Haushofer’s novel The Wall (Die Wand), the article aims to question the semantic of the “face of the landscape” in the wake of an imagined nuclear apocalypse that leaves behind a cat, a cow, a dog, a woman and a wall. The wall transcends the boundaries between human (...) and other-than-human: in terms of Roberto Marchesini, it creates a somato-landscape – a hybridization of inner and outer landscapes typical of post-human awareness. Finally, such a landscape culminates in the dismissal of the pre-apocalyptic culture of the face: faces no longer function as a means of recognition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper aims to shed light on the concept of “problem” developed by Gilles Deleuze in Difference and repetition by analyzing the presence in that book of the Norwegian algebraist Niels Henrik Abel. Deleuze attributes to this mathematician having invented a method that breaks the “vicious circle” which consists in tracing the problems to the image and similarity of the solutions. We will argue that Deleuze’s interpretation is based on Jules Vuillemin’s work La philosophie de l’algèbre, which draws a (...) parallelism between Lagrange’s algebra and Fichte’s transcendental philosophy to show a common flaw in both their methods. We will begin by characterizing the aforementioned “vicious circle”, and then go through the general characteristics of the algebraic problem and its parallel with critical philosophy, in order to show, finally, the main features that Deleuze seeks to highlight in the abelian method – presented by Vuillemin as the overcoming of Lagrange (and, consequently, of Fichte). (shrink)

Em maio de 1643, Elisabeth da Bohemia endereçou uma questão a Descartes que inaugurou uma Correspondência de seis anos, até a morte do filósofo. Ele dedica à Princesa o seu trabalho de maturidade metafísica (Princípios de Filosofia Primeira, 1644) e redige Paixões da Alma (1649) como um dos resultados do diálogo com a filósofa. O silenciamento dos últimos cem anos de historiografia sobre o legado de Elisabeth da Bohemia nesta troca epistolar causou distorções e, em alguns casos, lastreou o viés (...) como regra e como a história. Uma das consequências dessa distorção está na leitura de que a questão da filósofa consistiria em uma crítica ao dualismo substancial. Neste estudo busco oferecer uma interpretação da natureza da primeira questão, com o intuito de esclarecer o pensamento da filósofa e o seu papel no diálogo, de uma maneira compreensiva, sem subscrever o paradigma literário do solilóquio cartesiano, e seu viés na literatura filosófica. (shrink)

De moderne filosofie lijdt aan muziekvergetelheid. Opvallend is echter dat filosofen, wanneer ze toch aandacht schenken aan muziek, hun aandacht bij voorkeur op één bepaald genre richten, namelijk de opera. Filosofen zoals Søren Kierkegaard en Friedrich Nietzsche lieten hun gedachten over Don Giovanni, Parsifal en Carmen gaan, terwijl omgekeerd de filosofie van Arthur Schopenhauer de opera heeft beïnvloed via Wagner. Diens werk lijkt zich op het snijpunt van het grensverkeer tussen moderne filosofie en moderne muziek te bevinden. Het was zijn (...) ambitie de menselijke existentie en de menselijke geschiedenis in één panoramisch oeuvre te vatten, vanaf het primordiale begin tot en met de dramatische finale die ophanden leek: een catastrofale apotheose die een geheel nieuwe toekomst mogelijk zou maken. Dat is althans de verhaallijn van zijn meesterwerk Der Ring des Nibelungen. Aan het slot van Götterdämmerung lijkt zich een algehele verwoesting te hebben voltrokken: ‘Everything is destroyed and there is an enigmatic kind of hovering over the scene of destruction’ (Badiou 2010, p. 106), een ambivalente stemming van hoop en destructie zette Wagner op muziek. Voor Wagner is dan ook een hoofdrol in deze studie weggelegd: voor zijn muziektheoretische geschriften (waarin hij over een ‘muziek van de toekomst’ filosofeerde), maar meer nog voor de muzikale totaalkunstwerken die hij daadwerkelijk componeerde. (shrink)

The argument claims the vital importance of the idea of the fundamental unity of humankind for any intercultural philosophy, and succinctly traces the trajectory of this idea – and its denials – in the Western and the African traditions of philosophical and empirical research. The conclusion considers the present-day challenges towards this idea’s implementation – timely as it is, yet apparently impotent in the face of mounting global violence.

Kant’s cosmopolitanism can be read from two main perspectives: temporal and spatial. Reading cosmopolitanism from a temporal perspective means paying attention to the historical realization of the ideal of cosmopolitanism and to its related issues such as: the progress of humankind, its final destination, the purpose of universal history, the highest purpose of nature. Instead, reading cosmopolitanism from a spatial perspective means paying attention, e.g. to the ‘fact’ of the sphericity of the earth and to its relationship with cosmopolitan right, (...) territoriality, borders and freedom of movement. In this paper I would like to show how adopting a spatial perspective is useful not only in order to delimit a field of inquiry, but also to shed new light on apparently well-known and thoroughly investigated notions of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, such as the notions of the citizen of the world, of the cosmopolitan right, and of the World republic. (shrink)

This article embodies the result of a collective work that seeks to understand the manner in which the notion of conflict is transformed by the attempt to apply it to reality, according to the doctrines hereby comprise as “ontologies of conflict”. It seems that there are three resulting “logics of conflict” which may receive the following qualifications: logic of contradiction, logic of contrariety and logic of difference.

In the deep joint work Deleuze-Guattari there is the demand of consider it as a political theory of literature, a literary politics. The following paragraphs, to some extent respond to that demand, enroll the Deleuze-Guattari micropolitics in a concatenation between the revolutionary and artistic machines, in this case, literary. Considering this conjecture, in this article we propose to address the relationships between the concept of minor literature, the spatial dynamics and the informative order.

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

Studies on Jean Rhys have been fragmentary concentrating on one or two aspects of Rhys’s thematic concern with the alienation of the white creole without laying emphasis on Rhys’s exploration of the Creole’s identity. There has been no attempt to examine if the creole has to struggle harder and more than whites and blacks to come to terms with her personal identity until now. The answer is affirmative because the creole is a composite human being. Indeed, the white creole is (...) the ‘fruit’ of a mixed union. Born into miscegenation, hybridity and creolization, the creole is physically, linguistically, socially and religiously a diverse human being. Within the scope of this paper, the term identity is used in a broad sense. The creole’s personal identity refers to the different identities the Creole can have at different times and in different circumstances. Correspondingly, she must negotiate the white and black elements of her identity. The Creole must deal with the complexity of her identity through a web of tangled relationships with both whites and blacks. Read from this light, the personal identity of the creole is not “either/ or,” but reluctantly “both/ and.” In various ways, the creole is an ‘Everyman.’ The Creole undergoes an awareness, and is eventually, redefined through the image of the ‘other.’ Indeed, her jump toward her black friend Tia reflects Rhys’s basic concern for a Caribbean society in which assimilation and personal identity must blend in a single humane goal, that is, to co-exist beyond the lines of race, gender, class and sex in order to avoid annihilation. (shrink)

The recently rising field of Critical Data Studies is still facing fundamental questions. Among these is the enigma of digital subjectivation. Who are the subjects of Big Data? A field where this question is particularly pressing is finance. Since the 1990s traders have been steadily integrated into computerized data assemblages, which calls for an ontology that eliminates the distinction between human sovereign subjects and non-human instrumental objects. The latter subjectivize traders in pre-conscious ways, because human consciousness runs too slow to (...) follow the volatility of the market. In response to this conundrum Social Studies of Finance has drawn on Actor-Network Theory to interpret financial markets as technically constructed networks of human and non-human actors. I argue that in order to develop an explicitly critical data study it might be advantageous to refer to Maurizio Lazzarato’s theory of machinic subjugation instead. Although both accounts describe financial digital subjectivation similarly, Lazzarato has the advantage of coupling his description to a clear critique of and resistance to finance. (shrink)

In the two volumes which make up Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze and Guattari propose new concepts of “machine” and “organism.” The problem of the relationship between machines and organisms has a long philosophical history, and this essay treats their work as a contribution to this debate. It is argued that their solution to this problem is found in their difficult concept of the “body without organs,” a concept that is given some much-needed clarification in the essay. The first section details (...) Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the machine, examining the ways in which it differs from the traditional concept as described by Canguilhem: their machines do not have predictable movements, but instead produce events; they do not have a purpose; they are able to reproduce themselves. The second section details their conception of the organism through their account of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire: organisms are bodies which normalize and which create hierarchies; they also do not have a purpose; they have a “unity of composition.” The final section argues that their concept of the “body without organs” shows us how to understand the relation between the two transformed concepts, and defines the body without organs as the becoming-machine of the organism. (shrink)

Animal camouflage is said to be a mode of being negative, implying a setback visibility. On the contrary, we try here to restore all its aesthetic positivity considering the singularity of extremely varied forms it produces. It soon becomes apparent that the camouflage forces us to question the privilege of individuality and traditional drawdown on singularity. The disruptive camouflage, especially, that crushes the individual formal unity provides the argument in favor of an individuation with the environment, and more with the (...) world: the animal camoufleur disappears under only an individual visibility; it appears on the contrary in all its pre-individual splendor when it involves with environment components to make them the most expressive. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds on the basis of contemporary ethnobiological research. I argue that ethnobiological accounts of taxonomic convergence-divergence patters challenge common philosophical models of the relation between folk concepts and natural kinds. Furthermore, I outline a positive model of taxonomic convergence-divergence patterns that is based on Slater's [2014] notion of “stable property clusters” and Franklin-Hall's [2014] discussion of natural kinds as “categorical bottlenecks.” Finally, I argue that this model (...) is not only helpful for understanding the relation between indigenous and scientific kinds but also makes substantial contributions to contemporary debates about natural kinds.to contemporary debates about natural kinds. (shrink)

During the Cold War and especially after the failure of Stalinism, Althusser tried to give a contribution to build up a new Marxism by the production of an original "theory of ideology". The result was the draft of a new political philosophy: the so-called "aleatory materialism" that is a philosophy of contingency (or a philosophy of the un-necessary). Using at the same time Machiavelli, Spinoza and Marx, Althusser proposed an explanation of the birth of society and State with reference neither (...) to the doctrine of natural law nor to contractualism. In the althusserian theory, the ideology (persuasion without constraint) is necessary in order to interpellate the individuals into subjects. But the ideology can fail because the class struggle is aleatory in its effects. So, beyond every kind of functionalism, a revolution is always possible starting from a deviation (clinamen), that may be the prelude of a structural yielding and so an occasion to transform the old structures or to construct something totally new. (shrink)

This research attempts to throw light on and show the fundamental similarities and differences between the African and Western ethical conceptions by examining the foundation of ethics and morality in the two systems, using the Golden rule principle in African ethics and Kant’s categorical imperative in Western ethics as tools of comparative analysis. The African indigenous ethics revolves round the “Golden Rule Principle” as the ultimate moral principle. This principle states that “Do unto others what you want them to do (...) unto you”. This principle compares favourably with Immanuel Kant’s whose main thrust is found in his “Categorical Imperative”, with the injunction for us to “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” The categorical imperative becomes for Kant, the principle of universalizability, which according to Kant, is categorical and must be equally binding on everyone. This idea of Kant, we argue, compares with the “Golden Rule Principle”. Both are rationalistic and social but the limitations of Kant which we hope to point out, make it quite insufficient as the foundation of morality. The Africans’ which is more humanistic describes morality and is better served. The main difference between the two ethical systems lies in the fact that whereas the “golden rule” starts from the self and considers the consequences on the first before others, the universalizability principle on the other hand considers the consequences on others first before self. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Deleuze’s treatment of the Nietzschean problem of nihilism. Of all the major figures in contemporary continental thought, Deleuze is at once one of the most luminous, and practically a lone voice in suggesting that nihilism may successfully be overcome. Whether or not he is correct on this point is thus a commanding question in relation to our understanding of the issue. Many commentators on Nietzsche have argued that his project of overcoming nihilism is destined to failure (...) because of the affinity between the problem of nihilism and the logic of negation. While Nietzsche wants an absolute affirmation of life, Spinoza’s principle that “all determination is negation,” as well as Hegel’s dialectical conception of negation, suggest that affirmation free of negation is not possible. However, some commentators indicate that Deleuze successfully shows how overcoming nihilism is possible because his “logic of difference” allows for an affirmation which is not dialectically reappropriated by negation. This paper argues that beyond such logical considerations, there are metaphysical and existential reasons why Deleuze’s interpretation of nihilism fails to show that it can be overcome. For Deleuze, the overcoming of nihilism hinges not just on a logic of difference, but on a radical interpretation of Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return as “selective being.” Drawing on recent scholarship and on Nietzsche’s own writings I argue that this is not a tenable interpretation, and also, more importantly, that the metaphysical and existential implications of this understanding of eternal return reinstate nihilism at the very point where it is supposedly overcome. Moreover, I argue that there are attendant ethical and political dangers to Deleuze’s position on nihilism. (shrink)

In this paper Foucault’s thought on monstrosity is explored. Monsters appear whenever and wherever knowledge/power assemblages emerge. That which eludes the latter, and which threatens to subvert them, is the monstrous. Foucault distinguished the production, throughout history, of juridical-natural monsters, moral monsters, and political monsters. In this paper it is argued that Foucault must have sensed that monstrosity eludes all notions of identity and difference, and therefore also the notion that places it ‘outside’. It is the space of emergence itself, (...) i.e. the location where sheer potentiality becomes the possible of and in the event. All monstrosity is therefore deeply, and inevitably, political. It is the promise of unsettling subversion. (shrink)

Inaugural lecture as Professor of Women's Studies in the Arts Faculty of the University of Utrecht, May 16, 1990.

This paper sets out a series of critical contrasts between Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze's philosophies of the event. It does so in the context of some likely objections to their positions from a broadly analytic position. These objections concern problems of individuation and location in space-time. The paper also explains Deleuze and Badiou's views on the event through a literary application on a short story by John Cheever. In conclusion it is argued that both thinkers have good answers to (...) the objections, but that they diverge on the ontological commitments of their definitions of the event. (shrink)

This paper aims to argue how education might be considered and practised if not under the logic of the formation of childhood. As such, it puts into question the traditional way of considering children as representing adults’ opportunity to impose their own ideals, and considering education to be an appropriate instrument for such an end. More specifically, it considers how the purposes of practising philosophy with children might be affirmed as other than in the service of the social and political (...) education of childhood. This complex issue calls for a redefinition, not only of philosophy and education, but also of childhood itself. Several ancient (Heraclitus) and contemporary (Deleuze, Lyotard) philosophical contributions are offered in order to reflect on new concepts and vocabularies for childhood. What they have in common is a non-chronological concept of childhood—one that considers the child under the sign of aión rather than chrónos, and therefore as something inherently constitutive of human life, which therefore could never be abandoned, forgotten or overcome. As an example of this deterritorialisation of the relation between childhood and education, a practical project undertaken in a couple of public schools in the environs of Rio de Janeiro and its environs is presented, in which a strong emphasis is placed on the concept of the ‘experience of philosophical thinking’. The paper unpacks each of these three terms—experience, philosophy, and thinking—appealing to Foucault, Deleuze and Hadot for conceptual reconstruction. In addition, some basic pedagogical assumptions that informed this project are presented in the context of two philosophers who inspired it—Socrates and Jacques Rancière. The last section of the paper reflects on how the practice of mainstream schooling seems actually hostile to the experience of philosophical thinking, thus challenging the practitioners to encounter the pedagogical space of the mainstream as if it were possible to establish a new educational relationship to childhood there, and to work fully expecting what cannot be predicted. (shrink)

There is no consensus regarding whether Gilles Deleuze offers a cogent theory of the Other. Deleuze develops the notion of the Other-structure, but given his scarce remarks on this concept, his treatment of this issue is debated. This article argues that to elucidate Deleuze's philosophy of the Other, his notion of the Other-structure must be analyzed in parallel to Edmund Husserl's intersubjective theory. This comparison, made possible by Natalie Depraz's reading of the Husserlian alterity, reveals nuanced phenomenological traces in Deleuze's (...) Other-structure and its implicated structural moments while substantiating his affirmation of the Otherless world, as an impetus to surpass phenomenology. (shrink)

This article discusses the place that the concept of rhythm occupies within Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy. I present a panorama of different ways to conceptualize thought throughout Deleuze’s writings from 1960’s to 1990’s, emphasizing the discussion about the threshold of thought. In the writings in partnership with Félix Guattari, Deleuze understand thought as an act of confronting chaos, what makes the problem of consistency a point of extreme relevance within his philosophical system. In this framework, the concept of thought is described (...) as a tension between consistency and infinite speed. In order to elaborate this concept of thought, Deleuze resumes his conceptualization of the three syntheses of the time and formulates with Guattari the concept of refrain. I will show that the refrain is at the axis of an epistemological shift in the whole program of transcendental philosophy, by affirming a necessarily heterogeneous and aberrant Time, which features the concept of rhythm as the genetic element of difference. Within this conceptual framework, I follow the authors’ suggestion that the logic of schizoanalysis is analogous to the logic of subtractive sound synthesis. The main goal is to demonstrate that rhythm is at the core of Deleuzian concept of difference and sound is at the core of Deleuzian concept of thought. (shrink)

En este trabajo buscamos proponer una teoría del color de inspiración deleuzeana, esto es, propondremos una teoría que atenderá al color en cuanto multiplicidad y acontecimiento. Para ello, ensayaremos un recorrido a través de ciertos pasajes deleuzeanos que nos permitirán avanzar en dicha propuesta y llevarla al territorio artístico para establecer una interferencia que implicará variar la dirección de nuestro trabajo al proponer un diálogo con Paul Klee. En definitiva, intentaremos desarrollar las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cómo pensar una teoría del color (...) de inspiración deleuzeana? ¿Cómo llevarla al terreno artístico? ¿Cómo concebir su relación con un cosmos-Klee? Y esto, para intentar establecer a través de una conversación que podría sostenerse con la obra de Paul Klee otra perspectiva de trabajo en torno a la obra de Gilles Deleuze. (shrink)

In this article I propose a semiotic investigation of images of jobs. The aim is not to analyze the social representation of the job, but to explore if there remains a present-day image of the job, and what are its historical and social conditions of existence. The problem is to study the relation between social structure and the image of the job. First, following Foucault’s studies on disciplinary society, the relation between disciplinary society and the image of labour in the (...) factory will be described. This is followed by an account of the problematic passage from disciplinary society to what Deleuze called a “society of control”. Giving particular consideration to Foucault’s theory of power/knowledge relations and Deleuze’s semiotic reading of this theory,the new social organization of jobs, activities and times will be investigated. Social structure is changing from disciplinary and striated space, such as the space of the factory, to the smooth space of dispersion, like the space of the market. The image of the job changes from the image of the workforce to the image of human capital. Finally, rethinking Foucault’s lectures on biopolitics, the relation between the market and hu- man capital will be analyzed. My hypothesis is that it is not possible to have an image of the job as human capital in the present: the concept of human capital coincides with the human being and its capability, but there is no longer any specific space for the market, given that the market permeates every space of life. (shrink)

We present some ideas on logical process descriptions, using relations from the DIO (Drug Interaction Ontology) as examples and explaining how these relations can be naturally decomposed in terms of more basic structured logical process descriptions using terms from linear logic. In our view, the process descriptions are able to clarify the usual relational descriptions of DIO. In particular, we discuss the use of logical process descriptions in proving linear logical theorems. Among the types of reasoning supported by DIO one (...) can distinguish both (1) basic reasoning about general structures in reality and (2) the domain-specific reasoning of experts. We here propose a clarification of this important distinction between (realist) reasoning on the basis of an ontology and rule-based inferences on the basis of an expert’s view. (shrink)

The collection Virtual Mathematics: the logic of difference brings together a range of new philosophical engagements with mathematics, using the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze as its focus. Deleuze’s engagements with mathematics rely upon the construction of alternative lineages in the history of mathematics in order to reconfigure particular philosophical problems and to develop new concepts. These alternative conceptual histories also challenge some of the self-imposed limits of the discipline of mathematics, and suggest the possibility of forging new connections (...) between philosophy and more recent developments in mathematics. This component of Deleuze’s work has, to date, been rather neglected by commentators working in the field of Deleuze studies. One of the aims of this collection is to address this critical deficit by providing a philosophical presentation of Deleuze’s relation to mathematics; one that is adequate to his project of constructing a philosophy of difference and to the exploration of some of its applications. This project developed as a result of encounters with an increasing number of researchers who have been working on the mathematical aspects of Deleuze’s work and the key role that these play in his philosophy. By bringing this work together for the first time, this collection makes an important contribution to the emerging body of work that endeavours to explore the broad range of Deleuze’s philosophy. (shrink)

Here, I offer a candid response to bell hooks's call for a testimony to the “movement beyond a mere ‘us and them’ discussion” that purportedly informs contemporary radical and feminist thought on difference. In alignment with a tradition that includes bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Aurora Levins Morales, I offer a personal testimony to the ways in which I—a middle-class, French, immigrant, continental-philosophy-bred incest survivor—envision both that movement and its limits. To establish these alliances means forming necessary communities. (...) I call on the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari to propose an account of the production of such communities that does not depend only on shared lived experience, but also on shared marginal spatiality, temporality, and “medicinal history”. I suggest that on the one hand, Deleuze's philosophy of immanence may indeed find apt expression in the politics of integrity that hooks, Lorde, and Morales call for. On the other hand, a genuine politics of integrity may benefit from drawing on the philosophy of immanence, which alone offers alternatives to the traditional, oppositional models of difference informed by transcendence. Finally, I propose the concept of “immanent forgiveness” to capture the movement at issue. (shrink)

For several hundred thousand years, the genus homo deployed a characteristic technical creativity, communicating and transmitting its outcomes, together with its operative protocols, without the available recourse to articulated language. The thesis proposed here is that the aforementioned functions should be attributed to a complex intertwining of embodied abilities, which can in turn be ascribed to the classic philosophical concept of imagination. It is through imagination that the human becomes involved in material engagement, by virtue of which its extended mind (...) takes part in the processes of producing artifacts and is in turn shaped by them. The main issue of this article consists in investigating how this involvement occurs and the part that articulated language plays in it, following the invention of the latter. The latter’s emergence can indeed be traced back to the transformation and specialization of a recursive element, already present in the pre-linguistic work of imagination, whose ability to implement a denotative semantics is discussed in particular. (shrink)

Šiame straipsnyje siekiama atsakyti į klausimą, kas galėtų susieti filosofiją ir vizualiuosius bei žodinius menus. Ar įmanoma ir jei taip, tai kaip įmanoma reflektuoti visus menus kaip vieno kūrybinio įvykio momentus? Siekiant atsakyti į šį klausimą, pirma, aptariamas logikos ir kūrybiškumo susikertant menui ir filosofijai susidūrimas, antra – žodžio ir vaizdo nebendramatiškumas, surastas / išrastas belgų siurrealisto René Magritte’o ir reflektuotas Michelio Foucault. Čia sugrįžtama prie klasikinio F. Niezsche’s disputo su Sokratu apie logikos ir kūrybiškumo priešpriešą ir siekiama atsakyti į (...) klausimą, kurią pusę – Sokrato ar F. Nietzsche’s – paremia šioje diskusijoje Gilles’is Deleuze’as ir Félixas Guattari. Atrodytų, kad jie suderina logiką ir kūrybiškumą, pastebėdami, kad menas nėra nei mokslinio mąstymo, nei filosofijos koreliatas ar papildas, kad trys minties formos – menas, mokslas ir filosofija – turi po nepriklausomą specifinę kryptį, Kita vertus, interpretuodamas I. Kantą, G. Deleuze’as pastebi disharmoniją tarp vaizduotės, supratimo ir proto, ir, sekdamas Antonino Artaud’o įžvalgomis, jis išskiria naują minties tipą kaip tarpinę teritoriją tarp žodžio ir vaizdo. (shrink)

‘À quoi sert la littérature?’, Deleuze opens his book on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch with a question that this paper will pose again, trying to propose an answer to it, and to put to test the methodological approach that can be obtained from that answer: what are the uses of literature and, more specifically, how could the philosopher use literature, what could be done with it? To this end, this paper will focus on Deleuze’s symptomatological conception of literature. The second part (...) of the paper will be dedicated to the reading of two novels, 1984 by George Orwell and The Circle by Dave Eggers. The novels will be put in in a relation of resonation with two concepts sketched in Deleuze’s Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle: Foucauldian disciplinary societies and control societies. These novels will be considered as signaletic material, symptomatologies of two conditions of society, from which this paper proposes to extract two types of signs: Signs of Order and Signs of Suggestion. These signs will be made react with the concepts of Foucault and Deleuze, in order to see if they can produce the ground for a therapeutic. The paper will therefore combine literary symptomatologies and philosophical aetiology, in the attempt to make them react together, Foucault and Orwell, Eggers and Deleuze, to extract and describe signs from the literary material considered that may be brought to the fore only after the consideration of the causes of the most important symptoms of discipline and control. (shrink)

This paper presents the first results of an ongoing semiotic research over TV series targeted to early childhood in Italy. In particular, it focuses on discussing and explaining the great success of the animated series Peppa Pig aired in Italy on the thematic channel Rai YoYo, by comparing it with other series available in the same channel, in the period of its first launch. Most of the programs taken into account refers to animals with the purpose of using them as (...) a mean to speak about manhood, in a simplified and appealing way. Nothing new. Fairy tales have always been filled with animals to mean vices and virtues of the humans. Aim of the paper is to reveal the complexity of such reference to animals in Peppa Pig’s stories. This goal will be achieved by comparing it to another series which references to pigs aired simultaneously in the same Italian network. Moreover, this paper will consider other animals embodying the bouquet of meaning proposals offered by Rai YoYo: a dog and some shapeless creatures known as Barbapapas. As a conclusion of such enquire a synthetic model which positions each of the series analyzed will be presented. (shrink)

This article discusses the conceptualisation, organisation and philosophical orientation of academic history culture in UK higher education. It problematises the extent to which a dominant history culture in UK universities implies and uncritically reproduces normative understandings about the subject; about its epistemological standing, sociopolitical functions, and the presumed cultural value of the discipline practices that students learn to perform. We suggest that current conceptions of history degree curricula are overly thin and organised around a dominant managerialist discourse of skills, personal (...) development and learning outcomes. In a historicised world, in which history-focused behaviour has a crucial, ideological, affirmatory role, and in which historical narratives have a privileged cognitive function, we argue that it is critical for university history students to be able to deconstruct the processes by which history legitimises itself, and reinforces matrices of power in our societies. The positioning of history in higher education as a form of technocratic managerialism closes down spaces in which students can explore the potential of historical practices as a means of engaging with issues of current sociopolitical and ethical concern. We ask in this article, is this what we want an academic history culture to do? (shrink)

Can literature make it possible to represent histories that are otherwise ineffable? Making use of the Deleuzian concept of “the powers of the false,” Doro Wiese offers readings of three novels that deal with the Shoah, with colonialism, and with racialized identities. She argues that Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated, Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish, and Richard Powers’s The Time of Our Singing are novels in which a space for unvoiced, silent, or silenced difference is created. Seen through (...) the lens of Deleuze and his collaborators’ philosophy, literature is a means for mediating knowledge and affects about historical events. Going beyond any simple dichotomy between true and untrue accounts of what “really” happened in the past, literature’s powers of the false incite readers to long for a narrative space in which painful or shameful stories can be included. (shrink)

Cet article a déjà paru dans la Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, n° 136, novembre 2014. Nous remercions la revue de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Résumé : Dans une perspective d'étude sur les rythmes urbains, l'article s'attache à analyser les modalités de passage du jour à la nuit à Beyrouth. En appréhendant cette dernière comme un espace-temps multiforme aux limites labiles, l'étude de terrain a mené à l'identification d'une période de transition – la « (...) marche » – entre le jour - Géographie. (shrink)

La matière pensante du corps n'est donc pas une intentionnalité mentale du corps à l'instar de l'intentionnalité cognitive. La pensée n'est plus à définir à partir d'une réflexion consciente par un dédoublement du sujet et de l'objet. Car la matière corporelle produit des processus réflexifs d'intensités différents selon les types d'externalité du corps. Par externalité il faut décrire les éléments non mentaux et non interne au corps qui proviennent du monde extérieur. Le corps est soumis à son extérieur comme organisme (...) tant pour la réalisation de ses fonctions que pour la régulation des informations. (shrink)

El concepto de "inmanencia" ha adquirido una creciente relevancia en el campo filosófico contemporáneo. Dos destacados pensadores franceses, Gilles Deleuze y Franfois Jullien, le han otorgado un lugar fundamental en sus investigaciones. El propósito de este artículo es indagar el diálogo, poco explorado aún, entre ambos autores. Nuestra hipótesis de trabajo propone los siguientes ejes de análisis: primero, comparamos los usos de la expresión "absolutización de la inmanencia", acuñada por el sinólogo a fin de relativizar la trascendencia en el pensamiento (...) chino y luego empleada por Deleuze en el marco de la creencia en este mundo. En segundo lugar, examinamos las críticas que Jullien le dirige a Deleuze respecto a la relación entre la filosofía y la sabiduría. En tercer lugar, confrontamos sus perspectivas divergentes sobre la inmanencia en tanto "plano" (Deleuze) y como "fondo" (Jullien). Finalmente, ponemos de manifiesto la dificultad presente en ambos autores para pensar la idea de inmanencia. The concept of "immanence" has acquired substantial relevance within the contemporary philosophical field. Two influential french thinkers, Gilles Deleuze and Franfois Jullien, have conferred this concept a fundamental standing in their research. The purpose of this work is to explore the dialogue between both authors as this exploration has not been concluded. Our hypothesis puts forward the following axes of analysis. First, we shall compare the usage of the expression "absolutization of immanence" coined by the sinologist in order to put in perspective the idea of transcendence in Chinese thought. This expression was then applied by Deleuze within the frame of the belief in this world. Second, we shall examine Jullien's critique of Deleuze concerning the relationship between Philosophy and Wisdom. Third, we shall confront the divergent perspectives on immanence: as "plane" (Deleuze) and as "buttom" (Jullien). Finally, we shall show the difficulty to ponder the idea of immanence in both authors. (shrink)

Deleuze and Foucault shared a period of political activism and both drew connections between their activism and their respective approaches to philosophy. However, despite their shared political commitments and praise of each other's work, there remained important philosophical differences between them which became more and more apparent over time. This article identifies some of the political issues over which they disagreed and shows how they relate to some of their underlying philosophical differences. It focuses on their respective approaches to the (...) state, to ‘actuality’ and to the analysis of the present. (shrink)

: This essay attempts to address the crucial relation of feminist philosophy to minorities inside and outside of feminism. To do so it turns to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, focusing on their concept of "becoming minoritarian" and related concepts. Aided by close readings of two canonical but ultimately negative assessments of Deleuze and Guattari, Alice Jardine's "Woman in Limbo" and Rosi Braidotti's Patterns of Dissonance, the essay outlines and argues the merits of a "minoritarian" feminism.

The present PhD dissertation aims to examine the relation between modality and change in Aristotle’s metaphysics. -/- On the one hand, Aristotle supports his modal realism (i.e., worldly objects have modal properties - potentialities and essences - that ground the ascriptions of possibility and necessity) by arguing that the rejection of modal realism makes change inexplicable, or, worse, banishes it from the realm of reality. On the other hand, the Stagirite analyses processes by means of modal notions (‘change is the (...) actuality of what is virtual insofar as it is virtual’). In other words: to grasp what change is, one has to resort to the modal idiom of potentialities, while the fact that there is change is indicative of the fact that nature is full of modal properties. -/- Aristotle’s modal and kinetic realism finds a negative in the figure of the Megaric Diodorus Kronus. The polemical situation of Greek philosophy has indeed the dialectical advantage of not opposing the Aristotelian position to a sui generis straw man. Both in its reduction of modal judgements to temporal quantifications and in its dissolution of the reality of the state-of-being-in-motion in favour of a cinematographic view of processes, the philosophical figure of reductionist antirealism embodied by Diodorus constitutes an alternative that takes the opposite view of Aristotle’s realism. -/- The present study is structured as a discussion between these two positions. In the face of Diodorus’ antirealist challenges, Aristotle articulates modal and kinetic considerations: the answers he gives to Diodorus’ puzzles thus provide valuable insight into his metaphysics. Moreover, the examination of Aristotle’s and Diodorus’ metaphysics, because of their insight and originality, will not fail to interest the philosopher concerned with the metaphysical foundations of modern physics, insofar as the entanglement between modalities and processes is nowadays at the core of mechanics (phase spaces, path integrals, etc.). (shrink)

By questioning the attribution of a primary role to the eyes as bearers of identity within traditional Western culture, this paper will problematize the agentivity performed by the lower mereology of the face, identified with the mouth-nose assemblage. In particular, the study will focus on the manipulation of such facial spatiality through the intervention of three “lower face” artifacts: the grill, the ball gag and the gas mask. This piece of work will examine their plastic and figurative dimensions in the (...) technological interaction with the facial organs. Furthermore, we will take into consideration the sociocultural context of wearability performed by the different bearers with the aim of grasping the identity shift that the artifacts trigger. The study, therefore, will organize the corpus as a sequence that starts inside the oral cavity where the grill is worn; then moves to a progressive exteriority with the ball gag that emerges from the mouth through the straps fastened around the head; eventually dealing with the exterior projection operated by the gas mask which by means of its filters portends beyond the anatomical face. Ultimately the three artifacts are presented as a threefold articulation of a liminal agency towards an expanded form of humanity including animality embedded within and without the space of meaning represented by the face. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este artículo abordamos la cuestión del poder en el pensamiento de Deleuze. Según nuestra hipótesis, no hay en su obra un único concepto de poder sino diferentes enfoques no incompatibles entre sí pero que no se dejan reducir a un solo punto de vista. Esta variedad de abordajes puede ser reunida alrededor de dos posiciones generales adoptadas por Deleuze: primero, tiende a relativizar su eficacia respecto de otros elementos más fundamentales, realzando así los límites o la impotencia del (...) poder; segundo, le quita valor con relación a otras entidades y procesos en los que deposita su apuesta filosófica. Nos proponemos desarrollar estas perspectivas a fin de ofrecer un panorama integral de una temática relevante de la filosofía política deleuziana. ABSTRACT In this article, we address the question of power in Deleuze's thinking. According to our hypothesis, there is not a single concept of power in his work, but different approaches not incompatible with each other but that cannot be reduced to a single point of view. This variety of approaches can be gathered around two general positions about power, adopted by Deleuze: first, he tends to relativize its effectiveness with respect to other more fundamental elements, thus enhancing the limits or impotence of power; second, he takes away value in relation to other entities and processes in which he places his philosophical commitment. We intend to develop these perspectives in order to offer a comprehensive overview of a relevant theme of Deleuzian political philosophy. (shrink)